Medicine imitates literature: Love at first smell (2004 Nobel Prize in Medicine)

I gave a talk in the Taiwanese Bible Study (in Pittsburgh) on Nov. 26 and Katy wrote a report sending to the World Journal (世界日報) that was published today (Dec. 1)

Life imitates art or art imitates life?  According to Oscar Wilde, it is “Life imitates art more than art imitates life”.  And I say medicine imitates literature.  “Broken heart” has been used in art/literature for ages; we sing Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel, we read Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House.  Medicine doesn’t want to be left behind, so we manage to come up with a Broken Heart Syndrome.

I also show a few examples of New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) Perspectives with literary titles.

One is “Love at First Smell”, which is a Perspective in 2004 when the Nobel Prize was awarded to honor the discovery of the molecular mechanism of smell.

Love at first sight (一見鍾情)

Love at first smell (一嗅[聞]得芳心)—我用“芳心”因為芬芳有香味.  Aromatic (fragrant; sweet-smelling) leads to romantic mood.

Smell is associated with love is no less than sight is to love.  If you read how Shakespeare describes how Cleopatra presented herself to Antony, you know Antony has no choice but surrender. “so perfumèd, that
The winds were lovesick with them;”  They (the barge and all) were perfumed so heavily that they made the air seem dizzy with love.  Love at first smell, indeed.

And you wonder how Elizabeth Taylor (who played Cleopatra in the movie Cleopatra) made a fortune in her perfumes series.  Who can resist her Passion?

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumèd, that
The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggared all description: she did lie
In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,
O’erpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature. On each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-coloured fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did. 

             Antony and Cleopatra,  Act 2 Scene2

I presume you do not want to read the molecular mechanism of smell, which is the editorial all about.