370 J. M. D. OLMSTED 
cells actually degenerated and were completely destroyed on the 
spot. This, he thought, was probably brought about by the 
aid of the large wandering cells filled with fat globules. The 
protective ‘cover cells’ after showing signs of hypernutrition were 
expelled successively from the pore of the bud, the space being 
gradually filled with epithelial cells. Five days was sufficient 
for the completion of the process. 
The results of these experiments in cutting the ninth nerve 
were seriously questioned by Baginsky (93, ’94), and indeed he 
expressed doubt as to the reliability of any nerve-cutting experi- 
ments. He repeated Vintschgau’s operation in nine dogs, and 
in all of them he found that the taste buds remained unaltered 
even after eighty-seven days. Moreover, he stated that on the 
side of the tongue corresponding to the intact nerve, and even 
in normal dogs as well, he was able to find all the pathological 
changes in the taste buds which former authors had ascribed to 
the effect of cutting the glossopharyngeal nerve. Sandmeyer 
(95) undertook to settle this disputed question. He examined 
eighteen hundred sections from eighteen papillae of a normal 
dog’s tongue, and among all these he found only two furrows in 
which the taste buds were wanting. Nevertheless, twenty-one 
to twenty-seven days after cutting the ninth nerve on one side 
of a dog’s head, he was unable to find a single taste bud on that 
side of the tongue. A final set of experiments by Semi Meyer 
(96) completes the evidence. His description of the process is 
more extensive than that of the majority of the previous workers. 
He was able to notice changes within thirty hours after the 
operation, for at the foot of the bud an accumulation of epithelial 
cells began to obliterate the boundary of the bud. The epithelial 
cells then gradually pushed over into the bud so that by the 
seventh day the position of a bud could be told only by the 
oblique arrangement of a few cells which by that time showed 
no sharp differences from normal epithelial cells. By the twelfth 
day even these remains could not be seen, only ordinary epithelial 
cells being present throughout the entire epidermis. Because 
no signs of degeneration were to be observed during the whole 
process, he concluded that dedifferentiation had taken place. 
