For Those Who Pant

His alluring smell is the musk deer's undoing. For centuries, through the rhododendrons in the cool Himalayan foothills where he lives, the male musk deer has been relentlessly chased by hunters. Unfortunately for him, the musk deer has a scent gland that contains a sex lure. In its pure form, musk is worth $40,000 a pound to perfume manufacturers.

Science may yet save the musk deer. Perfume chemists in modern laboratories are working hard to perfect a synthetic musk odor. Meanwhile, the deer himself (carrying his hairy, walnut-sized pouch at the base of his abdomen) will try to outrun his pursuers.

In the current issue of Natural History, Jennie E. Harris describes the male musk deer as only 20 inches tall at the shoulders. He has no antlers. He feeds simply on spicy roots and fungi; if it were not for his redolent pouch, he would probably live a quiet, secluded life.

Ancient Lure. The musk deer's scent gland, according to Charles Darwin, is the product of an evolutionary runaround. Millions of years ago, the male, deer that smelled the nicest attracted the most females--and thus left the most descendants. A weakly scented male got nowhere as a progenitor.

By this classic process of sexual selection, the male deer's glands grew bigger and muskier. The musk deer's luring game turned into a deadly risk for him when human beings caught on to the musk smell. As the deer's fame grew, rajahs and ranees, kings and their concubines, seducers and seductresses learned to use musk as a perfume. The Prophet Mohamed wrote in the Koran: "The Seal of Musk. For this let those pant who pant for bliss." The Empress Josephine, to rouse Napoleon's baser nature, used so much musk that the walls of her rooms, for years afterward, were still fragrant with it.

Biologists believe that scent, in the long, long ago, was the principal attraction between the sexes. Other bonds developed later, and scent dropped into the background.* But deep in the human structure is a residual sensitivity to the same animal perfume that interests the female musk deer. Both men & women once used musk scent straight, but modern perfumers are more subtle: it is now diluted and smothered with flowery fragrances. But its Sunday punch is still there. Musk, or some musklike scent, is the base for most pulse-twitching perfumes, which (as the advertisements hint) "drive men wild."

Modern Hunt. Since the supply of musk has never met the demand, perfumers have always looked for substitutes. They discovered that many animals have musky-smelling lure glands. Beaver glands yield castor, which is widely used. So is loud-smelling civet. Perfume chemists once eyed skunks, encouraged by the fact that many people do not mind a distant skunk smell on a frosty morning. But the perfumers finally gave up on skunks: their scent is basically a defensive weapon rather than a sex lure. Muskrat glands, a cheap by-product of the fur trade, did work. The muskrat substance is not a very pleasant smell, but a lucky chemist discovered that he could split its molecules in two, turning it into a blockbusting fragrance not unlike musk. (The nonutilitarian musk ox simply smells bad.)

Most successful experimenter was Dr. Wallace Carothers of Du Pont. While trying to synthesize a silklike fiber, he stumbled upon a compound with a wonderful musky odor. Under the name of Astro-tone, it is widely used as a musk substitute. (Returning to bis original quest, Du Font's Carothers did women an even greater service by discovering nylon.)

Perfumers, brooding biologically, regret that more modern males do not use musky perfumes. Presumably, men are missing a bet, for nature intended the magic scent as something to drive females wild. If modern men could be convinced of this principle (as they were when Mohamed wrote of panting and of bliss) a great new market would boom the perfume industry. Chemists, to save the little male musk deer, would have to work harder and faster.

*People grow used to one race's normal body odor and do not notice it. But the odor of one race is sometimes strange and objectionable to another race. Professor Arnold J. Toynbee, in A Study of History, tells of a dainty English lady in South Africa who hired Kaffir servants. One little black girl fainted repeatedly in the lady's presence. The inexperienced child was unaccustomed to the shocking smell of white people.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.