300 T. C. WHITE ON THE GUSTATORY ORGANS 



taclied will afford an exiDlaiiation of why these bodies have been 

 called " bulbs." On looking down upon the uncovered tops of them 

 they present the appearance of the unopened buds of a flower ; by 

 breaking up this bud we can resolve it into its primary elements — an 

 illustration of this I have endeavoured to give in Fig. 2. When 

 such an isolated gustatory bulb is submitted to this examination, we 

 shall find it composed of from fifteen to thirty long narrow cells of 

 a granular texture, each containing a large nucleus ; these cells 

 stand closely compressed round the axis of the bud, the outermost 

 being more concentrically curved than the rows interior to them. 



The cells of the innermost layer are of a different character 

 to any of the preceding description, being highly organised and 

 specially differentiated, in all probability they may be regarded as 

 continuous with the terminal fibres of the glossopharyngeus, and are 

 consequently the taste nerves of these gustatory cells. There is one 

 feature connected with the histology of these cells to which attention 

 should be directed. In examining a thin section of the gustatory 

 organ as shown in Fig. 1, a number of the flasks may be 

 seen as if perforating the epithelial layer of the lateral surface of the 

 papilla, and although this fact is difficult to demonstrate in most 

 sections on account of their thickness, yet in such pieces as are cut 

 so extremely thin that they break up and resist all endeavours to 

 mount them permanently, it is in these pieces that we can see that 

 the innermost layers of the bulb really pierce the gustatory pore and 

 protrude from its orifice a short and very fine hair-like process. 



A comparative examination of these organs in other animals, es - 

 pecially in the frog, furnishes us with such a constant recurrence of 

 this histological element that we are justified in considering these 

 hairs as important factors in the function of taste. 



I have been induced to bring this subject before you this evening 

 from having seen with much pleasure the interest with which sections 

 of these organs have been examined by members at some of our 

 conversational meetings, when I have placed some under my micro- 

 scope, and I can assure those who care to work out this subject still 

 further that there are enough difficulties to be overcome to stimulate 

 the determination of the most determined amongst us, not to speak 

 of the interest and advantages attendant on following out the com- 

 parative histology of the organs of taste in other departments of 

 animal life. Indeed it seems that fresh interest awakens in the 

 subject with every step we take. Who, for instance, would imagine 



