Taste bud

“ In reality, there are but four primitive and radical tastes—sweet, sour, salt, and bitter. A very simple experiment will convince us of this fact. If we keep the nostrils closed when tasting a certain number of sapid substances, so as to neutralize the sense of smell, the taste perceived is invariably reduced to one of the four simple savors we have just named. Then, whenever the pituitary membrane is out of order, the taste of food is no longer the same; the tongue distinguishes nothing but sweet, sour, salt, or bitter. ”

“ For here at once they not only with diversity of objects recreate the sight, but with many of the same do also please the smell, and with most contribute delights to the taste; also they flatter and excite the appetite, especially with the multitudes of oranges and lemons here growing, both sweet and sour, and those that participate of both tastes, and are only pleasantly tartish. ”

“ Chemical flavor which affects the olfactory organ or the taste buds serves a useful purpose at times in stimulating the flow of digestive secretions in anticipation of a meal and at times it serves a harmful purpose in causing us to overeat. ”

“ One conclusion seems generally supported by the investigations of the distribution of taste, namely, that one cannot assert positively that wherever tastes have been definitely aroused there taste organs will be discoverable, or the converse of this, that wherever taste buds are found there taste sensations can always be aroused. ”

“ Reaction Time to Taste Stimuli One fact, however, seems to be fairly clear from experiment, although it would by no means be suspected from casual observation, namely, that the various taste qualities are not equally prompt in the time required for them to appear after the application of the stimulus. Salt and sweet come rather quickly as compared with sour and bitter, the order of speed being salt, sweet, sour, bitter. How much this may depend merely on such differences as may exist in the structure and location of the various taste buds it is impossible to say. ”

“ But you will say at once, we taste many things that are neither sweet, sour, salt, nor bitter; there must be many more than four tastes. There are not. What we commonly call tastes are really smells. We smell things that are in the mouth, and think we taste them.
If you don’t believe this, simply hold your nose. It is an old trick to get somebody to close his nose tightly, and then while all sense of smell is thus cut off, to bring into the room a piece of raw onion, put it in the victim’s mouth, and ask him to guess what it is. ”

“ There is an inseparable connection between the two senses of smell and taste, for when anosmia or loss of the sense of smell occurs, all taste, except for bitterness, sweetness, sourness, and saltness, is completely lost, so far as ideas of flavour, &c., are concerned. ”

“ The numerous "tastes" of every-day life, though found on analysis to be compounded of taste, smell, touch, pain, temperature and muscle sensations, have the effect of units. The taste of lemonade, for example, compounded of sweet, sour, cold and lemon odor, has the effect of a single characteristic sensation. It can be analyzed, but it ordinarily appears as a unit. ”

“ Certain taste cells located near the back of the tongue are stimulated only by a bitter taste. Sweet substances are perceived by cells near the tip of the tongue, sour substances along the sides, and salt about equally all over the surface. A substance must be dissolved in fluid in order to be tasted. Many things which we believe we taste are in reality perceived by the sense of smell. Such are spicy sauces and flavors of meats and vegetables. ”

“ We take sugar with our tea, our coffee, our chocolate, our strawberries, our grapefruit, and our lemon juice, and realize that it to some degree counteracts or neutralizes the bitter or the sour taste of these foods in their original form. “Salt corrects the sweetness of an over-ripe melon.” In our salad dressings, sauces, gravies, relishes, and bitters we find the means of reënforcing or toning down the taste qualities to suit our own particular fancy. ”

“ As for taste, when we bear in mind the excesses of unmitigated sugar which delight a youthful palate, “it is surely no very cynical asperity” to think taste a character of the maturer growth. Smell and hearing are perhaps more developed ”

“ When our sense of taste is not benumbed or destroyed by harmful accompaniments we are in a condition to keenly enjoy the thousands of fine, delicate flavors that our loving Father has placed in wholesome foods.
Among the stronger flavors for those who do not at once enjoy the delicate ones, we have sage, savory, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, bay leaf, garlic, onion, chives and leeks.
Then come celery salt and seed, leaves and stalks; lemon thyme, shallots, spearmint, parsley, basil and tarragon.
The flavors of carrots, turnips, cabbage and spinach have their place. ”

