Observations and Experiments on the Sense of Taste. 247 



nose shut for an hour or more, been quite free from the very 

 disgusting taste ordinarily experienced from it. And, as to 

 magnesia, though part of the disagreeableness of it is the 

 clammy feel, yet I have found, in this case also, that, with the 

 nose stopped, that inconvenience was by no means great ; 

 owing to its not being then accompanied by the mawkish sick- 

 ly taste which magnesia has, and which, immediately on remov- 

 ing the pressure on the nose, began to be perceived. I ob- 

 served the same thing as to sugar, which is another instance 

 given by the reviewer : he thinks you can taste it as well with 

 the nose stopped. This is not the fact. All that remains, 

 when you stop the nose, is the sort of languid feel, of dissolv- 

 ing as it were, which it produces in the mouth, and which has 

 some resemblance to the feel which one has in the same parts 

 when rapidly warmed after they have been exposed to hard 

 frost, and also to the feeling of languor in the nerves which 

 is connected with a liability to toothache, and often felt near 

 the time of the actual pain. 



I then considered, that, if my supposition was true, the reason 

 why we do not taste when the nose is stopped, or the breath re- 

 tained, must be, that in that state, though the faculty of smel- 

 ling is not at all diminished by it, there is wanting a current 

 of air, to carry the air which is the vehicle or seat of smell, 

 from the mouth into the nose. For, though it is true, that 

 where there is a large space of free air, a smell may diffuse 

 itself, and even strongly, though there is no perceivable current 

 or motion in the air ; yet even there it would always strike the 

 sense much more strongly if borne on a current of air, setting 

 towards the organ of smelling ; and, besides, in a large space 

 of air, when undisturbed from without, there is probably 

 more motion than there is in a small one when equally un- 

 disturbed from without. Then, if this supposition be true, it 

 would follow, that we might expect to find that we should 

 taste as little while the breath is drawing in through the nose, 

 as while there is no breath at all, either drawing in or out, 

 since no current, from the place when the substance to be 

 tasted is, would then Bet towards the organ of smell ; and 

 even less if possible, since the current will rather set the con- 

 trary way; and accordingly I found thatit was so. Put into the 



