To be Scientific about it
FLATUS ODOR JUDGE
Odor judges are com-mon in the research labs of mouthwash companies, where the halitosis-inflicted blow great gusts of breath in their faces to test product efficacy. But Minneapolis gastroenterologist Michael Levitt recently took the job to another level—or, rather, to the other end. Levitt paid two brave souls to indulge repeatedly in the odors of other people's farts. (Levitt refuses to divulge the remuneration, but it would seem safe to characterize it thusly: Not enough.) Sixteen healthy subjects volunteered to eat pinto beans and insert small plastic collection tubes into their anuses (worst-job runners-up, to be sure). After each "episode of flatulence," Levitt syringed the gas into a discrete container, rigorously maintaining fart integrity. The odor judges then sat down with at least 100 samples, opened the caps one at a time, and inhaled robustly. As their faces writhed in agony, they rated just how noxious the smell was. The samples were also chemically analyzed, and—eureka!—Levitt determined definitively the most malodorous component of the human flatus: hydrogen sulfide.
Levitt defends his work against the reflexively dismissive by noting that doctors have never studied flatulence and that smell is a potentially critical medical symptom: "The odors of feces and intestinal gas and breath could all be important markers of gastrointestinal health," he says. Hydrogen sulfide, for instance, is an extremely toxic gas to mammals, potentially playing a role in ulcerative colitis, among other diseases. And so Levitt has dedicated his career to the study of the myriad fragrances produced by the human gut and imprudently ignored by the medical establishment.
