Customer Reviews

Jacobson's Organ: And the Remarkable Nature of Smell

5 star:		(4)
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3 star:		(2)
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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.

Smell is the forgotten sense according to Lyall Watson. Our noses do more than just smelling out odors. We always say something is smelly in the air. Something wrong. The Jacobson's organ, discovered by Danish anatomist Ludwig Levin Jacobson specializes in recognizing smells that carry specific information about gender, reproduction, and dominance status. This vomeronasal organ has been implicated in the reception of pheromones, those ephemeral chemical signals animals use to communicate nonverbally. The function of this organ implicates underlying correlation between our olfactory sense and the brain, specifically the limbic system of the brain. Limbic system constitutes the rear brain area directly above the spinal cord characterized by appendages of "limbs".

Lyall Watson presents numerous facts and arguments about how the forgotten (neglected) organ retrieve and convey to the brain significant nonverbal messages shuttling from the outside world. Watson drew from papers on scientific studies to support his argument. Some of his conjectures include trees communicate with one another through pheromones. At times of stress, trees will secrete the sweet-smelling ethylene and create this aromatic envelope and sustain themselves. Under temperature change or possible intrusion, the mimosa will protect by shutting down and taking avoiding action-namely releasing anesthetics and cringing in response to cuts, burns, light touches, or even change in temperature. Clover produces an oestrogen that mimics a key mammalian hormone found in female sheep to reduce grazing by reducing the number of grazers. This is what we call chemical mimetics in chemistry.

Lyall Watson packs in this book tremendous amount of facts and details. Some of the claims he makes are not necessarily backed by clear scientific evidence and thus readers might find the argument ambiguous and incoherent. Watson also likes to switch from one concept to another without elaborating on the logic behind. So beware of the switching. Some of the examples he draws are very relatable. Take synesthesia, for example, the combination of different ways of knowing about the same things. Have you wondered why it is so easy for car passengers to fall asleep in a long drive? According to Watson, it is the repetitive sound and sights that the passengers succcumb to the usual passing-by sights and get drowsy. The eye-hand-foot coordination (synesthesia) however keeps the driver awake. Another interesting idea Watson brings forth is schizophrenia. Schizophrenic is born with sufficient sensitivity to bring him, and his brain system to conscious attention that normal people not prone to. It is a disease in which abnormal messages seem to pass routinely from one individual to another. Watson also talks about aromatherapy-how certain fragrance oils can trigger sexual arousal, hormone production, or even strikes an ancient chord of memories. The book overall is fun to read but be careful that not all claims Watson makes are confirmed and backed by scientific research, partly because research is still undertaking in this area. After all, smell is still treated as some secondary sense to sights and sounds. 3.2 stars.

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?

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.

Although I am a non-scientific type, I am intrigued by this book. It is surprising that there has been little research about Jacobson's Organ until recently. Although it was first identified in the 18th century, its existence has only been studied clinically since the early 1990s. This sense organ, which consists of two small pits inside the nasal passages, works in combination with what we traditionally understand as our sense of smell. Instead of registering the odors we typically associate with smell, however, Jacobson's Organ functions as our "sixth sense" deciphering odorless chemical pheromones that are sent and received by a variety of plants and animals. These chemical messages may trigger sexual arousal, panic, fear, or an immediate dislike or attaction to someone you just met. The book is filled with interesting examples of how this organ and pheromones function in different species. Certain trees and plants are shown to communicate with each other by these signals. The author also suggests that schizophrenia, in which sufferers sometimes experience heightened sensitivity to another's feelings, may be related to disfunction with Jacobson's Organ. Instead of being out of touch with reality, they sense reality too much and are overwhelmed. This book will make you think of the people and places that gave you a sense of well-being. It may be that the chemical signals have much more to do about our perceptions of these than we have ever imagined.

