Every one of our five senses is unique in their own way. The miraculous sense of smell is pointed to in the famous story of Prophet Joseph when his father Prophet Jacob said, “I sense the fragrance of Joseph” from afar, and when he rubbed his shirt to his sightless eyes, he regained his sight (Qur’an 12: 94, 96). This suggests that smell, or sweat, may be a guide for researchers regarding the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

Some of the novel characteristics of the sense of smell have recently been explored. Studies jointly conducted in three emerging disciplines, namely artificial intelligence (AI), nanotechnology, and molecular chemistry, have suggested that it may be possible to diagnose one’s diseases using the smells of his or her sweat, urine, and breath.

Imagine that Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, kidney failure, Crohn’s disease, pulmonary hypertension, chronic kidney disease, or any type of cancer could be diagnosed through a simple assessment of the smell of your breath without any painful procedure including having to insert a probe, syringe, or any other apparatus into the body. It would be so convenient, wouldn’t it? We know that breathalyzers are being used for many decades to detect drunk driving by analyzing the sample breath from a driver. Scientists have been curious as to why such an approach could not be utilized to detect other diseases in this manner and have thus engaged in an interesting research.

A team of researchers from universities in Israel, France, Latvia, China, and the United States have recently managed to diagnose 17 diseases with an accuracy rate of 86 percent using an analyzer that determines the molecules in breath samples with the help of AI software.

The scents that emanate from human bodies are as unique as fingerprints in that they are determined by genetics and metabolic differences among human beings. Human babies know their mothers from their scents, and they would not accept being nursed by a woman other than their mother unless they are extremely hungry. Every household has its unique smell. Couples know each other from the scents of their loved ones. The wise purposes for why such an abundance of smells exist in our lives include their whetting our appetite for eating food, feeling spiritual gratifications, and knowing and avoiding spoiled food and other potentially harmful substances. Evidently, when human health deteriorates, foul byproducts – such as the defective molecules that are the result of fermentation, death, decaying, or wrong synthesis due to faults in cells, tissues, or organs – start to move around the body through blood circulation. Some of these consequential defects are removed from the body via perspiration through the skin, urination through the kidneys, or exhalation through the lungs.

Molecular composition of breath

To better grasp this process, we need to have a closer look into the molecular composition of breath. When we exhale, we release nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, and water vapor. Human breath also contains organic volatile chemical molecules in gas form that can readily blend into air due to having a high vapor pressure at a normal temperature. US biochemist Linus Pauling, one of the founders of modern quantum chemistry and molecular biology who won the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1954 and the Nobel peace prize, examined volatile substances in 250 samples of human breath using gas-liquid chromatography in 1971. Pauling is commonly regarded as a pioneer in the field of modern breath analysis. According to a study conducted 40 years later, exhaled breath contains more than 3,500 chemical compositions mostly consisting of trace amounts of volatile molecules [1].

Most of these compositions are metabolic products synthesized or decomposed based upon the functioning of the organism as a whole and some of them are called biomarkers. For instance, lung biomarkers are related to the processes that occur in the respiratory system, especially in one’s airways. Assessments of these biomarkers is useful in the diagnosis of inflammatory diseases of the respiratory system. Some examples of these biomarkers include hydrogen peroxide and isoprostans, nitric oxide derivatives, metabolites, inflammatory markers such as arachidonic acid (for instance, prostanoids, leukotrienes and epoxides), and adenosines. Breath temperature is also considered to be an important factor in prototypes of an “electronic nose” which takes all of these factors into consideration and in which new analytical and computer technologies integrate them together to produce unique results have started to be manufactured. In regards to diagnosing diseases through odor detection by animals, it is known that dogs are capable of diagnosing Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes tuberculosis, by smelling breath while rats can do it by smelling the sputum [2].

In a study, a blood sample taken from a patient with colon cancer was tested against blood samples from healthy subjects and a dog was able to diagnose the sample from the patient with cancer at every run. This study demonstrated that there is such a thing like the scent of a specific cancer and chemical compounds that are unique to cancers may be circulating in our body.

