key: cord-0728568-2in70rd9
authors: Mudry, Albert
title: Anosmia due to dryness in about 1771: an ancestor of COVID-19?
date: 2021-03-18
journal: Eur Ann Otorhinolaryngol Head Neck Dis
DOI: 10.1016/j.anorl.2021.02.011
sha: 811ed0bbfeee391fa469ca04ae50ea9fafff1c1e
doc_id: 728568
cord_uid: 2in70rd9

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the introduction of the term "anosmia" in the French medical literature and its supposed link with fevers and inflammatory diseases. Already, at that time, anosmia was associated with a febrile inflammatory disease described as "anosmie par aridité" (anosmia due to dryness), both as a symptom and as a disease per se.

In 1771, François Boissier de Sauvages defined anosmia as follows: "The main symptom of this disease is the absence or decreased ability to smell odours. The term anosmia is formed by the This sensory deprivation of smell was already known since Antiquity, but its association with fever and inflammation had never been so clearly explained. Some 250 years later, COVID-19

is certainly another example of this association. 

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