ABSTRACT
During the early part of the nineteenth century there was considerable debate regarding whether the sense of smell was mediated by the first cranial nerve (CNI, the olfactory nerve) or the fifth cranial nerve (CN V, the trigeminal nerve). Although Sir Charles Bell believed that olfaction was subserved by CN I (Bell, 1812), he erroneously thought that CN I and CN V fibers were united for a portion of their projection, as indicated in his 1811 classic Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain (Bell, 1966). Francois Magendie, Bell’s chief French rival and the primary proponent of the theory that CN V mediated olfaction, published his major arguments in 1824, along with a series of flawed physiological animal experiments that he touted as demonstrating his point (Magendie, 1824).
