ANATOMY OF THE GUSTATORY ORGAN 117 



human material and by Heidenhain (1914) in the rabbit. 



5. Cellular Composition of Taste-buds. The cells 

 composing the taste-buds are so arranged as to give each 

 bud somewhat the appearance of a flower bud or of a 

 leaf bud not yet unfolded. As has been stated already, 

 these end-organs were described in the skin of fishes as 

 early as 1851 by Leydig and were 

 subsequently simultaneously and 

 independently discovered in the 

 mouths of the higher vertebrates 

 toy Loven (1867) and by Schwalbe 

 (1867). The older workers 

 usually distinguished in the taste- 

 buds two classes of cells, taste- 

 cells, which were supposed to be 

 chiefly central in position, and 

 supporting cells mainly on the 

 exterior of the bud. 



Each taste-cell is an attenuated delicate structure 

 whose elongate nucleus forms a slight enlargement near 

 the middle of the cell-body (See Fig. 31a). Distal to 

 it narrows to a delicate process, the taste hair. This 

 hair either projects out of the pore into the exterior or 

 into the canal when that is present. Proximal to the 

 nucleus the taste-cell extends into the deeper part of the 

 bud there to terminate usually in a small rounded knob. 

 The number of taste-cells in a bud varies from two or 

 three to as many as the contained supporting cells, per- 

 haps ten or more. 



Beside the taste-cells proper Schwalbe (1867) de- 

 scribed what he believed to be a second form of receptive 



Fia. 29. A simple taste-bud 

 from a foliate papilla of the 

 rabbit. After Heidenhain, 1914, 

 Plate 19, Fig. 5. 



