Standing in the anteroom, waiting for his cue, the groom shifted nervously. His best man grinned and asked, "Second thoughts?" The husband-to-be nodded, shrugged, and cleared his throat.

The pastor bustled in and beckoned for the groomsman. "Are you ready? Do you have the rings?" Checking his pocket for the pair of rings, he burrowed frantically before finding them lodged in a fold. The minister ushered both men to the door.

The ceremony had begun. The opening bars of the processional lilted through the church. The groom felt a moment of panic. Time to step into the sanctuary and await his bride at the altar - or time to slip out the back and run to the nearest tavern.

"Relax. She's a great girl and you love her. Don'cha?" the other man said, pushing the groom forward.

At the front of the aisle, under the eyes of God, the reverend, his family, and - most nerve-wracking - his future in-laws, the groom tried to appear calm and confident but failed until his soon-to-be wife appeared in the archway.

She looked as if made for the moment. Always perfectly prepared for anything. Even this spectacle. Her smile, a little forced, softened when she caught sight of him waiting. Maybe, she was as nervous as he. Somehow, sharing that with her made his uneasiness fade.

Love her? Yes. The how of it - meeting her for the first time - the why of it - wanting her so badly that he couldn't swallow - the way of it - liking the fringe of her hair, the curve of her face, and the sparkle of her eyes - he couldn't remember when love had happened but it had. Marriage seemed a natural consequence.

As he listed all the reasons he'd had for falling for her, and she for him, he never hit on the most fundamental one. In fact, neither probably realized that the initial attraction was not based on appearance, personality, or similar goals but on signals received by the most ancient and best developed of human senses.

To his powerful subconscious mating drive, she smelled right.

Smell actually consists of two closely related sensitivities - olfaction, the ability to distinguish substances in a gaseous phase, and gustation, the ability to discern substances in solution. The first finds supper and the second provides important clues as to the safety of the food.

Olfaction is the aspect that is most commonly considered the 'sense of smell' and gustation is mistaken for a part of the 'sense of taste' but the organ responsible for both is a small patch of receptor cells located in the upper nasal cavity.

Volatile substances, esters, and organic molecules drift into the nostrils, are captured by mucous and are carried further inward. As the mucous drips from the nasal passages into the throat, the chemicals are released into the nasal cavity and waft upwards where they attach to specific binding cilia on the olfactory receptors. When properly bound, the cilium triggers a neuron. What combination of cilia is activated determines what scent is perceived.

Our acuity, while falling far short of the tremendous skills of other mammals, is still extraordinary. At peak performance, human noses can discern up to 10,000 separate scents. Within a few days of birth, newborns react to strong odors and show a preference for a pad dampened with their mother's sweat over that of other women. Premature infants, if given a piece of cloth saturated with their mothers' body odor while in isolation, later exhibit a smoother bonding process than babies who did without.

Young children, when exposed to the scent of fright, respond with apprehensive behavior. EEG results from adults subjected to the same scent indicate that, rather than become fearful, grown-ups react with heightened awareness and mental alertness.

Children cannot detect some scents, particularly two types of musk, until puberty. In one study, women could sniff cotton pads worn by viewers of various movie genres and correctly determine if the pad had been worn during a horror flick, a tearjerker, or a happy movie.

Damage to the receptor cells, the cilia, or the nerve endings in the area are often associated with depression, change in appetite, anorexia, and decreased enjoyment of life. Colds, sinus infections, and certain medications can cause temporary loss of smell. Several uncommon microbes can destroy some or most of the cilia. Those patients unlucky enough to experience permanent damage may require counseling, both for depression and to learn strategies to maintain an independent life-style. Anoxia, loss of sense of smell, can be dangerous. Many early warnings are detected through smell including smoke or scorch, putrefaction and decay.

In some mental disorders, patients have complained of a particular scent. Some researchers claim that professional evaluation of mental disease should include questions about odors because smelling these peculiar scents is diagnostic.

Smell is so interwoven with memory function that introducing a related scent can increase recall to the point where the event, even decades past, can be remembered in minute detail and with amazing accuracy. Research suggests that aromatherapy can be used to aid concentration, intensify the learning process, and improve later recall of study material.

Identical twins smell alike to bloodhounds but everyone else has a scent signature that is unique. Body odor is a product of genetic structure. The human nose, while not sensitive enough to track a felon through a shopping center, can discern a great deal about a person's identity. In one study participants were asked to figure out who was related to whom and many achieved impressive success rates in their matching attempts.

According to geneticists, the safest mating would be between individuals who carry the fewest shared alleles. Their offspring would have greater immunity and decreased chances of inheriting recessive genetic anomalies.

In study after study, after numerous chances for social interaction and hours to become better acquainted, young men and women consistently gave higher scores for 'attractiveness' and 'mate appeal' to those people who were the most different from them on the genetic level. The only clues would have been provided by subconscious decisions based on smell.

Modern hygiene is erasing uniqueness by introducing bottled anonymous identities but is, apparently, not completely successful.

Every breath taken unmasks the pretense. The nose knows.

Love, indeed, is in the air.

References:

The Smell Report

Disabled Genes Dull Sense of Smell, Science News

Taste & Smell

How Does The Sense of Smell Work? How Stuff Works

Lost Sense of Smell, MCW Healthlink

Tim Jacob, Olfaction

Your Sense of Smell, Yucky Kids

      Lisa Binkley works within the medical industry and is the popular author of this health series in the Kudzu Monthly. She also serves as the fiction editor of this ezine, edits for the online sci-fi magazine Distant Worlds, and maintains her own site called Jolie Howard Fiction.
      As Lisa phrases it, "Woman, wife, worker, writer. We all wear many faces and fill our niches as best we can."

Image: "Le Ravissement de Psyche," William Bouguereau, c. 1879

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