A research team led by professor Hossam Haick from the Israel Institute of Technology collected breath samples from 1,404 healthy people (control) and people suffering from 17 different diseases. These diseases included lung cancer, colorectal cancer, head and neck cancer, ovarian cancer, bladder cancer, prostate cancer, kidney cancer, gastric cancer, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, idiopathic Parkinson’s disease, atypical Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, pulmonary hypertension, preeclampsia toxemia, and chronic kidney disease.

The wet mucosa layer covering the insides of our nose typically attracts volatile chemical molecules. When odorant molecules come into contact with receptor cells located inside this mucosa epithelium, they become bound to these receptors and send electric signals to some 2,000 glomeruli, which are spherical structures consisting of nerves that can receive smells and encode them as electric signals in the olfactory bulb in the front and base of the brain. There are approximately 2,000 glomeruli around the surface of the center of the sense of smell. Smelling consists of interpretation of the patterns encoded based on the odorant molecules in these glomeruli. The human nose is capable of detecting one trillion smells. In Haick’s study, nanotechnology and machine learning replace the biological brain in the process of smelling.

Haick-led scientists used an organic carbon detection layer that controls the electrical resistance of layers made up of nanotubes through which nanotechnological molecules pass through in order to identify volatile organic compounds associated with specific diseases. The electrical resistance varies based on the type of volatile organic chemical molecules. AI software analyzes these changes in a machine learning system to determine which molecule occurs differently in ill people than healthy people in any specific disease. So far, gastric cancer was detected with an accuracy rate of 92-94 percent in the measurements made on more than 8,000 patients in clinics. Thus, researchers were able to discover that every disease has its own unique breath print [3].

As the diagnosis of diseases with the help of smell makes progress, the number of cases in which odor patterns in breath or sweat are determined increases. This raises the hope for detecting many diseases at an early stage even before their symptoms are manifest. An accuracy rate of 90 percent has been achieved in early diagnosis of preeclampsia, a disease associated with high blood pressure during pregnancy [4].

Dr. Hirsch says that the device that can diagnose lung cancer with an accuracy rate of 90 percent is able to detect a special “odor” coming from cancerous cells. The oily sebum secreted from the skin before any symptom of Parkinson’s disease has a musk-like scent which is not bad, but different from the normal. When physicians use the same technology to detect Parkinson’s disease, other cancers, kidney failure, multiple sclerosis, and Crohn’s disease, the accuracy rate is 86 percent. Ammonia in one’s breath is a sign of kidney failure. Researchers from the University of Illinois have developed a single-use device that can detect the breath print of kidney failure at a very early stage. There are even cases where doctors can diagnose certain diseases just utilizing their nose sensitivity without the need for special equipment. For instance, when a person’s liver starts to deteriorate and fails to decompose certain toxins these pollutants will accumulate in one’s urine, sweat, and even breath, and the odor of raw fish will be sensed.

If you have an infection in your gingiva, bacteria will secrete waste products that smells like rotten eggs due to hydrogen sulfide. This odor tells us that the person in question has gingivitis, a dental abscess, or poor oral hygiene. Diabetic patients have a fruit-like breath odor. This may indicate diabetic ketoacidosis as the body uses fats for energy due to a lack of sufficient insulin or lack of proper use of existing insulin. Sour breath is one of the early symptoms of infectious mononucleosis, caused by Epstein-Barr virus. In some rare metabolic diseases such as trimethylaminuria, foods such as fish, liver, eggs, and some vegetables cannot be digested in the intestines, and as they decay, they give off a strong “fishy” odor. In maple-syrup-urine disease, caused by a genetic disorder, infants are unable to decompose certain portions of proteins, and as a result, their urine, earwax, and other body liquids smells like maple syrup.

References

1. Popov, A. T. (2011): Human exhaled breath analysis. Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, Volume 106, Issue 6, p. 457.
2. Bijland, L.R., M K Bomers, M.K., Smulders, Y.M. (2013): Smelling the diagnosis: a review on the use of scent in diagnosing disease. Neth. J. Med.Jul-Aug. 71 (6): 300-307.
3. Nakhleh, M.K., Haick, H. et al. (2017): Diagnosis and Classification of 17 Diseases from 1404 Subjects via Pattern Analysis of Exhaled Molecules. ACS Nano 2017, 11, 1, 112–125.
4. Nakhleh, M.K., Baram, S., Zaher, R.J. et al. (2016): Artificially Intelligent Nanoarray for the Detection of Preeclampsia under Real-World Clinical Conditions. Advanced Materials Technologies 1 (9): 1600132

Land in my country was state property and it was divided into collective farms like this one. Mom worked for the only state bank in our town and was expected to come out once a year and check the procedures on this collective farm.

