32 SPECIAL SENSES. 



the olfactory nerves to the nose, was altogether condensed, 

 and its openings obliterated; the two primordial trunks of 

 the olfactory nerves, instead of exhibiting their usual ramifi- 

 cations, being suddenly blunted at their extensions from 

 the substance of the brain ; plainly showing, that all their 

 branches essential to the sense of smell had been completely 

 destroyed by the diseased bone." 1 This case is interesting as 

 showing complete loss of smell after obliteration of the fila- 

 ments passing through the cribriform plate of the ethmoid, 

 to which, as we have stated, the term olfactory nerves prop- 

 erly belongs. 



In addition to the instances just cited, a large number of 

 cases of anosmia have been lately reported, which fully con- 

 firm the view that the olfactory nerves are the true and the 

 only nerves of smell. Notta gives the histories, more or less 

 complete, of twenty-four cases of this kind. 2 Dr. Ogle reports 

 nine cases. 3 In nearly all of the cases on record, the general 

 sensibility of the nostrils was not affected. In 1864, we had 

 an opportunity of examining the following very remarkable 

 case of gunshot-wound of the head, in which, among other 

 injuries, the sense of smell was destroyed : 



The patient was a soldier, twenty-three years of age, who 

 was shot through the head with a rifle-ball, May 3, 1863. 

 The ball entered on the left side, 1 J inch behind and of an 

 inch below the outer canthus of the eye, emerging at nearly 

 the corresponding point on the opposite side. Small pieces 



1 HARE, A View of the Structure, Functions, and Disorders of the Stomach 

 and Alimentary Organs, London, 1821, p. 145. 



2 NOTTA, Recherches sur la perte de Vodorat. Archives generales de medecine, 

 Paris, Avril, 1870, p. 385. 



8 OGLE, Anosmia ; or Cases illustrating the Physiology and Pathology of the 

 Sense of Smell. Medico- Chirurgical Transactions, London, 1870, Second Series, 

 vol. xxxvii., p. 263. In his remarks upon the physiology of olfaction, Dr. Ogle 

 advances the hypothesis that the sense of smell is acute in proportion to the 

 development of pigment. He cites the remarks of Darwin on its absence or 

 impairment in albino animals, the extraordinary development of the sense in 

 certain of the dark-skinned races, etc. ; but the facts adduced seem hardly suffi- 

 cient to warrant the adoption of such a theory. 



