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 

 *by 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 



Fig. 29. — A simple taste-bud 

 from a foliate papilla of the 

 rabbit. After Heidenhain, 1914, 

 Plate 19, Fig. 5. 



