Help wanted: Professional fart-smeller

Some Chinese who practice alternative medicine apparently believe that each person’s flatulence has particular nuances — bitter, savory, sweet, fishy — and these undertones can be used to detect diseases by a trained expert with a sharp sense of smell, according to Rocket News 24. …

Oddly enough, some scientific research suggests that using farts as a diagnostic tool isn’t as far-fetched as it might sound. Dogs, for example, have been trained to detect the presence of prostate cancer from smelling patients’ urine samples. In another study, dogs were able to identify the stool samples of colorectal cancer patients with 97 percent accuracy. …

But before you rush off to join the legions of Chinese practitioners who are on this lucrative career path (the job reportedly pays about US$50,000 a year), remember that it’s a rather exclusive club. Only people ages 18 to 45 can be accredited as fart-smellers; they must be free of any nasal impairment or disease and refrain from all smoking and alcohol, according to Rocket Science 24.