252 Obser vations and Experiments on the Sense of Taste. 



breathing out. If it is tried with a solid thing, which you 

 chew, it is rather difficult to avoid checking the breath, and 

 turning the current, while you chew : however, I found the 

 same result in this case too. 



Some people may object, that the most striking smells, at 

 least of pleasant ones, viz. the smells of flowers, have little or 

 no corresponding taste belonging to them. And, vice versa, 

 that some excellent tastes are not accompanied by smells. In 

 the latter case, I believe it will not be found that they are 

 even powerful tastes, though they may be exquisite ones. 



We must remember, that when we taste a thing in the 

 mouth we warm it, and also melt or dissolve it, if it was solid 

 before, both which processes are known to be, in general, 

 means of drawing out the scent of bodies. It is not, therefore, 

 inconsistent with my supposition, that salt of lemon, for in- 

 stance, should be tasted when in the mouth, and yet have no 

 smell when dry in the bottle. It is not the same thing which 

 we compare in the two instances ; but dry salt in the one, and 

 a warm solution of it in the other. We also, in eating and 

 chewing, tritur?te, as it is called, that is, reduce to small par- 

 ticles, and also bruise and rub, I mean against the palate, the 

 substance eaten ; and that process, we know, is a great elicitor 

 of some sorts of smells, as we find when we bruise rosemary 

 leaves, and such like, in the hands, in order to smell them 

 better ; and, indeed, sometimes a leaf will have a strong smell 

 belonging to it, and yet it will not be at all perceived by smel- 

 ling the leaf, but only by rubbing it in the fingers. Some 

 smells, on the contrary, are not brought out by rubbing, as 

 the fragrant smell of a rose-flower, but rather are destroyed 

 by it, because it brings out other smells which stifle the fra- 

 grant one ; and so it seems to be no refutation of the opinion 

 which I am proposing, but merely what might be expected, 

 that if we were to chew a rose-petal, we should not perceive, 

 by the taste, so much of the sweet smell as we had perceived, 

 by the smell, before we put it into the mouth. 



Further, 1. We must recollect how large a surface it is 

 that the smell, when powerful, comes from, in many cases, 

 compared to the small portion which we can chew at once : — 

 a whole nosegay of violets ; a grove of oranges ; a bed of ca- 



