100 



times coin])ared with that needed in the absence of sugai* ; 4.034 grams of 

 salt was about as effective as 0.8 grams of sugar. In other words, if the 

 mind is intent ou noticing sourness, even large quantities of sugar do not 

 seriously interfere. In the usual eating of sweet and sour food, however, 

 the mind is, as it were, engrossed ^ith the sensation of sweetness and ren- 

 dered correspondingly loss sensitive to other tastes. 



In al! probability" any other po^■^•erful taste would be as effective in hid- 

 ing sourness as sweetness is, but no other taste in concentrated form is so 

 generally agreeable as sweetness. The sourness of lemonade would cer- 

 tainly be as thoroughly masked by highly salting it as by the addition of 

 sugar : the result would not, however, be as agreeable to the majority of 

 lemonade drinkers, probably. 



In conclusion, brief reference niiglit be made to a few experiments on 

 the effect of sugar on bitterness, as sweetness and bitterness are commonly 

 considered to be mutually exclusive terms — a thing can not be both sweet 

 and bitter, though it can be at once sweet and sour. The experiments wei-e 

 made by the writer \\ ith mixtures of solutions of sugar and of quinine, but 

 it was found impossible to obtain any numerical results, for, no matter 

 what the proportion within very \^-ide limits, the sensation of sweetness 

 preceded that of bitterness, the mixture tasting sweet at the first moment 

 and then bitter, the latter sensation being very lasting. 



The use of sugar, then, to render sourness less intense, is based ou a 

 physiological, not on any chemical effect; the nerves of taste are less sen- 

 sitive to one kind of taste in the presence of another, though the mind by 

 concentration can largely overcome this obscuring effect. 



