Monday, March 18, 2024

The Scent of Morphia and Confabulation


Stripped Cat by Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita (1924)










Our story begins and nearly ends for a cat, introducing us to its peculiar owner and an unsavory trick he played on the feline with the express purpose of ending its life. Consider the following four points before engaging with the tale:

  • № 1: Cats. They’re an interesting subject because they’re cats. And they let you know it.
  • № 2: People. Always hiding behind the mask of personality. Some are more convincing than others. 
  • № 3: Writers. They’re observant and take notes. Make acquaintance with one and you may appear as a character in one of their stories.
  • № 4: Doctors. Most are guided by the Hippocratic Oath. Others are gilded by reputation, clever accountants and club memberships.
“The Sense of Smell in Cats” appeared in the science journal Nature a little over 90 years ago. The one-paragraph letter to the editor was written by F.W. Edridge-Green of 99 Walm Lane, Willesden Greene, London N. W. 2. It was dated September 13, 1932 and published in the October 1, 1932 edition of the publication. The tone is expert, detached and gothic. 
I HAD a favourite cat which was having fits and becoming dangerous, so, to destroy it as painlessly as possible, I inserted several grains of morphia in the centre of a piece of foie gras which was cut in two, great care being taken that no morphia was split on the outside. The cat on being shown the foie gras expressed in every way its eagerness for it, but when it got within three feet of the foie gras, turned round and looked at me with intense astonishment, and then after another sniff walked away, though previously it had always worried for a small piece. The special point is that the cat could detect something dangerous through the strong smell of the foie gras, though morphia, even in considerable quantities, has to most persons only a faint odour.  
Reading this leaves little doubt that the physician’s house became haunted when he and his cat were no longer there. Imagine the paws of generations of cats that resided in the house, sensitized to dormant energy emanating from the kitchen floor. When perceived, a sensation accompanied by the aroma of foie gras forebodes the appearance of a feline apparition hungry for a taste of its master’s liver. Cats sense the specter with their whiskers, their owners attuned to its icy plaintive yowls. Confabulation, I know, but it paints the picture best.

Frederick William Edridge-Green (1863-1953) was a physician and "expert" on color perception. The ophthalmologist, who grossly underestimated the olfactory perception of his cat (a species that is a natural-born hunter) wrote on the subject of sight, color blindness and memory. Books published in his area of specialty are available, in addition to a journal article in which the esteem with which he held himself and his work weren’t reciprocated (this was delivered with academic brevity and evisceration in the concluding sentence). 

Concluding paragraph in the British Journal of Ophthalmology by J. Herbert Parsons, August 1920. Ibse dixit refers to an unproven assertion.














After his death in 1953, Dr. Edridge-Green’s portrait was donated to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in London. The painting is currently available as ready-made wall art for anyone with a taste for it. Artist Frederic Dudley Walenn (1869-1933) painted Dr. Edridge-Green’s portrait. In it, the physician sports a lupine beard that completely obscures his mouth, jaw and neck. It would be uncouth to say it invokes an invitation to fleas, but that can’t be helped. 

Image of Dr. Edridge-Green via The Royal College Surgeons of England





















Consider the confusion a master’s nearly unreadable face wrought upon his cat over the years. The portrait resembles a man about to go through “the change” and emerge as a werewolf. Wouldn't you, dear reader, at your most myopic, have fits and become dangerous if you had to live with the agony of looking at an obfuscated face by day, suffering the consequences in your sleep at night? A mouthless presence of a face in a sea of hair leaving only the eyes to speak? 

Walenn’s body of work is respected and pleasing. Perhaps the artist had a petulant sitter before him who was overly concerned with posterity, demanding unreasonable revisions to his portrait, the painter giving in and painting the doctor’s mouth shut with his paint brush. The portrait, whatever one thinks of it, was bequeathed to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in England by Edridge-Green. It is absent from their online collection.

Via the National Institute of Health, National Library of Medicine























An interesting black and white photograph of the ophthalmologist paints a different picture in shadow and light. His bearded face is less consumed by facial hair, ruling out hypertrichosis as a diagnosis inspired by Walenn's oil portrait. The contrasting accent of dyed black hair behind a flourish of gray paints a different picture, a hat on his knee taking prominence at the forefront of the composition. The doctor is older here and appears comfortable with himself. A kitten would fit quite nicely in this picture, but that would be softening the rough edges of Edridge-Green's character to a fault.

Consider the possibility that Edridge-Green’s cat no longer served as an emotional surrogate, becoming “the other” in the eyes of its owner due to bad behavior or illness (a mean disposition or epilepsy). The doctor's story as reported in Nature seems more like confabulation than truth, a weak attempt at erudition (acknowledging his cat's better-than-expected sense of smell). Fact: the doctor failed to entice his beloved cat to its death with morphine-laced foie gras. This is not material for compassion or bragging rights. It smacks of pathology, narcissism and a faltering G-d complex.

