474 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



acid bodies is common to every part of the skin ; but it is least felt 

 where the tough outer skin is thickest, and most felt where that skin is 

 thinnest and the nerves are most plentifully distributed near the sur- 

 face. A mustard-plaster would probably fail to draw at all on one's 

 heel or the palm of one's hand, while it is decidedly painful on one's 

 neck or chest ; and a mere speck of mustard inside the eyelid gives 

 one positive torture for hours together. Now, the tip of the tongue 

 is just a part of one's body specially set aside for this very object, pro- 

 vided with an extremely thin skin, and supplied with an immense num- 

 ber of nerves, on purpose so as to be easily affected by all such pun- 

 gent, alkaline, or spirituous substances. Sir Wilfrid Lawson would 

 probably conclude that it was deliberately designed by Providence to 

 warn us against a wicked indulgence in the brandy and seltzer afore- 

 said. 



At first sight it might seem as though there were hardly enough of 

 such pungent and fiery things in existence to make it worth while for 

 us to be provided with a special mechanism for guarding against them. 

 That is true enough, no doubt, as regards our modern civilized life ; 

 though, even now, it is perhaps just as well that our children should 

 have an internal monitor (other than conscience) to dissuade them imme- 

 diately from indiscriminate indulgence in photographic chemicals, the 

 contents of stray medicine-bottles, and the best dried West India 

 chilies. But in an earlier period of progress, and specially in tropical 

 countries (where the Darwinians have now decided the human race 

 made its first debut upon this or any other stage), things were very 

 different indeed. Pungent and poisonous plants and fruits abounded 

 on every side. We have all of us in our youth been taken in by some 

 too cruelly waggish companion, who insisted upon making us eat the 

 bright, glossy leaves of the common English arum, which without look 

 pretty and juicy enough, but within are full of the concentrated essence 

 of pungency and profanity. Well, there are hundreds of such plants, 

 even in cold climates, to tempt the eyes and poison the veins of unsus- 

 pecting cattle or childish humanity. There is buttercup, so horribly 

 acrid that cows carefully avoid it in their closest-cropped pastures ; and 

 yet your cow is not usually a too dainty animal. There is aconite, 

 the deadly poison with which Dr. Lamson removed his troublesome 

 relatives. There is baneberry, whose very name sufficiently describes 

 its dangerous nature. There are horse-radish, and stinging rocket, 

 and biting wall-pepper, and still smarter water-pepper, and worm- 

 wood, and nightshade, and spurge, and hemlock, and half a dozen 

 other equally unpleasant weeds. All of these have acquired their pun- 

 gent and poisonous properties, just as nettles have acquired their sting, 

 and thistles their thorns, in order to prevent animals from browsing 

 upon them and destroying them. And the animals in turn have ac- 

 quired a very delicate sense of pungency on purpose to warn them be- 

 forehand of the existence of such dangerous and undesirable qualities 