I enjoyed coming here with her. Walking among the vines, I wondered how those dry trunks could produce such a juicy fruit. I suspected that rain and the sweat drops of the kooperativists had contributed to the process.

I loved the outdoors, yet the reason I wandered as far as possible from where Mom kept comparing numbers was something else. You see, Mom was a pure Communist at heart. She would not eat grapes she hadn’t paid for. And I wouldn’t dare eat them either, at least not in front of her.

“C’mon Comrade Liri, eat some,” her colleagues would insist. “Don’t be so self-righteous. Everybody else eats these grapes. It’s no big deal.”

And I secretly agreed. What harm would eating some grapes do to the huge harvest of this collective farm? Mom shook her head stoically to these objections while I sneaked outside to the tempting juicy globes.

In my country nobody owned anything other than the clothes they had on and the food on their table. Everything else was state property. Yet, the state was us, the people; so in a sense everything belonged to everybody in general and nobody in particular. This was confusing enough to make me give into temptation.

After finishing one big cluster of grapes, I started picking randomly juicy balls here and there, selecting the biggest ones, which were shining like jewels under the sun. Meanwhile I listened to the talk of the workers as they snapped the grapes from branches with large scissors. They were talking about some important members of Political Bureau, a top organization within the Socialist Party, who had come all the way from the capital to visit their successful collective farm. They were now having lunch with the foreman. The workers, it seemed to me, picked the grapes with diligence, as if to impress the PB members.

Later the talk shifted to plain gossip and I was losing track of it when all of a sudden somebody started blowing a whistle. Whoever was blowing the whistle so loudly intended to challenge his lungs to full capacity and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had blown his brains into the whistle.

Everybody around dropped their scissors and hurried in one direction, which was a good enough reason for me to run along, perspiring profusely.

The crowd gathered in front of the white stucco building. The foreman stood on the front steps, whistle in hand, brain intact, taking in the view of the sweat drenched kooperativists and the vineyard shimmering under the sun.

“Comrades,” he shouted when everybody had gathered, “something despicable has happened in our exemplary Kooperative. This wretched person,” he said pointing to a middle-aged man who stood apart, head bowed, not moving to even wipe his sweat from his face, “this person with no conscience, no morals, this degenerate was caught red-handed stealing grapes.”

All turned around to the degenerate, noticing that he still held a bag half full with grapes. I found Mom among the onlookers. Her face seemed a mix of unreadable emotions. Contempt? Anger? Pity? My mind, out of its own volition started estimating whether the amount of the grapes in my tummy came any where close to the amount in the bag, while I searched for the whereabouts of my conscience. Feeling my cheeks blush, I wished I had stuck to Mom’s resolution of not eating grapes that belonged to everybody.

“Comrades,” continued the foreman, “this man is an enemy of the proletariat and his act will not be overlooked. He dared violate the code of work, the fruit of his comrades’ sweat. What do you have to say?” the foreman sternly asked the red-handed enemy. The once-comrade spoke, without raising his eyes to look at the people who were co-workers, his neighbors, his relatives.

“I am sorry. I shouldn’t have done it.” His voice broke into sobs and tears joined drops of perspiration on the edge of his chin. I felt my spit dry in my mouth.

A couple of fellow kooperativists spoke in turns, shaming their brother and at the same time, trying to appease the anger that, like rain clouds, had started to gather on the PB members’ faces. As they say, wet wood burns along with the dry wood.

“Comrades,” Finally, the oldest PB member spoke as the whole crowd shifted on their feet. “We will set up a makeshift court right here, right now and condemn this shameless act.”

He asked the foreman to appoint someone from the crowd to take part in jury.

“Comrade Lavdi.” The foreman startled my mom and made my heart skip a beat. “Would you volunteer to be part of the jury?”

