The Sunday Read: ‘The Woman Who Could Smell Parkinson’s’

Les Milne was a consultant anesthesiologist, and his wife, Joy,
typically found that he came home smelling of anesthetics,
antiseptics and blood. But he returned one August evening in
1982, shortly after his 32nd birthday, smelling of something new
and distinctly unsavory, of some thick must. From then on, the
odor never ceased, though neither Les nor almost anyone but his
wife could detect it. For Joy, even a small shift in her
husband’s aroma might have been cause for distress, but his scent
now seemed to have changed fundamentally, as if replaced by that
of someone else.


Les began to change in other ways, however, and soon the smell
came to seem almost trivial. It was as if his personality had
shifted. Les had rather suddenly become detached, ill-tempered,
apathetic. It was not until much later that he would be diagnosed
with Parkinson’s disease. The scent Joy had noticed would become
a possible solution for earlier diagnosis.