Smell is the Cinderella of senses. We never seriously contemplate what it would be like - to live in a world without smells. Loss of sight or hearing is recognized as a handicap, a disease, a tragedy; loss of smell does not even have a name. Moreover, smells do not have their own vocabulary almost in any known language - whatever name you assign to a smell, it is borrowed either from taste (sweet, sour, spicy) or touch (sharp, mellow). We, at least during the last 150 years or so, are very uncomfortable about the fact that we, as a species, smell. And yet man is one of the smelliest animals around, with lots of glands and pores with evidently no other functions other than producing smelly secretions - the fact we are desperately trying to hide through washing, bathing and a variety of artificial perfumes borrowed from other living creatures, both plants and animals.

The main premise of Watson's book is that most mammals, including humans, in fact possess two olfactory systems. The first works through the nose; its functions are processed by the brain in the regular way. The second works through the mysterious Jacobson's organ, and is connected directly to subliminal, subconscious parts of the brain, making us feel things we cannot account for. ... attraction, premonitions, foresight, the phenomenon of déjà vu, irrational dislike and many other almost paranormal things seem to be explained by the workings of Jacobson's organ. There are even theories (as recounted in this book, they seem very convincing) that some severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia may be explained by the mix-up in the wiring of the two olfactory systems. When the stimuli from Jacobson's organ are somehow erroneously conveyed to the cortical, "conscious" areas of the brain, a person experiences things he cannot reasonably explain; but the brain tries to explain everything at all costs, and that is what we perceive as madness.

Without the sense of smell, and especially without Jacobson's organ, many animals cannot live at all - they depend on their olfactory abilities for moving, hunting, mating, detecting danger and a number of other everyday tasks. Man has created a relatively sterile universe, and it seems that we could do without the fifth sense; however, research suggests that malfunctions of olfactory system in humans result in severe disorientation, depressions and suicidal moods.

Watson tells his controversial story vividly and fluently. There are gaps, and sometimes the transition from dry experimental data to wild speculations (which the author, to his credit, is not trying to disguise as solid knowledge) is too abrupt. In the end, it is not quite clear which point the author was trying to make. In fact, there are several; it was obviously difficult for Watson to concentrate on one of them and to press it more persistently; it is clearly no less difficult for the reader to decide, what, after all, was the main idea of the book. I am not saying that it is not clear; I am just implying that it could be a little more clear.

Most parts of the book are nevertheless a fascinating read, and the marvellously unobtrusive layout with floral design adds to the story's charm.

This is a very, very good book. What is it about the Irish or the Scotch (occasionally the English) that they can consistently write such good books? Joyce, Woolf, and Darwin come to mind.

Certainly Lyall Watson is not in that group, but he is very, very good.

Anyone who enjoys natural science will love this book. It is interesting that I have never run across another book devoted to the single subject "smell" or the olfactory never. Even in medical school, the first cranial nerve was pretty much overlooked. About all that was taught in medical school regarding smell was that to lose that sense, one lost the sense of taste.

Other reviewers will tell you much more about the book, but the content is excellent. I have the hardback: it is a wonderful size for carrying around, wonderful paper that it is printed on, and a very aesthetic font. If it's available on Kindle, you will enjoy it there also, but for me, the old-fashioned media is still my favorite for leisurely reading.

Besides the scientific heavy hitting this book provides, it is chock full of great cocktail chatter. My favorite: "... the Sanskrit name for tiger is 'vyagra,' a name derived from a verb root meaning 'to smell.' (This sheds an interesting new light on Pfizer's recent best-selling drug for impotent men, which is being marketed, with or without knowledge of Sanskrit, under the brand name of Viagra.)"

I can guarantee you Pfizer knew exactly the etymology of Viagra when choosing that brand name.

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.

This is the softest of science writing. It's written for a high school level, at best -- or, if you prefer a different analogy, it's written like a 'Discovery' or 'Popular Science' essay. Easy, accessible, and glossy glossy glossy. It also wanders something fierce, let me tell you. The author seems to have a point... but there's no tight focus, no direction. One of the New York Times reviewers said the book was like a "county fair" -- and I'm not sure that's a compliment! However, if you can be patient with the wandering, the lack of focus, and the gloss... wow! Great information, humorously presented, packed with bizarre trivia and some pretty new-to-me ideas. I would definitely recommend this book for readability and content.

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.