Even a thirteen-year-old girl as myself knew that the question was only a formality, because the Party people never took no for an answer.

The three Bureau members went into the building, my mom in tow, while the crowd scattered to sit under the shades of the two big oaks. The “enemy” remained on foot under the sun. Three wasps flew in a circle around the bag, trying to get in, without worrying about guilt or sin.

I don’t know how long we waited for the verdict, but I suspect it was long enough that we began to worry that something had gone wrong. Finally one of the Bureau members came out and whispered something to the foreman, who was fanning himself with his hat.

The foreman jumped to his feet and they both went inside again. The person closest to the foreman, who had overheard something of the whispered message, passed it around with no delay. Somebody was refusing to sign the verdict!

As people gasped at the news, my heart trembled with recognition that that somebody had fixed himself for big trouble. That somebody risked being declared an enemy of the people, getting a large stain on their personal reference records and would face grave consequences.

“That somebody can’t be my mom,” I remember convincing myself wishfully. “She hates dishonesty, especially stealing. She wouldn’t mind if they hanged the man.”

Yet, I couldn’t think who else could possibly break the unanimity that every decision required in our country, a place where dissidents did not exist. I couldn’t imagine the three Bureau members disagreeing. They even walked in concord, like soldiers in a military parade.

Finally they came out. Mom, pale as a dead woman, walked out last. Fear gripped my heart. I remember only vaguely what happened afterwards: the shock of the crowd upon hearing the death sentence, the pleading eyes of the guilty, my Mom’s right hand trembling and her transfixed gaze that betrayed disappointment.

All were dismissed. Mom and I walked home on the dusty road after refusing a ride in the PB members’ jeep, the guilty man inside. Mom cried silently all the way home holding my hand in a tight grip, as if the ground was slipping under our feet.

That night I woke up to my mom’s muffled cries and my father’s soothing words.

“I can’t believe it,” Mom was saying, sniffing, “sentence a man to death for a bunch of grapes! What is happening?” demanded my mom, raising her voice. “This is not Communism. This is despotism!”

“Shshshsh. Somebody will hear,” worried my dad.

“They made me sign the verdict,” she continued in revolt. “They threatened me. They said unanimity was a must, otherwise people would think that the Party could be wrong. They assured me that the death penalty was just to frighten people, that a higher court will overrule it and sentence the man to prison for a couple of years. But, what if they don’t?”

Mom paused to catch her breath than continued: “This is not what my father fought for in the war to liberate this country. This is not what they promised Communism would be.”

Both of them fell silent. Only Mom’s occasional sobs spoiled the dark silence. I don’t know if Mom became an enemy of the people that night, but she surely wasn’t a die-hard Communist anymore.

Weeks later we heard that the higher court did indeed overrule the death penalty, sentencing the thief to five years in prison. Mom never spoke of that day and everything went back to normal, except that her eyes never shone again upon hearing the victories of our country under the lead of the Socialist Party, and she never reminded me what a fortunate people we were to be living in the last stronghold of Communism in Europe.

Years later, long after Communism had collapsed and the land had been privatized, Mom came home one day with a black plastic bag in one hand and red-rimmed eyes. She said that a man had thanked her for a signature she had hesitated to give so long ago and had given her grapes in a plastic bag saying, “Eat them with a clean conscience sister! They are the fruits of my pure perspiration and of my honest toil in my own land under the sun.”

Mirkena Ozer is pursuing MA in women studies at the University of Georgia, Atlanta.

Some personalities are like bamboo, very hard, very tough; they wait, they make one wait, but eventually they compensate for their slow start very quickly.

For some people, accepting Islam or undertaking and accomplishing an exalted mission resembles growing bamboo. Why? We can best answer this question by looking at how bamboo grows: First the grass seed is sown, watered, and fertilized. No change can be observed in the seed during the first year. The seed is watered and fertilized again. The bamboo does not send forth any shoots from the soil during the second year either. The same actions are repeated for the third and fourth years too; the seed is watered and fertilized, but the resilient seed does not send forth any shoots during this period either. The farmer carries on watering and fertilizing the bamboo with great patience during the fifth year too. At last, towards the end of the fifth year, the bamboo starts to sprout and within a very short period, about 6 weeks, it reaches approximately 27 meters in height.

