298 T. C. WHITE ON THE GUSTATORV ORGANS 



of the '' goblet cells " may be seen on each side of tlie papilla?, these, 

 however, represent only a portion of a belt of these gustatory bulbs, 

 which extends three or four deep entirely round each ridge, so that 

 we have an immense number of these goblet cells concerned in the 

 sense of taste. The aggregate number being estimated at 9,600 in 

 the sheep, 9,500 in the pig, and as many as 35,000 in the ox, we 

 can readily understand the extent of surface furnished by these cells, 

 and the important part they play as taste-bulbs. Before proceeding 

 to a description of the minute anatomy of these gustatory organs it 

 will be as well if we take a brief glance at some of the surrounding 

 tissues. Deep down below the connective tissue layer, and in the 

 loculi presented by the interlacing networkof muscular fibres, are the 

 lingual glands ; they exist in such abundance that any section taken 

 from the region immediately below these gustatory patches will 

 furnish an abundant supply of gland tissue. By tracing the course 

 of the numerous excretory ducts which emerge from the glands we 

 shall find that they open by a punctiform papilla at the bottom of 

 the fossa formed between two adjacent papillae, previously, on pass- 

 ing through the connective tissue layer, becoming distended just be- 

 fore they reach their point of exit. Scattered amongst the fibres of 

 the connective tissue the cut ends of several fine nerves may be seen ; 

 these are part of a plexus derived from the terminal branches of the 

 glossopharyngeus, which, after supplying the j^harynx, the tympanum 

 and eustachian tube, enters the tongue at its base, and becomes 

 divided into two branches, one going to the upper surface and mucous 

 membrane of the base, the other piercing the muscular structure, and 

 being distributed to the lateral portions of the tongue, and especially 

 Bupipljing the papillcB circumvallatce. Of the ultimate termination 

 of the nerve fibres we shall see more in examining the histological 

 characters of the taste bulbs. The epithelium covering the papillas 

 affords an admirable demonstration of the mode of its growth and 

 development, for where it adjoins the connective tissues of the 

 papilla it is globular for the first few layers, and afterwards becomes 

 flattened in various degrees till it ultimately assumes at the summit of 

 the papilla, the shape we are so familiar with in its squamous variety. 

 In describing the usual character of a circumvallate papilla as it 

 occurs in these gustatory patches, we observed that it was generally 

 formed by a central off-shoot of the connective tissue having a lateral 

 offshoot on either side of it ; these offshoots are merely the frame- 

 work designed to support the capillary vessels and nervous fibrilla} 

 which traverse its structure in a course at right angles to the axes of 



