Page:Dan McKenzie - Aromatics and the Soul.pdf/130

118 be broken up by chemical action into any simpler form, are composed of atoms. On the other hand, when elements combine to form a compound, the unit of the new body, composed as it is of two or more atoms of different elements linked together, is known as a molecule. (Probably the elements also exist in the molecular state, the atoms of which they are composed being linked together in groups.) Both atoms and molecules are, of course, very minute in size.

For reasons we need not enter into here, the molecule is held to have a certain structural form, which form is indicated by what is known as a graphic formula. The graphic formula of water, one of the simplest, may be written as H—O—H, and we may regard it as having a linear form. (Modern views indicate that it is not a simple line, but in two planes.)

Many molecules, however, particularly those of the organic compounds, are highly complex, and their structural form must be very different from that of water.

The question, then, now before us is: Does odour bear any relationship to the molecular structure of bodies? And again it has been maintained that a clue to the problem of the real nature of odour lies here.

There is a well-known series of chemical bodies