“ Flavor is something more than taste. It is in reality a mixed sensation, in which smell and taste are both concerned, as is shown by the common observation that one suffering from a cold in the head, which blunts his sense of smell, loses the proper flavor of his food. So if a person be blindfolded, and the nose pinched, he will be unable to distinguish between an apple and an onion, if one be rubbed on the tongue after the other. As soon as the nostrils are opened the difference is at once perceived. ”

“ The substance tasted must be in solution, and come in contact with the nerve endings. The action of the stimulus is chemical.
The sense of taste recognizes the four qualities of sour, sweet, salt, and bitter. Many of the qualities which we improperly call tastes are in reality a complex of taste, smell, touch, and temperature. Smell contributes so largely to the sense of taste that many articles of food become "tasteless" when we have a catarrh, and many nauseating doses of medicine can be taken without discomfort if the nose is held. ”

“ The lowest form of special sense is taste, which is closely allied to nutrition. Taste perceives the phase of assimilation of the object, which is commencing with the mouth. The individuality of the object is attacked and it gives way, its organic product or inorganic aggregate suffering dissolution—taste perceives the dissolution. Substances that do not yield to the attack [Pg 155] of the juices of the mouth have no taste. Glass and gold have little taste as compared with salt or sugar. ”

“ But our inadequate control over the disposition of the sapid substance and the complicated chemical relation which exists between various substances and between some substances and the natural juices secreted in the vicinity of the taste organ makes it impossible to assert with certainty either the presence or the absence of after sensations of taste. ”

“ But this does not in the least perplex our reasoning; because we distinguish to the last the acquired from the natural relish. In describing the taste of an unknown fruit, you would scarcely say that it had a sweet and pleasant flavour like tobacco, opium, or garlic, although you spoke to those who were in the constant use of these drugs, and had great pleasure in them. There is in all men sufficient remembrance of the original natural causes of pleasure, to enable them to bring all things offered to their senses to that standard, and to regulate their feelings and opinions by it. ”

“ Their nerves of taste are in a healthy, natural condition, instead of being blunted and seared and "tanned" and deadened by being brought in contact with highly-seasoned, stimulating food, hot drinks, tobacco etc. ”

“ She would change all at once, when her health got more firmly settled in the course of her growth. Are there not rough buds that open into sweet flowers? Are there not fruits, which, while unripe, are not to be tasted or endured, that mature into the richest taste and fragrance? ”

“ But even from the first, there can be little doubt that a body so specially fitted to arouse sensation in the gustatory nerve must have afforded pleasure to the unspecialized palates of birds and rodents: for we know that even in the case of naturally carnivorous animals, like dogs, a taste for sugar is extremely noticeable. So, then, the sweet juices of the fruit were early added to its soft and nutritive pulp as an extra attraction for the animal senses. ”

“ All shades, in harmony, ought to give a pleasing sensation to the organ, when neither acidity, sweetness, nor astringency predominates. Next we pass the wine to the posterior part of the mouth, and delay it there by a kind of gargling. It is now that we get the smack of the soil, the taste of cask or wood, the insipidity of salts, or any bitterness. If the whole effect is pleasing to the back part of the mouth, with the absence of all disagreeable impressions, we must, to put the finishing touch on the wine-tasting, not spit it out, but swallow it. ”

“ The centuries last passed have also given the taste important extension; the discovery of sugar, and its different preparations, of alcoholic liquors, of wine, ices, vanilla, tea and coffee, have given us flavors hitherto unknown.
Who knows if touch will not have its day, and if some fortuitous circumstance will not open to us thence some new enjoyments? This is especially probable as tactile sensitiveness exists every where in the body, and consequently can every where be excited.
We have seen that physical love has taken possession of all the sciences. ”