The Latest Application in Scientific Principals by Louis Wain





















In closing, the following was filed under the category "Rubbish Colleagues, 1900 RR/15/38" on the Royal Society's website. The facts and categorization reveal much about Edridge-Green’s character: 
Among the treasure trove of referee reports is one by physicist Shelford Bidwell (inventor of a precursor to the fax machine) about a paper on 'The evolution of the colour sense' by Frederick William Edridge-Green in 1900. Bidwell describes the author as ‘a crank’, and the paper as not only plagiarized but also ‘rubbish of so rank a character that no competent person could possibly take any other view of it’: 

"Having long ago recognised in him all the well-known characteristics of a 'crank', I have carefully avoided entering into any discussion with him or expressing any opinion as to his views." 
He then goes on to suggest that if the Society takes issue with ‘this admission of bias’ they should refer the paper to someone else. Edridge-Green’s tests for colour blindness were nonetheless adopted by the Royal Navy. 

The report by referee Shelford Bidwell, including the summary, reveal a lack of professionalism and ethics on the part of Dr. Edridge-Green. It was issued 32 years before the doctor wrote to Nature about the alleged cat episode. F.W. Edridge-Green died on April 17, 1953. His obituary in the British Journal of Ophthalmology refers to the doctor as “a controversialist” whose conclusions sometimes lacked the basis of fact. There is no mention of family left behind in Edridge-Green’s obituary. Not even a cat.















Notes Curiosities & Thanks:

Morphia is an archaic term for morphine. It's also the first name of the historical queen consort of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, Morphia of Melitene, who was of Armenian descent. 

Cats are better smellers than humans. This was true in Dr. Edridge-Green’s time, when science knew less about feline and human olfaction. Cats have larger olfactory epithelium (membranous tissue located in the nasal cavity that is the peripheral organ for the sense of smell) and more olfactory receptors (transmitters of smells) than humans. Cats also possess a vomeronasal organ (aka Jacobsen’s organ) that affects sexual, feeding and social behaviors. The role of the vomeronasal organ in humans is unknown and considered vestigial (translation: under-researched).

The Royal Society was formerly known as The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. It's the United Kingdom's version of The National Academies of Sciences in the United States. 

Maréchal Niel Roses by Henri Fantin Latour(1883)
The flowers have a strong raspberry, tea and violet scent.






















Dr. F.W. Edridge-Green married Minnie Hicks on April 28, 1893. An excerpt from the wedding announcement in the Middlesex Courier says: "...it is evident that Dr. Edridge-Green is a gentleman of considerable attainments. The bride, Miss Minnie Hicks, second daughter of Dr. F.R. Hicks, of Hendon Grove, is as distinguished socially and for her personal charms as Dr. Edridge-Green is for his scientific attainments...Inside the church looked very pretty, the altar being decorated with white flowers and the pews themselves gay with posies and the delicate scent of the Maréchal Niel rose being most notable." 

The Edridge-Green family included two sons. Their first son, Henry Allen Edridge-Green, was born on July 9, 1894. Henry died of wounds acquired at the age of 24 on November 7, 1918, while serving as a Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force during WWI. Frederick Nigel Edridge-Green, the couple's second son, was born on June 23, 1897. He died on May 25, 1898, when he was less than a year old. Minnie Edridge-Green died on February 14, 1901, after seven years of marriage and the loss of her youngest child. She was 30 years old when she died on Valentine's Day.

Thanks go out to Wendy Warner, who provided assistance with ancestry research related to Dr. F. W. Edridge-Greene. 

This post is dedicated to Judith Emlyn Johnson, Professor Emerita of English Literature and Women's Studies at the University at Albany in New York State. Her "Gothic Horror and Fiction" class was one of my favorites. Johnson is a fiction writer, poet, and spoken word artist. 

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Reading This? You Might Be WEIRD


Untitled Image by Joe Brainard (1942-1994)

















“If I’m as normal as I think I am, we’re all a bunch of weirdos.”—Joe Brainard, artist, poet and writer 

I finished reading a research paper that included children's evaluations of 17 hedonic scents. The authors, 28 in number, included the acronym "WEIRD" as a phenotype (an individual's observable traits) vs. a genotype (genetic constitution). If you're reading this, chances are you're WEIRD, but not in the way that you think. 

WEIRD as referenced in the 2022 study sounds a little sci-fi when extracted, but it explains a few things when considered in context:

...children from urban areas of the WEIRD world (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) were examined. In such cultures, the olfactory and dietary experience of children may be convergent (e.g. consumption of similar products, similar perfumes worn) and similarly influence chemosensory perception. 

