Morning journal and courier., 1885-01-08
TIle Tip Of The Tongue.

I When we want to assure ourselves, by | means of taste, about any unknown object l say lump of some white stuff, which may | be crystal or glass or alum or borax or quart or rock-salt-we- put the tip of the tongue against it gingerly. If it begins to burn us 1 we draw it away more or less rapidly, witl l an accompaniment in language strictly de l pendent upon our personal habits and man. ners. The case we thus occasionally apply, even in the civilized adult State, to unknown bodies is one that is being applied every day and all day long by children and savages. Unsophisticated humanity is constantly put
 ting everything it sees up to it's mouth in a
 frank spirit of experimental inquiry as to its gustatory properties. In civilized life we
 find everything ready labeled and assorted for us; we comparatively seldom require to
 roll the contents of suspicious bottle Gin
 very small quantities) doubtfuily upon the tongue in order to discover whether it is pale sherry or Chili vinegar, Dublin stout or mushroom ketchup. But in the savage state,
 from which, geologically and biologically speaking, we have only just emerged, bottles and labels do not exist. Primitive man, therefore, in his sweet simplicity, has only
 two modes open before him for deciding
 whether the things ne finds are or are net strictly edible. The first thing he does is
 to sniff at them, and smell being, as MT.
 Herbert Spencer has we'll put it, anticipa- tory taste, generally gives him some idea Of
 what the thing is likely to prove. The sec
 ond thing he does is to pop 1t into his month, and proceed practically to examine it's char acteristics. Strictly speaking, with the tip of the tongue one can't really taste at all. If you put small drop of honey of oil of bitter almonds on that part of the mouth, you will find tho doubt to your great sur prise) that it produces no effect of any sort; you only taste it when it begins slowly to aiffuse itself, and reaches the true tasting re- zion in the middle distance. But if you put a little cayenne or mustard on the same part
 you will find that 1t bites you immediately the experiment should be tried sparingly- while if you put it lower down in the mouth you will swallow it almost without noticing the pungency of the stimulant. The reason
 is that the tip of the tongue is supplied only with nerves which are really nerves of touch, not nerves of taste proper they belong to a tstally different main branch, and they go to a different center in the brain, together with the very similar threads which supply the nerves of smell for mustard and pepper. That is why the smell and taste of these pun gent substances are so much alike, as every body must have noticed good sniff at the mustard pot producing the same irritating effect as en incauti0us mOuthful. As rule, we don't accurately distinguish, it is true, between these different regions of teste in the mouth in ordinary life; but that is be- cause usually roll our food about instinct ive'y, without paying much attention to the particular part affected by it. Indeed, when one is trying deliberate experiments in the subject, in order to test the varying sensi- tiveness of the different parts to different substances, it is necessary to keep the tongue quite dry in order to isolate the thing you are experimenting with and prevent it's spreading to all parts of the mouth together. In actual practice this result is obtained in 8 rather ludicrous manner by blowing upon the tongue between each experiment with pair of bellows. To such undignifed expedients does the persuit of science lead the ardent modern psychologist. Those domestic rivals of Dr. Forbes Winslow, the servants, who behold the enthusiastic investigator alter nately drying his tongue in this ridiculous fashion, as if he were blacksmith's fire, and then squeezing out single drop of es- sence of pepper, vinegar, or beef tea from glass syringe upon the dry surface, not un- naturally arrive at the conclusion that mas ter has gone stark mad, and that, iE their private opinion, it's the microscope and the skeleton as has done it.