SALIVARY GLANDS. 141 



touch so gradually fine, as if touch itself were passing into taste, as 

 the food is passing to the tongue. It is next transmitted to the teeth 

 arranged in manifest row and series. What is received by the front 

 or incisor teeth, is delicately treated, or minced, and the fine things 

 set free go at once to the tip of the tongue, which is waiting close 

 behind to receive tljem. At the sides of the mouth the molar teeth 

 stand ready to grind their portion, and their milling surfaces become 

 more and more severe and powerful from before to behind; they also 

 are a distinct series of structures, and involve a series of operations; 

 for every new tool has a new action. Intermediate between the 

 mincing and grinding teeth are the canine, so large in carnivorous 

 animals, which both thrust and cut the food, and submit it to the 

 molar action. It is good to believe, that the juices separated by 

 the different teeth go primarily to the part of the tongue alongside 

 those teeth, and are especially to the taste of that part; for the neigh- 

 borliness of the body is not useless but functional. 



All this time the food has not been merely reduced, and its juices 

 set free, but animalized also ; and this, from the very porches of the 

 mouth. Even before the first nutrient fluids are expressed from 

 it, a living fluid, the saliva, has come out of the body to re- 

 ceive them. There is a series cf salivary glands running from the 

 lips throughout the tube. The sight of the food, the action of mas- 

 tication, the pleasantness of the morsels, and the suctorial power of 

 the tongue, draw out the saliva from the respective glands in the 

 mouth, as it is wanted to moisten the organs, and to penetrate and 

 dissolve the food. Especially do the emotions call out the attentive 

 saliva, and the mouth waters with appetency. Sight and fancy 

 wherewith it is full, and which it obeys in the first place, have fed 

 it with anticipatory fire, and schooled it for its duties. Moreover 

 the saliva is no menial, but the immediate product of the blood pro- 

 ceeding to the head and the organs of the senses, and if not sum- 

 moned into the mouth, goes its course towards the brain; and being 

 thus descended from the blood, and akin to the blood, it is clearly 

 an excellent medium between the blood and the new food, whose 

 finest portions, under its guidance, are themselves to be educated 

 into blood. The expressed food is the new guest which is to be in- 

 augurated into the duties of the household; the blood is the royal 