The term WEIRD was called out in 2010 by the American Psychology Association. The danger, according to the APA, occurs if focusing on WEIRD citizenry in a study generalizes results to a global population inclusive of the non-WEIRD to whom the results don’t apply. Translation? Exclusion by inclusion.

So, there you have it. If you're reading this, you might live in a WEIRD society as a WEIRD citizen. Define yourself as a flavor and fragrance enthusiast that’s not part of the WEIRD cohort or frankly don’t give a damn? Congratulations! You’ve been touched by an invisible magic wand that makes you "you". This quality brought you here in the first place. That makes you the best kind of weird there is.


Window by Jane Freilicher (2009). There's a sublime quality to
the painting, including two figures drawn to the aroma of flowers.






















Notes/Further Reading:

The odorants used in "Hedonic Perception of Odors in Children Aged 5 to 8 Years is Similar Across 18 Countries: Preliminary Data" include: apple, banana, cheese, butter, chocolate, biscuit, coffee, cut grass, fish, flower, honey, lemon, onion, orange, peach, strawberry and tomato. Countries categorized as WEIRD in the study are: Canada, Chile, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Finland, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United States. 

Glass Petal Smoke highly recommends The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard, edited by Ron Padgett. Joe Brainard's style of memoir writing in the "I Remember" chapter poetically strings together everyday snippets of memory. Warning: Side effects include repeated re-reading of the "I Remember" chapter, uncontrolled urges to dog-ear pages in the book resulting in lilliputian origami, and finding Marcel Proust's madeleine less than compelling.

Boise State University has a sensible response to the WEIRD acronym as it applies to WEIRD societies and non-WEIRD societies. It's a fair and balanced response to a homonymic academic acronym. 

This story was not designed to interfere with machine learning programs, though it would be great fun if the “weird” WEIRD stumped more than a handful of programs. That, my friends, would be art.

Monday, February 19, 2024

Myrrh Casati Perfume by Mona di Orio


How we relate to the smell of a perfume can change over time. 









I purchased Myrrh Casati by Mona di Orio in 2014. There was something about it I couldn't relate to, which is why it was relegated to the back shelf in a fragrance storage closet. After reading mixed fragrance reviews, the only tangible sentiment I had for the luxury perfume was buyer’s remorse. Ten years later, the smell of Myrrh Casati taught me a lesson. 

The black box containing the perfume was adjacent to a box of vintage Indian sandalwood oils stored in a light-proof container. The juxtaposition of two objects, one rejected the other beloved, prompted a question. Would ten years of aging shed light on the way Myrrh Casati expresses its volatile message? It smelled like a naïve chiaroscuro ode in 2014; all effort, no shadow, no light.

Disappearing top notes, a typical occurrence in collectors' vintage perfumes, are less likely to alter the character of a well-composed fragrance kept out of heat and light. Myrrh Casati spent ten years in a box. The potential for change, even synergy, was worth seeking. I considered how the bottle of perfume reappeared when I wasn't looking for it and took it as a sign. I sprayed the perfume on my wrists and gave it time to bloom. 














The opening of the fragrance was familiar. I detected the bitter leather tang of myrrh, its medicinal edge mellowed by time and sweeter materials in the formula. I continued to focus on the perfume’s character in the way one appreciates a well-composed painting, photograph or glass of wine. It wasn't long before I was catapulted into remembering a specific smell from the past.

Myrrh Casati reminded me of the time I discovered an exquisite aroma produced by a combination of Cretan labdanum, Siam benzoin, Omani frankincense and Yemeni myrrh resins on a temperature-controlled incense heater. The perfume touched the boundaries of the incense blend in memory. This connection, from past to present and back again, changed the way I relate to the perfume today.

A temperature-controlled incense heater offers a gift that's hard to forget once you've experienced it. The underside of its ceramic lid acquires a patina of smells over time. Each incense heating session creates an effect that paves the way for the next session’s fragrant mark. Smelling the lid after it's cooled down is akin to dropping a needle on a record you need to hear again and again, so you can hold on to the feelings and meaning it inspires.

Painting of Luisa Casati by Joseph Paget-Frederics














My reference points for myrrh prior to owning an incense incense heater included: the smell of myrrh on incense charcoal (combustion), reading research papers and books, perfumery training at Givaudan and the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), aromatic scentscapes at Catholic and Orthodox churches in New York City, and disappointing perfumes that claimed myrrh and buried it in the formula (sans the fragrant pomp of pharaonic burial). Exploration across Commiphora species generates new sensations for my nose.

