328 



THE TONGUE. 



ovoidal or flask-shaped bodies, composed of modified epithelium cells 

 and believed to be special organs of taste. These taste-duds, as they have 

 been termed, are comparable in form and structure to the leaf-buds of a 

 plant (fig._228)._ By their bases they are in contact with the corium, 

 while their apices, which appear as round openings or pores when 

 viewed from the surface, emerge between the ordinary epithelium cells. 

 The latter are flattened around the taste-buds, enclosing them in a sort 

 of nest. _ The taste-buds themselves may be described as consisting 

 of a cortical and a central part. . The cells composing the cortical part 

 are long and flattened with tapering ends (fig. 229 c), and are in contact 

 by their edges, extending from base to apex of the organ (fig. 228) ; 

 they are disposed in more than one layer, and enclose the central part 

 like the external scales of a leaf-bud. The enclosed or central cells 

 (fig. 229 a), on the other hand are not flattened but spindle-shaped. 



Fig. 229. 



Fig. 229.— Various Cells from TASTE-Bro op Rabbit. 600 Diameters (Engelmann). 

 a, Four cells from central part ; h, two cortical cells, and one central cell, in con- 

 nection ; c, three cells from cortical part. 



having an enlargement near the middle where the nucleus is situated, 

 and being prolonged at each end by a process, one of which extends 

 upwards towards the apex of the taste-bud, and is surmounted by 

 an excessively fine styliform extremity which projects at the orifice, 

 whilst the other, which is commonly more slender and sometimes divided 

 or branched at its extremity, passes down into tlie corium of the 

 mucous membrane, and is described as being connected with a plexus of 

 fine nervous fibrils found in this situation. The similarity of these 

 central or (justatory cells with the well-known olfactory cells of Max 

 Schultze will be at once apparent. 



Tlie taste-buds were discovered by Loven and Schwalbe. independently of each 

 other.* They have now been found on the sides (but never on the upper sm-f ace) 

 of the papillse vallataj of a great number of animals, and are seen also on some 

 of the fungiform papillas to be immediately described. Their structiu-e is most 

 readily studied in the rabbit and hare, for in these animals there is found at each 

 side of the base of the tongue an oval laminated stiaictm-e, the so-called i)ap\lla 

 follata, the laminte composing which contain in the epithelium of their opposed 

 sm-faces great numbers of those bodies. A small area, situate just in front of the 

 anterior pillar of the fauces, of variable appearance, but usually with five longi- 



* Loven, Schwalbe, Arch. f. mikr. Anat, 1867, and Arch. f. mikr. Anat. 1868 ; 

 Engelmann, in Strieker's Handbook ; Krause, Giittinger Nacluichten, 1870. According 

 to Krause the distribution of the taste-buds follows that of the glosso-pharyngeal nerve. 



