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At the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, experimenters have also shown that certain mouth and vaginal odors change regularly during the menstrual cycle. That raises the possibility that odor tests may one day help develop a new contraceptive, an idea supported by the monkey studies of Monell Primatologist Gisela Epple. She found that the dominant male and dominant female in each social group spend much of their time smearing their scent around the cages. Surprisingly, subdominant females do not get pregnant when they mate with the top male. Epple suspects that a scent signal from the dominant female suppresses the fertility of her rivals.
Smell experimenters admit that they have not yet proved much. As Russell points out, there is "no unifying theory on how the nose works and no money for experiments because you couldn't show any utility. But that's changing.' If so, Thomas may yet get his fragrance institute. ∎