There are times when a person can't relate to things they haven’t experienced or aren’t ready to receive. This may have been the case in my initial evaluation of Myrrh Casati by Mona di Orio. Studying aromatic plant resins used as incense allowed me to broaden my olfactory palette and further develop expertise beyond perfumery training. This informed a second attempt to understand Myrrh Casati ten years later. Thankfully, it was long enough for the perfume and me to come to terms with each other. Time changed both of us.

The Alchemist by David Teniers the Younger (1743-45)














Notes & Curiosities:  
If there’s anything that perfumery has taught me, it’s the reality of impermanence in the form of discontinued fragrances. Myrrh Casati is, for the time being, gone. The presence of absence makes room for something new in myrrh-themed perfumes.

Perfumer Mona di Orio trained with legendary nez Edmond Roudnitska before striking out on her own. Her work was brilliant. The first perfume released after her untimely death in 2011 was created by another perfumer in 2014. Myrrh Casati was disappointing, something that was just "there". Perhaps we needed to hear the sound of Mona's olfactory voice tickling our skin and our senses. It's not what we received, whether by objective evaluation or expectations as admirers of her work. Mona's formulas had multiple experiences living inside of them; a matryoshka of nose surprises. 

Access to quality resins is important. Be sure to seek out a knowledgeable vendors run by people that support fair trade and sustainable harvesting. In my experience, Dan Riegler of Apothecary’s Garden in Canada is one of these people. (I use his materials at home and in the classroom.) Mermade Magickal Arts sells aromatic resins, roots, wood and artisan unique incense blends you won't find anywhere else. Owner Katlyn Breene's incense offerings are often reviewed at Olfactory Rescue Service, a website dedicated to incense. (Breene introduced me to a White Lotus incense heater in 2020 that's still going strong. I'm rather fond of her Luthier incense blend.)

Exquisite incense from Mermade Magickal Arts by Katlyn Breene













Learn more about incense resins in a post titled: The Incense Project: Lessons from Peruvian Myrrh. You'll probably want an incense heater after you read it.

Ingredients in Myrrh Casati include, but may not be limited to: Peruvian pink pepper, Guatemalan cardamom, saffron, licorice, Siam benzoin, Somalian myrrh, Somalian frankincense, Indonesian patchouli, Indian cypriol (nagarmotha), and Paraguay guaiac wood. The smell of Spanish labdanum, a key ingredient in the "amber" category of perfumery that applies to Myrrh Casati, can also be smelled.

Patchouli, vetiver and sandalwood are materials that age beautifully over time. Interestingly, all three were used in the formula for Crêpe de Chine by F. Millot (1925), a vintage floral chypre perfume. Check out Bo Jensen's chemistry explanation under Vetiver here. You can look up ingredients on the Essential Oils page, find out what they smell like, and learn cool things about scent chemistry. 

Friday, January 5, 2024

A Taste of Poetry: Bread by Francis Ponge











Some poems (in this case, a prose poem about bread by Francis Ponge translated by C.K. Williams) deserve to be consumed with their subject as an immersive form of sensory indulgence.

The scent, flavor and texture of bread is one of the best antidotes for winter blues. Heck, it's the antidote for just about anything provided you have a big hunk of butter, and a cup of coffee or tea to go along with it.

Instructions

  1. Get thee to a bakery.
  2. Buy a fresh baguette and your favorite butter (the real stuff).
  3. Find a place where you, the baguette and a warm beverage of your choice will be undisturbed.
  4. This is your moment to have peace, quiet and respite from EVERYTHING.
  5. If anyone gets in the way, put on your best Greta Garbo accent and tell them "I vant to be alone!"
  6. Eat and read until you are fit for interaction with humans.
  7. Share the baguette (if anything is left). 
  8. Repeat weekly until March 21, 2024 (or when you see the the first snowdrop or crocus).


Bread

by Francis Ponge

The surface of bread is marvelous, first of all, because of the almost panoramic impression it gives: as though you held the Alps, the Taurus, or the Cordillera of the Andes in your hand. 

An amorphous, belching mass was slid into the stellar oven for us, where, hardening, it was shaped into valleys, ridges, undulations, crevasses.... And thenceforth all these clearly articulated planes, these thin slabs where the light meticulously spreads out its fires, – without a glance at the loathsome, underlying pulp.

This flabby, cold sub-soil, the inside of the bread, has the same tissue as a sponge: leaves or flowers are soldered together at every joint like Siamese twins. When bread goes stale, these flowers wither and shrink: they then separate and the mass becomes crumbly. 

But let's break it off here: for bread in our mouths should be less an object of respect than of consumption. 


Notes:

Selected Poems by Francis Ponge is by edited by Margaret Guiton and published by Wake Forest University Press (1994). 

Ponge is known for his prose poem style. “Bread” exemplifies this.