Search -
Reflections on the Works of God in Nature and Providence (1810)
Reflections on the Works of God in Nature and Providence - 1810 Author:Christoph Christian Sturm Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Organs of Taste. from the smallest particles a body will spring up, fitted for the enjoyment of an eternal felicity. OCTOBER V. THE ORGANS OF TASTE. ... more »We should not be so happy as we really are, if we had not the faculty of distinguishing different kinds of meat and drink by tasting. The great variety of fruit at this season, may naturally lead us to reflect on this subject. Our pleasure would be greatly diminished, if the pear, the .apple, the plum, and the grape, had all the same flavour. The power to distinguish them, or in other words, the sense of taste, is a gift of God's goodness, and a proof of his wisdom, on which we should reflect with gratitude to our Creator. But by what means do we taste, and distinguish our foofl ? The tongue is the principal organ: and, that it may answer this end, its surface is covered with' nervous papillae, by means of which we distinguish the flavour of the salts which dissolve on the tongue. Tasting therefore depends on tjie nerves; and this is clearly seen in dissecting the tongue; for, after the membrane which covers it is taken off, a multitude of roots where the nerves terminate appear, and these are the nervous papillae that give us the sensation of taste: and where these are not, the sensation is. wanting. When we put highly flavoured things under the Organs of Tattt. tongue, we are scarcely sensible of it till they are attenuated ; and till we bring them on its surface; then we distinguish their flavour: consequently the sensation of taste is in its full force only where the nervous papillae are most numerous; and this is the part nearest to the ihroat. To be further convinced that tasting is occasioned by the nerves, we need only examine the tongue of a dog or a cat. On their tongue the nervous papilla are situated t...« less