CHAPTER n. 



THE SENSE OF TASTE. 



While tlie organs of touch are spread more or less over 

 the whole surface, and those of sight and of hearing 

 may be, and in fact are, situated in very different parts 

 of the body in different animals, the sense of taste is 

 naturally confined to the mouth or its immediate 

 neighbourhood. 



In the case of Man, it resides especially in the tip, 

 the edges of the upper surface, and the back part of the 

 tongue, and (probably) the inferior portion of the soft 

 palate. The actual mode of termination of the nerves 

 of taste has, however, only recently been discovered. 



Loven and Schwalbe detected, independently and 

 almost simultaneously, in the epithelium of the papillae 

 of the tongue, many small budlike groups of cells (Fig. 

 21) which are probably connected with the ultimate 

 fibres of the glosso-pharyngeal nerves. These have 

 been supposed to be the special seats of the sense of 

 taste, and thence ternaed " taste-buds ; " they are in 

 man shaped like a flask, in some other animals they are 

 more slender. In the dog, they are -072 of a millimeter 

 in length, and "03 in breadth. 



In the pig the number is estimated at 9500 ; in the 

 sheep, at 96G0 ; in the rabbit, at 1500 ; in the cow, at 



