The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1899-05-26
THE SENSE OF TASTE,
Experiments That Rave brought Out
Some Curious Discoveries

curious experiments by Prof. G. T.
w. Patrick, of the University Of Iowa.
snow that our ideas about the sense OF
taste have been all wrong He expert
mented on an anosmic-that is. per-
son absolutely without the sense of
smell. He experimental also on nor
mai subjects, with most interesting re-
suits. His conclusions are as follows:
There are only four simple taste sem
satonS, namely, sN set, bitter, sour and
salt. 1t is said by some that there are
only two, sweet and bitter. All other
sensations which are commonly called
tastes are complex results of sensations
OF smells. touch. temperature and sight.
he means by whica We distinguish al
most all Of our common food and
drinks is not the sense of taste so
much as it is the sense Of smell. touch.
temperature and sly 1T.
All the fine ditte ances by which we
distinguish the va GUS fruits. meats
and drinks depend not upon taste at
all, but upon these other senses. Pure
sensations of taste add hardly more
than certain emo; onal element to the
complex sensations. Sweet things we
call good" and biiter things we call
bad, while salt aud sour add a GER
tain piquancy, which is pleasing when
not excessive
partial proof of these facts may
be given by merely blindfolding the
eyes and closing the nose and taking
various kinds of foods and drinks into
the mouth without swallowing them.
1t will tEen be found that ii is quite
impossible to disti9 guish many of the
commonest foods and drinks. If the
further precaution re taken to elimin-
ate as much as possible the senses of
touch and Temperature upon the tongue
by representing tbs material in liquid
form or chopped ilto small bits, the
results are still mCre striking
1t is always difficult to eliminate the
sense of smell in nC"mal subjects Pro-
fessor Patrick was able however. by
experimenting with subject possess
ing no sense of smell whatever. and
comparing the results with those OBJ
tanned from norm, subjects. to get
more accurate results as to the more
important part played by smell in dis
tinguiShing foods md drinks.
1t is, of course. generally known that
what is popularity mistaken for the
their aroma or odOf. BY these experi-
ments, however. it vas shown that cof-
fee and tea have a distinct taste which
is simply bitter an cannot be distin-
guished from a week solution of quiz
nine A weak infus on of coffee or tea.
however, cannot be distinguished from
water.
Even with normal subjects, with the
eyes and nose closed, twenty expert
ments with coffee gave the following
results: 1t was called coffee" once,
bitter" eleven times, "quinine" four
times. tea" three times and milk"
once
In the recognition of foods and
drinks. as well as IN their enjoyment.
the sense of sight plays a much more
prominent part than is usually sup
posed. With normal subjects blind
folded it was found impossible to dis
tinguish many of our common foods
and drinks. Different kinds of meat
and meat brOths. as well as the differ
ent kinds of bread, were often confus-
ed.
One subject, a woman noted for her
skill in cooking, made the following
judgments: Raw potato chopped she
called acorns; boiled pumpkin she said
was something sweet and fiat; fresN
/ pear she called sweet berry slightly
/ fermented; roast pork she called boil
ed beef; raw turnip chopped, she call
ed cabbage sweeteued, raw apple was
grape juice; roast trukey was called
beef, and horsCTadi-h she said was
something she had never tasted.