Legg
reports a confirmatory case, but of six cases mentioned by Notta
two were caused by a blow on the crown of the head, and two on
the right ear. The prognosis in traumatic anosmia is generally
bad, although there is a record of a man who fell while working
on a wharf, striking his head and producing anosmia with partial
loss of hearing and sight, and who for several weeks neither
smelt nor tasted, but gradually recovered.
Mitchell reports a case of a woman of forty who, after an injury
to her nose from a fall, suffered persistent headache and loss of
smell. Two years later, at bedtime, or on going to sleep, she had
a sense of horrible odors, which were fecal or animal, and most
intense in nature. The case terminated in melancholia, with
delirium of persecution, during which the disturbance of smell
passed away.
Anosmia has been noticed in leukoderma and allied disturbances of
pigmentation. Ogle mentions a negro boy in Kentucky whose sense
of smell decreased as the leukoderma extended. Influenza, causing
adhesions of the posterior pillars of the fauces, has given rise
to anosmia.
Occasionally overstimulation of the olfactory system may lead to
anosmia. Graves mentions a captain of the yeomanry corps who
while investigating the report that 500 pikes were concealed at
the bottom of a cesspool in one of the city markets superintended
the emptying of the cesspool, at the bottom of which the arms
were found.
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