136 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1666. 



This author proposing to himself to discover both the principal organ of 

 taste and the nature of its object, begins with the latter, and examines first, 

 what is taste? He judges that it is caused by nothing but salts, which being 

 variously figured, affect the tongue variously ; alleging this for his chief reason, 

 that the salt which is extracted by chemists out of any mixt body whatever 

 carries away with it all its taste. He adds that the teeth in grinding the food 

 serve much to extract this salt; and that the teeth are so necessary for prepar- 

 ing the aliment, that certain animals which seem to have none have them in 

 their stomach ; that nature has put at the entry of the palate of those that 

 are altogether destitute of them certain moveable inequalities, which are to 

 them instead of teeth. -}- 



But then, secondly, concerning the organ of taste he is of opinion, that it is 

 neither the flesh, nor the tongue, nor the glandules called amygdalinae, but 

 those little eminences (papillae) that are found upon the tongue of all animals. 

 He observes, 



1 . That from the middle of the tongue to the root, as also towards the tip, 

 there are found innumerable little eminences called papillae, but from the tip 

 of the tongue unto the string there are observed none at all. 



2. He hath found by experiment that if you put sal ammoniac upon the places 

 of the tongue, where those eminences are not, you will have no taste ; but 

 that you will perceive a taste as soon as you put any of that salt upon those 

 parts of the tongue, where those eminences or papillae are met with. He there- 

 fore infers that those eminences are the principal organ of taste. 



logic, philosophy, physic, and anatomy, in that celebrated university. He was afterwards appointed 

 physician to Cosmo III. but through the intrigues of his rivals he lost the favour and confidence of that 

 prince ; and being stigmatized as an enemy to religion, he experienced much uneasiness during his 

 latter days, living in constant dread of popular fuiy. He published several medical and anatomical 

 treatises, viz. De Urinis etPulsibus; De Sanguinis Missionej De Febribusj De Morbis Capitis et 

 Pectoris, &c. These have been collected into one 4to, volume, which has often been reprinted. 

 Bellini was a man of great learning and very considerable talents, but was too fond of resorting to 

 mechanical and mathematical principles for explaining the natural and morbid phaenomena of the hu- 

 man body. He died at Florence in 1703, being 6'0 years of age. 



+ The teeth serve two purposes, viz. for seizing the food, as in animals of prey, and for mastica- 

 tion, in which operation the saliva becomes mixed with the food. In fishes the teeth are merely instru- 

 ments of prehension or seizure, and are not at all subservient to the preparation of tlieir food, the 

 solvent power of tlie gastric juice not requiring in them any such aid. The assertion tliat certain ani- 

 mals have teeth in tlieir stomach is absolutely false. The mechanical explanation here given of the 

 sense of tasting is such as might be expected from one of tlie founders of the iatromathematical sect. 

 It was long received, but is now justly discarded. Salts make the greatest impression upon tlie pa- 

 pillae of the tongue, i. e. are the most sapid of all substances, not in consequence of tlieir peculiar 

 configuration, but of their ready and perfect solubility. 



