78 tobacco: its use and abuse. 



it seems consJItent to expect to find the same arrange- 

 ment or distribntion in the nerves of tasting. In Kol- 

 liker's able work on human histology, he describes the 

 various tissues of the tongue as being very minute and 

 delicate ; but he says : " I have been unable to make 

 out, with certainty, how the nerves terminate ; yet every- 

 thing appeared to indicate the existence of loops — not, 

 however, in the simple papillae, but at their base." 

 Kolliker quotes " Remark," who states that " the terminal 

 branches of the glosso-pharyngeal and gustatory nerves 

 form a very dense plexus before entering the papillae." 

 The largest animals examined were the calf and sheep. 

 It would appear necessary to examine the tongues of the 

 horse and elephant, and the foetal tongue, like the foetal 

 brain, according to Tiedemann. 



From the delicate texture of the tongue, must arise 

 the difficulty of arresting disease in it, especially malig- 

 nant ulceration, and when the constitution is poisoned 

 with tobacco, for then it seems to spread from the one 

 end to the other with electric rapidity. 



95. Since the publication of the preceding observa- 

 tions by Sir A. Cooper, Professor Syme has excised the 

 entire tongue in two cases, both of which were followed 

 by pyaemia and death. One would have thought, that 

 the frequency of so fatal an affection as pysemia super- 

 vening on the perineal section, would have made any 

 surgeon acquainted with pathology, pause, before excising 

 the tongue, which is equally vascular as the corpus spon- 

 giosum urethrae, and much nearer the lungs, wherein 

 pyaemia develops itself. But as John Bell says, ^' Ope- 

 rations have come at last to represent the whole science." 



