ON THE SENSES. 



3.— THE SENSE OF TASTE 



Translated by C. A. Alexander for the Smithsonian Institution from the German periodical 

 " Aus der Natur, n. s. w." — Leipzig. 



" De gustihus non est disputandum " is an old and well known commonplace, 

 to which, while prefixing it as a motto, we might give a rendering somewhat 

 different from the usual one, and say : " About taste there is little to be said." 

 No doubt upon such a theme many pages might be easily filled, were Ave minded 

 to enter the arena of aesthetics and to pursue the chameleon-like idea into all its 

 ramifications ; but a sober exposition of the physiological conditions of tlie sense 

 is so unpromising a subject that we could not help fearing an exposure of the 

 poverty of science, if we did not here, as in our consideration of the sense of 

 smell, propose rather to clear up some of the inveterate errors prevalent among 

 the uninformed than to furnish as thorough an investigation as might be desira- 

 ble. We reckon herein but little on the interest of the gourmands who may 

 suppose that physiology can be advanced by their manifold experiences in re- 

 gard to this their favorite sense, and who will, therefore, learn with the deeper 

 indignation that physiology has not only not known how to profit by their re- 

 searches, but even regards them as the chief sources of the common and wide- 

 spread errors just alluded to. The fleshy and wonderful member which, as such 

 persons would seem to opine, has been placed at the very inlet of the alimentary 

 canal with scarcely any other view than to preside over giistatory pleasures, 

 offers to our keenest inquiries just as profound an enigma as the organ of smell. 

 Very far are we from being able to explain how that specific sensation, which, 

 without any further power of description, we denominate taste, arises ; what is 

 the essential difference between a sensation of sweet and sour ; what the real 

 principle which resides in any substance so as to occasion our applying to it one 

 or the other epithet, to say nothing of any possible explication, by the aid of 

 science, of the different shadings, as it Avere, of sapidity cognizable by a nice 

 palate, or of the jargon by which we attempt to characterize them. Here com- 

 mon nerve fibres, between which and those of other organs of sense the closest 

 inspection fails to detect the least difference, serve to interpret to the sensorium, 

 by means of their extremities in the mucous coat of the tongue, the endless A^a- 

 riety of so-called flavors of sapid substances ; but we seek in vain, either at the 

 outer or inner extremities of these conducting fibres, for any specific apparatus 

 which might enlighten us as to their operations. However indispensable it be, 

 as Avas shoAvn in our introductory discussion on the sense of feeling, to suppose 

 such an apparatus, yet has all endeavor hitherto to detect it by means of the 

 microscope been baffled ; nor, indeed, in the present state of knowledge, were 

 successful research to disclose to us the ends of the nerves of taste provided 

 with minute vesicles or filaments, or any other elementary form, should we un- 

 derstand them any more than we do the already discoA^ered cells at the cerebral 

 termination of all nerves or the small bulbs at the outer extremity of the nerves 



