The Nasal Turbinates
From here, my inland view of offshore
Fog off the water cuts a furrow up my face
From here, my inland view of offshore
Fog off the water cuts a furrow up my face
And the waking memory is air, is arable,
In a sense--wafting up through three scrolls.
History heated and humidified, the drams of hours:
Cardamom, melted wax between your shoulders,
The smell of terrors now sealed in canopic jars.
I've caught the scent of the story, through you,
My case of promontory nerves, the strains of both
Even if its positively dark, where a moderate breeze
Carries the song, as if coiling through a dragon's nose.
5 comments:
Did you know that perfume is still measured in drams?
The sense of smell happens after the intake of vortices of humidified air. The intangible moment just before the clasp of receptors interests me still, yet I realize being older the importance of unambivalent commitment.
http://books.google.com/books?id=14oKTKj64IcC&pg=PA9&dq=The+Secret+of+Scent+%22cis-jasmone+is+a+character+material,+meaning+an+essential+ingredient,+of+natural+jasmine+smell.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hDL3UdyZCYHqiwLm9IDgCg&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Secret%20of%20Scent%20%22cis-jasmone%20is%20a%20character%20material%2C%20meaning%20an%20essential%20ingredient%2C%20of%20natural%20jasmine%20smell.%22&f=false
We recently had a VATS patient where ENT consulted to remove a saquamous cell carcinoma (SCC), which required surgical excision to his parasinuses. Truly terrible. It had to be packed twice daily with vaseline gauze, the turbinates exposed,, with the sickening smell of Milky Way minibars and putrifying flesh. He would not stop eating sweets. He was transferred to hospice after a PET scan demonstrated invasive brain involvement.
I would have preferred to die, myself, with my face intact.
"First author Lu M. Yang, a graduate student in Ornitz’s lab, found that a newly discovered stem cell the researchers dubbed FEP cells control the size of the surface area of the olfactory epithelium. These stem cells also send a specific signaling molecule to the underlying turbinates, telling them to grow. The evidence suggests that this signaling crosstalk between the epithelium and the turbinates regulates the scale of the olfactory system that ends up developing, sometimes resulting in olfactory epithelia with larger surface areas, such as in dogs."
https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/scientists-uncover-new-details-in-how-sense-of-smell-develops/
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