532 TASTE. 



apex has a more acute taste than the rest of the circumference. 

 These gentlemen remark that the seats of taste, as ascertained by 

 them, are the most favourably placed for the exercise of the sense. 

 Substances have the apex of the tongue applied to them as soon 

 as they are moistened by the lips ; the softer portions fall during 

 mastication, some within the alveolar arch in contact with the cir- 

 cumference of the tongue, and others without it, but these are im- 

 mediately pressed over to the circumference of the tongue by the 

 cheeks; while the food is compressed between the dorsum of the 

 tongue and hard palate, going through a kind of mastication for 

 which the firmness and moderate sensibility of the dorsum render 

 it peculiarly fit, the fluid portions are expressed and run over to 

 the circumference; and, finally, the bolus, when properly moistened 

 iand fit for deglutition, is pressed between the base of the tongue 

 and the central gustatory space in the soft palate. 



" The chief organ of taste is the tongue d , agile, extremely 

 ready, changeable in form ; in its remarkably fleshy nature, not 

 unlike the heart ; and endowed with far more excitability than any 

 other voluntary muscle. 6 



" Its integuments resemble the skin. They are, an epithelium, 

 performing the office of cuticle; the reticulurn Malpighianum f ; 

 and a papillary membrane, but little different from the corium. 



" The integuments of the tongue differ from the skin chiefly 

 in these respects in the epithelium being moistened, not by the 

 oily fluid of the skin, but by a mucus which proceeds from the 

 foramen caecum of Meibomiuss and the rest of the glandular ex- 

 pansion of Morgagni h , and, secondly, in the conformation of 

 the papillae, which are commonly divided into petiolated, obtuse, 

 and conical. 1 The first are in very small number and situated in 



d " Sbmmerring, Icones Organorum Humanorum Gustus. Francof. 1808. 

 ol." 



e " This fact, contrary to the opinion of others, I have proved by dissection 

 of living animals, and by pathological observation. Specimsn Historic NaturaKs 

 ex auctoribus classicis ittustratee. Gotting. 1816. 4to. p. 4. sqq." 



f " In dogs and sheep with variegated skin, I have commonly found the reti- 

 culum of the tongue and fauces also variegated.'* 



8 "Consult Just. Schrauer, Observat. et Histor. from Harvey's book De Gene- 

 rations AnimaUum. p. 18*V' 



h " Morgagni, Adversar. Anat. Prima. Tab. 1." 



1 " Ruysch, Thesaur. Anat. I. tab. iv. fig. 6. 



B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Acad. 1. i. tab. 1. fig. 6 11." 