The first question that comes to minds here is: Has the bamboo reached a height of 27 meters in 6 weeks or over 5 years? The answer to this question is, of course, 5 years. If the seed had not been watered and fertilized for five years, if a great deal of patience and persistence had not been employed, we would not be able to talk about growth at all; indeed the bamboo would not even exist. Therefore, it is that five-year long process of waiting, slowly softening, constantly feeding the chemical and physical elements of the soil, adding water, letting the Sun warm the seed that formed the embryo of the bamboo. Of course, this did not happen spontaneously; it has most certainly happened and continues to happen because The Causer of all Causes, God, has brought all the causes together and given the order to sprout; it is His and life-giving breath that has caused the seed to grow.

Some personalities are like bamboo, very hard, very tough; they wait, they make one wait, but eventually they compensate for their slow start very quickly. This period can last anywhere from 3 to 30 years-they make others wait, or perhaps they are waiting themselves. They absorb our teardrops, our sweat, and our effort, like an infinite vacuum, until the right time comes and they rise with such speed that they overtake those that were in the lead. Like athletes, as they come closer to the finish line, their immense effort is enough to close any gaps; they finish the race first.

How long a person makes others wait or how long that person waits themselves before accepting the truth is dependent on that person’s will power, character, and their current situation. But of course, character plays a role here. If people are not nurtured by what they require, that thing which is most dominant in their character, then they will not feel satisfied. For example: If a person’s dominant character is that which is reflected in the name of God, the Affectionate and the Loving, then before they can accept anything or invite another into their heart, they need and seek love; this is the key to their making any changes. They will only relent if enough love is shown to them. If this does not happen, then they will not give in.

This can be observed in the conversion of some people to Islam. Sometimes, after a long period of investment, it can be observed, with great surprise, that these people have accepted the religion, yet this seems, on face value, to have been caused by a trivial event. Any small matter may set off this great transformation; it is not for us to know what is the key. Our concern is only to continue with the investment, to keep watering, feeding, and nurturing by representing the fundamentals of our religion . . . Most likely, those who are among the first to carry out such actions are those who expend the greatest amount of energy and those who suffer the most.

There are many unsung heroes of service; they have watered the seeds of the future with their tears and with the sweat of their brow. These people are not mentioned anywhere, nor have they ever been heard of. They do not rest, they do not take time to smell the flowers, or to eat the fruit of their labor; they make an effort merely for the sake of God. A tiny movement, the slightest effort may sometimes bear fruit; but it is not just the person who picks the fruit who will get the credit. All of those who contributed to the growth of the tree and the ripening of the fruit will be given credit. God, the Just, the All-Wise does not judge only according to physical appearance, He judges in accordance with the essence and the reality, and it is for this reason that He does not overlook anyone, He does not forget anything, and recompenses everyone’s effort completely.

The Makkans that became Muslims after the conquest of Makka on 11 January 630 (8 Hijri, 20 Ramadan), are, in a way, the bamboo of Islam. The Prophet invited them to belief over 13 years in Makka, from 610 to 622. He watered their hearts with his holy tears and the sweat of his brow. Then, he waited in Madina with patience for eight years. At last, in 630, that is to say, after 21 years had passed since the beginning of the revelation, in those rock-hard hearts that were looked after and watered by the Prophet and his honorable companions with relentless zeal and effort, the seed of belief came to life; it grew branches and blossomed and eventually produced fruit. Bamboo is said to take five years to grow, but those unbelievers took nearly 21 years to start to sprout. Thank God that they began to grow and were able to learn about Islam from the Prophet.

In conclusion, you reap what you sow. We should not aim to be the person who gathers the fruit; that is not our role. We are the one who shall tend the seed and water it with loving care. Putting effort and time into guiding others to the right path will please God; this should be our ultimate aim. Those who are prepared to wait for a person to mature, that is 21 years, patiently hoping to conquer the heart to bring that person to the right way are indeed following the way of the Prophet, the way of informing and invitation. One who embarks on this journey without patience will achieve nothing.