AUTHOR’S ABSTRACT OF THIS PAPER ISSUED 
BY THE BIBLIOGRAPHIG SERVICE, APRIL 17 
TASTE FIBERS AND THE CHORDA TYMPANI 
NERVE 
J. M. D. OLMSTED 
Department of Physiology, University of Toronto 
ONE FIGURE 
The presence of taste fibers in the chorda tympani nerve has 
been demonstrated in two ways: first, by loss of the sense of taste 
in the anterior part of the tongue (one-third to four-fifths) 
after injury to or severance of this nerve (Sheldon, ’09, for 
literature to that date; also Sabotky, ’18) and, second, there is a 
single record where sensations of taste, sweet, sour, and bitter, 
were aroused in a human subject by the direct stimulation of 
the chorda tympani (Blau, ’78). 
There is a third method of investigation, the results of which 
can leave no doubt that taste fibers from the anterior part of the 
tongue leave the lingual nerve at its junction with the chorda 
tympani and pass toward the brain through the latter nerve. 
Vintschgau and Hoénigschmied (’76) showed that taste buds disap- 
pear from the circumvallate papillae on the tongue of the dog 
after severing the glossopharyngeal nerve. I have shown that 
this is also true for the fungiform papillae on the anterior part of 
the tongue of the dog when the lingual nerve is cut (Olmsted, 
21). The taste buds disintegrate and are removed by the phago- 
cytic action of leucocytes within eight days after cutting the 
nerves. This degeneration of the taste buds is not due to injuries 
consequent upon operation, since the lingual nerve may be dis- 
closed, separated from the other tissues, and handled in exactly 
the same manner as in operations where this nerve was cut, 
and yet no changes will occur in the taste buds. Likewise the 
cutting of other branches of the lingual nerve which do not pass 
to the tongue, such as those to the submaxillary gland, is unac- . 
companied by changes in the taste buds. Hence this disappear- 
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