FOOD AND FEEDING. 473 



essence of pepper, vinegar, or beef-tea from a glass syringe upon the 

 dry surface, not unnaturally arrive at the conclusion that master has 

 gone stark-mad, and that, in their private opinion, it's the microscope 

 and the skeleton as has done it. 



Above all things, we don't want to be flayed alive. So the kinds 

 of tastes discriminated by the tip of the tongue are the pungent, like 

 pepper, cayenne, and mustard ; the astringent, like borax and alum ; 

 the alkaline, like soda and potash ; the acid, like vinegar and green 

 fruit ; and the saline, like salt and ammonia. Almost all the bodies 

 likely to give rise to such tastes (or, more correctly, sensations of touch 

 in the tongue) are obviously unwholesome and destructive in their 

 character, at least when taken in large quantities. Nobody wishes to 

 drink nitric acid by the quart. The first business of this part of the 

 tongue is, therefore, to warn us emphatically against caustic substances 

 and corrosive acids — against vitriol and kerosene, spirits of wine and 

 ether, capsicums and burning leaves or roots, such as those of the com- 

 mon English lords-and-ladies. Things of this sort are immediately de- 

 structive to the very tissues of the tongue and palate ; if taken incau- 

 tiously in too large doses, they burn the skin off the roof of the mouth ; 

 and when swallowed they play havoc, of course, with our internal 

 arrangements. It is highly advisable, therefore, to have an immediate 

 warning of these extremely dangerous substances, at the very outset of 

 our feeding apparatus. 



This kind of taste hardly differs from touch or burning. The sen- 

 sibility of the tip of the tongue is only a very slight modification of 

 the sensibility possessed by the skin generally, and especially by the 

 inner folds overall delicate parts of the body. We all know that com- 

 mon caustic burns us wherever it touches ; and it burns the tongue, 

 only in a somewhat more marked manner. Nitric or sulphuric acid 

 attacks the fingers each after its own kind. A mustard-plaster makes 

 us tingle almost immediately ; and the action of mustard on the tongue 

 hardly differs, except in being more instantaneous and more discrimina- 

 tive. Cantharides work in just the same way. If you cut a red pepper 

 in two and rub it on your neck it will sting just as it does when put 

 into soup (this experiment, however, is best tried upon one's younger 

 brother ; if made personally, it hardly repays the trouble and annoy- 

 ance). Even vinegar and other acids, rubbed into the skin, are followed 

 by a slight tingling ; while the effect of brandy, applied, say, to the 

 arras, is gently stimulating and pleasurable, somewhat in the same way 

 as when normally swallowed in conjunction with the habitual seltzer. 

 In short, most things which give rise to distinct tastes when applied to 

 the tip of the tongue give rise to fainter sensations when applied to 

 the skin generally. And one hardly needs to be reminded that pepper 

 or vinegar placed (accidentally as a rule) on the inner surface of the 

 eyelids produces a very distinct and unpleasant smart. 



The fact is, the liability to be chemically affected by pungent or 



