368 



THE BODY AT WORK 



effect of the jam upon the person who consumed it was truly 

 humorous. First a suspicion of tartness, then its adequate 

 suppression, followed by nauseating sweetness. The sense- 

 organs which subserve the sense of taste are clusters of fusiform 

 epithelial cells, collected in " taste-bulbs " (Fig. 26). Each 

 gustatory cell bears a minute bristle, which projects through 



FIG. 26. HIGHLY MAGNIFIED SECTION THROUGH THE WALL OP A CIRCUMVALLATE PAPILLA OF 

 THE TONGUE, SHOWING Two TASTE-BULBS. 



These sense-organs are groups of elongated epithelial cells, set vertically to the surface. Their 

 cells are of two kinds the one fusiform, slender, bearing each a bristle-like process which 

 projects through a minute pore left between the superficial cells of the general epithelium ; 

 the other thicker and wedge-shaped. Nerve-fibres are connected with the fusiform cells. 



the pore left by the cells of the surrounding epithelium which 

 constitute a globular case for the bulb. As in the nose, eye, 

 and ear, a second thicker variety of epithelial cell is also present. 

 The nerve-fibres of the taste-bulbs are not, as in the olfactory 

 membrane, processes of their cells, but branches of the fifth 

 nerve which ramify amongst them. On the back of the tongue 

 taste-bulbs are much more numerous than elsewhere. They are 



