Medicine: A Sweeter Smell

Chlorophyll, the complex substance that puts the green in grass, has been used for years to take cooking smells out of the kitchen. Occasionally it has been used to make putrefying wounds less obnoxious to patients and nurses. But until 1945 nobody thought of using it to make healthy people smell sweeter, inside & out. Nothing was farther from the mind of Dr. F. (for Franklin) Howard Westcott, a New York City internist, when he started giving chlorophyll to his patients.

Dr. Westcott was trying to find a cure for certain types of anemia. He noted that the odors of vitamin B...