Jacobson's Organ: And the Remarkable Nature of Smell

by Lyall Watson

Book Overview

Smell is our most seductive and provocative sense, invading every domain of our lives. We can identify our relatives, detect the availability of a potential mate, sniff out danger, and distinguish... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393049086
• ISBN13: 9780393049084
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 255 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

A neat idea

A neat idea. Watson's clear and perceptive review on the nature of smell takes readers into a world that is probably, for most of us, unexplored. But I encourage you to take Watson's journey about how we relate to each other and the animate world, and how it relates to itself-by smell, Watson says. The release or presence of pheromones may dictate our behavior more than we're cognizant of certainly more than we'd probably like to know. Our Jacobson's Organ, located at the top of our nostrils, often guides how we act, for better or worse, unconsciously or not. Imagine: a baby's head produces natural endorphins in those who smell it. Suddenly the behavior of parents around their newborn takes on a new perspective.I question the validity of Watson's view. It SEEMS plausible without knowing much about this field, but it sure was a quality read.

But is it about smell?

This is a startling book in the story it tells. According to this book all of us have an organ in our nose that responds to airborne signals, but these signals may not have smells. So, the fact that much of this book is about smell may confuse - it certainly took me close to the end of the book before I realised that Jacobsen's Organ responds not necessarily to smell but to other vapours. The fact that the olfactory nerve does respond to smell demeans Jacobsen's Organ if it too responds to smell. But what if Jacobsens' Organ responds to vapours that do not smell? This is a very striking possibility.Experiments have been done on animals that also possess a Jacobsen's Organ and Mr Watson describes the data gathered from such experiments - inferring extensions to human beings. We know that animals respond to chemical signals called pheromones. Are there similar messages passing between people? For those of us who do have a sense of small (most people) I like to call smell the 'involuntary' sense - we must breathe so we must smell whatever is carried in the air. There is no other similar sense except touch - and that only in the blessedly rare occurence of torture. We can always cover our eyes or ears, keep our mouths closed. But we cannot stop breathing for any length of time. Consequently I was interested in Mr Watson's information about smell - its types, and our reactions to them.But the real value from this book didn't come, for me, in the descriptions of smell (which I found rather rambling), but in the description of Jacobsen's Organ - of which I had been totally ignorant. And the possibility of sensing non-smelling signals - pheromones perhaps - that circulate involuntarily between people is startling. Is that sense of instant bonding that occasionally occurs when I meet someone caused by messages passing between us, sensed by our Jacobsen's Organs and immediately modifying our mood?

Scent: The Biological Mechanism Underlying The Psyche

For anyone in Western society that prides him/herself as an autonomous human "being" driven by a highly evolved, and "reasoning" mind, Jacobson's Organ offers a humbling look at just how basic we are as sentient creatures attempting to sort through a world of stimuli. Having created a lifestyle that caters to our psychological desires, we tend to overlook the biological mechanisms underlying and contributing to them. Watson's book offers a new perspective on one of the oldest mechanisms we have: the olfactory sense. He even goes so far as to propose that the brain may have evolved from a lump of olfactory tissue (Ch. 1 A Brain is Born). Jacobson's Organ has appeal for anyone interested in evolutionary biology, animal behaviour, and psychology. However, as it is classified under "Biology", potential readers should be forewarned that the format is more of a scientific thesis than an anecdotal essay of human interest. With over two hundred pages, the book can be "dry" in places, but there is enough balance between fact and author's insight to make it interesting. To appreciate the text fully, I recommend that anyone interested in this book have some background knowledge in biology, psychology, and western languages.

The Nose Knows

Lyall Watson has made a life of uncovering the unknown, unravelling mysteries and delivering wonderful accounts of these explorations. Jacobson's Organ is a joy to read, with Watson's intellect, humor and delivery a pleasure, as always. Read this book and you will smile at how deeply the sense of smell influences the creatures we are. Send one to a sensitive friend, and then look into the amazing library of works this man has created for us.

A lively, informative, readable work.

The sense of smell is one of the most alluring scents, so why has so little been presented on Jacobson's Organ: an anatomical feature discovered in the nose and dismissed for centuries? Recent research has shed new light on this organ's importance and connections to the sense of smell and Lyall Watson presents these findings in a lively, readable coverage.