ANATOMY OF THE GUSTATORY ORGAN 121 



tion of much uncertainty. Some claimed that the 

 gustatory nerve-fibers connected directly with the cells 

 of the taste-buds; others that they did not so connect. 

 The first to employ special neurological methods for the 

 solution of this question were Fusari and Panasci (1890). 

 These workers claimed that by means of Golgi prep- 



FIG. 31. Golgi preparations of the taste-buds of the rabbit, a showing cells (after 

 von Lenhosse'k, 1893a, Fig. la) and 6 showing nerve-terminations (after Retzius, 1892a, 

 PlateS, Fig. 4). 



arations it could be shown that the gustatory cells were 

 directly connected with nerve-fibers. Two years later 

 Retzius (1892a) published an account of the innervation of 

 the taste-buds of mammals and of amphibians in which 

 he showed in preparations stained by methylenblue as 

 well as by the Golgi process that the nerve-fibers were 

 not directly connected with the taste-cells but ended in 

 close proximity to them (Fig. 31). These results were 

 confirmed in 189 3 by von Lenhossek, Arnstein, and Jacques 

 as well as by the subsequent work of Retzius himself 

 (1893) and there seems to be no ground for doubting 

 the correctness of the general conclusion arrived at more 

 or less independently by these four investigators. 



The anatomical relations shown by these workers 

 are relatively simple. From the subepithelial nerve 

 plexus in the neighborhood of taste-buds fibers pass out- 

 ward into the epidermis. These fibers either form sys- 



