REPORT OF THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 19 
relatively meaningless, because imperfectly understood, inco- 
ordinated. In our third type of method, on the other hand, it is 
easier to correlate the data as we go along, the synthesis accom- 
panies the analysis, and the possibility of experimental control 
should keep the student im closer touch with his guiding facts and 
discourage general speculation. 
As a concrete illustration of the practical method of applying 
the doctrine of nerve components in the functional analysis of the 
nervous system, we may summarize briefly the progress which 
has been made up to date in the study of the gustatory system. 
In man, as is well known, the sense of taste is not very 
highly developed. The peripheral organs, or taste buds, are situ- 
ated chiefly on the tongue, those near its base innervated by the 
glossopharyngeal nerve, and those near the tip probably by the 
chorda tympani of the facial nerve. But the gustatory pathway 
toward the brain is very imperfectly understood and many points 
are still in controversy, while the central path is almost wholly 
unknown, 
But in certaim fishes, such as the carp and cat fish, this 
system of sense organs is enormously exaggerated. Taste buds 
‘are found, not only in the mouth, but all over the outer skin and 
barblets. Direct experiment shows that these fishes actually do 
taste with these superficial sense organs—unlike some people, their 
taste is not all in their mouth. 
The experiments made on the cat fish (Ameiurus) show that 
these fishes seek their food by feeling for it with the barblets and 
by means of them they discriminate between edible and non-edible 
substances, that they habitually use both the sense of touch and 
the sense of taste for the purpose and that they can be taught to 
discriminate between tactile and gustatory stimuli applied to the 
skin and will turn and snap up savory substances and reject objects 
which feel like them but are devoid of taste. 
The exact distribution of the gustatory sense organs has been 
determined and their nerves traced back to the brain. We get the 
gustatory reaction from the skin as described above in fishes 
which possess these cutaneous sense organs, and the reaction is not 
obtained from fishes which do not possess such sense organs and 
nerves, 
All of these cutaneous sense organs are innervated from a 
single nerve, the sensory root of the facial (corresponding to 
the portio intermedia of human anatomy), which is the biggest 
nerve in the body. The center in which this nerve terminates 
in the medulla oblongata is about as big as the entire forebrain, 
