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On the Gustatory Organs op the Rabbit's Toxgue. 

 By T. Charters White, M.R.C.S., F.L.S., &c., (President). 

 {Read April 22nd). 

 Plate XXII. 



Judging by the exhibits shown here and at other Microscopical 

 Societies one is led to imagine that Histology has been relegated by 

 the microscojoical observer to the domain of Medical Science as 

 something peculiarly ajopropriate to that dejDartment of study, and 

 consequently not appertaining to any student outside the pale of an 

 anatomical school. It is a difficult matter to disabuse that mind 

 which has once absorbed an error, but by perseverance in our en- 

 deavours to awaken an interest in this branch of study we may hope 

 in time that those who now debar themselves erroneously from one 

 of the most interesting pursuits in microscopical investigation will 

 awake to the pleasures they now put aside, and will, by taking up 

 the study of animal histology, find in the observation of the growth 

 and development of the wonderful structures with which the animal 

 frame is constructed, an extension of their microscopical enjoyments. 

 It is with the view of showing what interesting work awaits the 

 students of histology, that I have chosen for a short communication 

 this evening, a subject which, to me, for months past, has been one 

 of untiring interest, viz., the histology of the Gustatory Organs of 

 the Rabbit's Tongue. This is neither the time nor place to enter 

 into the physiology of the sense of taste, and its relation to these 

 bodies ; it has been acknowledged by all leading physiologists that 

 these organs are connected with the gustatory function, and as those 

 nerves to which are allotted the power of discrimination between 

 different flavours, are principally distributed to the region of these 

 bodies, and undoubtedly are connected with them, we may accept 

 them as performing the function of taste, and enter into an examina- 

 tion of the histological elements which enter into their formation. 



If we examine the dorsum or upper surface of the tongue of a 

 rabbit or hare, wc shall notice first that it is divided into two por- 



