Message Number: YG7133 | New FHL Archives Search
From: Claire Curtis
Date: 2001-09-09 09:28:00 UTC
Subject: Re: diagnosing by smell

When I was working at Harvard Medical School, I worked with a visiting
Chinese doctor. At first she was very reluctant to talk about anything
that deviated from western medicine, but as we became friends she became
willing to talk about it.

In China, breath smell is one of the major diagnostic tools, as is
examination of the eye whites. And gross examination of urine and stool
is common. But this technique really depends on experience, since we
don't have good, objective scales to assess these (especially smell).
Learning it almost requires an apprenticeship with an experienced doc.

Anyway, though a major tool in China, smell is at best a footnote in
western medicine. I wonder if we can create a lexicon -- maybe something
like the arcane language used by oenophiles (wine folks). Maybe use the
scratch & sniff technology as mentioned before to create soem standards.
This could be valuable stuff.

I'm wondering, are there any vet schools that are particularly good
about teaching about ferrets? That might have faculty with
smell-experience or other hard-to-learn-from-a-book expertise?

-Claire