NO SENSE OF TASTE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 161, 10 July 1899, Page 7

NO SENSE OF TASTE.

SOME INTERESTING AND STAET-

WNG EXPERIMENTS,

It would now seem frOTO experiments which bare been carried on ia the University of lowa, that we do not ! taste many of t^tt thinge which we I eat at our daily Treats, It is asserted 1 confidently w ha,t we merely emell them. If the nose ia tightly closed in the ordinary man. and be is blindfolded, he will not b.e able to distinguish coffee fr*nu water or a weak solution of quinits. This has been proved by experraents made on many persons. Common coffee was said to bo water; it wap n)pc s&id to be quinine. Water was taid to be coffee; tea wjis called cuit'ec; turicey wua called pork; raw ap(Ve was called grape juice; malt extract wps sherry wine; lard was pronounced butter. In short, experienced persons were unable to disting-uish m^nv common foods »nd drinks when sensations of smell were removed, and itid conclusion wns reacvied that a, person uii^ht even practice- ecopomy in eating by merely blindfolding the and substituting lnrd, pwrk, and bpef for butter, turkey, and venison; while if the further precaution was ta,k«p to close the nose ! a very weak flohuiiip of quinine would pass for good oofl>f> and vinegar for the most costly w?r)ft. Thf experjnimis which led to these conclusions wore r; rried on by Pro-? fessor G. T. W Pair'cl?, of the TJniver* sity of lowa, who lias just communicated some of rhe results nf his work +0 the Amrrif a>i Pr-ychologienl R«ci«ty. Professor Patrick enabled to attain great accuracy in his work by the fact that one v>f the persons he ex' pi»r.iinented upon was au anoßmic— that is, absolutely devoid of the sense of smelj. Ho w s enabled thu» to determine which eenfcations were those of taste &nd whioa were smell. He experimented ijlso oj> normal subjects, and some of the results were surprising. There are r-n\r four eimpl« ttste sensations, namely, sweet, bitter, sour, and salt. It 's" &aid by some that there Bre pnly twe, swpet g,nd bitter, All other sensations which ara commonly called tagrefl are complex results of the sensations of smell, touch, temperature, and sight. The means by which we distinguish almost all of our common foods and drinks id not the sense of taste so much as it U the pense of pmell, touch, temperature, and eight. AU the fine differences by which we distinguish the various fruits, meats, and drl»k« depend not upon tagte at all, but upon these other sense?, Pure sensations of taste add hardly more than a eer. tain emotional element to the complex sensations.

In giving their award in another dispute, Judge Edwards, reading* the clause fixing £ 100 as the maximum penally, cumulative penalties not. to exceed £500, said they put it in because it was in the act, but what it meant nobody knew. He did not, and it appeared to him utterly nonsensical, but that was the fault of the legislature.