Smell and Taste in Health and Disease

Abstract

Smells are surer than sounds and sights to make your heart-strings crack. —Rudyard Kipling So begins this thorough compendium of current knowledge of human chemosensation. While clearly the best work available on the topic, it suffers the inevitable shortcomings of such collections: with each chapter by a different author, there is a certain disjointedness and overlapping. The editors have overcome this to a degree by organizing the book into seven parts: Neural Basis, Psychophysical Integration, Chemosensory Regulation of Behavior, Clinical Problems, Transport Disorders, Sensorineural Disorders, and Systemic Conditions. With the notable absence of Robert Henkin, the authors include the gurus of chemosensation. Overall, the work represents the best scientific writing in the field. Not that the volume is without problems. The chapter on depression and the chemical senses is years out of date, referring to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III criteria (1980) rather than the DSM-III-R (1987).