“SEEING THROUGH THE NOSE”

Evening Star, Issue 17954, 27 April 1922, Page 4

“SEEING THROUGH THE NOSE”

COMPENSATION FOR BLINDNESS. Although blindness must always be a severe handicap, loss or serious impairment of the eyesight is almost invariably followed by a sharpening of the other senses, which, if it does not fully compensate for tho Ices of vision, enables tho sufferer to carry out much of the work for which the eyes are normally responsible. The sense of smell in particular becomes remarkably acute, and instinctively tho blind man uses it for purposes for which tho man with normal vision would naturally rely upon his eyes. Chiefly it helps him to create for himfdf a sense of locality, and cuableo him, at least in tv district with which ho is te'rly familiar, to find his way about vith little more difficulty than if ho were able to sec his surroundings. Ho relies for guidance on the fact that no two streets have quite tho same smell. The marked diotiuction between ‘he quality of tho atmosphere on the Thames Embankment and that of the atmosphere hi Fleet street is one that anyone could detect. _ Evtuync, too, can distinguish the smell of a railway station, a “kite,” or a grocer’s .‘hop. To the keen sense of tho Mind man tlcso distinctions are magnified, and lie is t-Wo to detect other and more subtle diiferencos to which a normal sense of smell does not respond. Not only has each street an atmosphere peculiar to itself, but various parin of ttc same street have their characteristic smells, and in a familiar street ho rurnot walk many yards without receiving iuforuatiou which enables him to fix his posiabn wi’h great precision. To walk down Regent street, fer instinct, is to encounter a great variety of quite distinct smells which tho blind man quickly learns to associate with initicnar parts '.£ tho street, and so to uso i.hem aa sigriforis As a means of identification his acute sanso of smell is invaluable to _ the blind man. Apart from such obvious chics as arc given by tho aroma of a particular i-and of cigar or a particular kind of scent, there am others more subtle. To ono who is unfamiliar with lire->■. new of smell which blindness brings about, the blind man must often seem to perform miracles of intuition.. I remember tho astonishment of a woman friend of mino when I remarked, on meeting her in the street, that hor drdss was not the same as eho had worn when last we met. She could not imagine how X had managed to guess. Bub it is quite simple. Each kind of material had a distinctive smell, and with a teite practice the difference between a serge, a tweed, and many other cloths can readily bo detected.—" A Blind Man,” in the London ‘Daily Mail.’