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Anosmia, or loss of smell, is the most common disorder of olfaction; it may be caused by cortical lesions, olfactory nerve-changes, congenital absence, or over-stimulation of the nerves, or it may be a symptom of hysteria. Ogle, after mentioning several cases of traumatic anosmia, suggests that a blow on the occiput is generally the cause.
Anosmia has been noticed in leukoderma and allied disturbances of pigmentation. Ogle mentions a negro boy in Kentucky whose sense of smell decreased as the leukoderma extended. Influenza, causing adhesions of the posterior pillars of the fauces, has given rise to anosmia. Occasionally overstimulation of the olfactory system may lead to anosmia.
The prognosis in traumatic anosmia is generally bad, although there is a record of a man who fell while working on a wharf, striking his head and producing anosmia with partial loss of hearing and sight, and who for several weeks neither smelt nor tasted, but gradually recovered.
In a discussion upon anosmia before the Medico-Chirurgical Association of London, January 25, 1870, there was an anosmic patient mentioned who was very fond of the bouquet of moselle, and Carter mentioned that he knew a man who had lost both the senses of taste and smell, but who claimed that he enjoyed putrescent meat.
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