“ They, like the palate, are gifted with a portion of the appreciative faculties; I do not know that, in certain cases, the nose does not participate, and if but for the odor which is felt in the back of the mouth, the sensation of taste would not be obtuse and imperfect.
Persons who have no tongue or who have lost it, yet preserve the sensation of taste. ”

“ Thus an astringent taste, like that of alum, is more properly an astringent feeling, and {191}results from an impression made upon the nerves of touch, that ramify in the tongue. In like manner, the qualities known as smooth, oily, watery, and mealy tastes, are dependent upon these same nerves of touch. A burning or pungent taste is a sensation of pain, having its seat in the tongue and throat. A cooling taste, like that of mint, pertains to that modification of touch called the sense of temperature. ”

“ NOR is it only in the touch that smooth bodies cause positive pleasure by relaxation. In the smell and taste, we find all things agreeable to them, and which are commonly called sweet, to be of a smooth nature, and that they all evidently tend to relax their respective sensories. Let us first consider the taste. Since it is most easy to inquire into the property of liquids, and since all things seem to want a fluid vehicle to make them tasted at all, I intend rather to consider the liquid than the solid parts of our food. The vehicles of all tastes are water and oil. ”

“ The sense of odor gives us information as to the quality of food and drink, and more especially as to the quality of the air we breathe. Taste is at the gateway of the alimentary canal, while smell acts as the sentinel of the respiratory tract. Just as taste and flavor influence nutrition by affecting the digestive process, so the agreeable odors about us, even those of the perfumes, play an important part in the economy of life. ”

“ Kussmaul’s investigations31 show that, as a rule, the child prefers sweets from its birth, and will reject anything bitter, sour, or salt, although, until the later developed sense of smell is perfected, it is incapable of more 15delicate taste distinctions.32 On the whole, we find that with children such distinctions are less varied than among adults, the sweet of candy and the acid of fruits furnishing the staple material for their playful use of the sense. It is true that the pleasure which they derive from these is extreme. ”

“ Of a delicious flavor, with just sufficient of tartness to render it agreeable, it commends itself to the taste of young and old; while its cooling properties render it highly beneficial, in a hygienic point of view, during the early heats of the dog-days. ”

“ Surely a person whose olfactory nerves have not been blunted prefers the delicate aroma of ripe fruit to the sickly smell of mortifying flesh,—or fried eggs and bacon!
Notice how young children, whose taste is more or less unperverted, relish ripe fruits and nuts and clean tasting things in general. Man, before he has become thoroughly accustomed to an unnatural diet, before his taste has been perverted and he has acquired by habit a liking for unwholesome and unnatural food, has a healthy appetite for Nature's sun-cooked seeds and berries of all kinds. ”

“ Daily experience entails many such instances of contrast in the case of the taste qualities as well. A ripe apple may surprise us by its unexpected sourness if we come to it direct from a box of bonbons. Experiments designed to investigate the presence and character of taste contrasts are especially interesting and their results are in many ways curious. If, under proper experimental precautions, a salt solution is applied to one side of the tongue and a drop of tasteless distilled water is simultaneously applied to the other side, the tasteless water is reported as sweetish. ”

“ Relish and pungency in sauces were pleasant to me when young; my stomach disliking them since, my taste incontinently followed. Wine is hurtful to sick people, and 'tis the first thing that my mouth then finds distasteful, and with an invincible dislike. Whatever I take against my liking does me harm; and nothing hurts me that I eat with appetite and delight. ”

“ As persons become connoisseurs in food their enjoyment depends more and more on flavor and less and less on taste. The sensation from spices is a combination of flavor with irritation of the tongue that is partly pain and partly touch. ”

“ Taste is often associated with smell, giving rise to a sensation of flavour, and we are frequently in the habit of confounding the one sensation with the other. Chloroform excites taste alone, whilst garlic, asafœtida, and vanilla excite only smell. ”