HOW WE TASTE FOOD

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume XI, Issue 521, 11 May 1915, Page 2

HOW WE TASTE FOOD

Sir Ray Lankester, the eminent man of science, asserts that the flavor of food' and drink does not come to us through 'the sense of taste. Thafc sense, he says, can only furnish sensations that correspond to the chemical composition of the substances presented to it. These sensations, while almost infinite in their shadings, are few in number. We can distinguish by taste only sweetness, bitterness, sourness, 'and saltness, although the various intensities of these sensations' are innumerable." The distinctive flavor of various foods is not the result of chemical action, and is nofc perceived by the taste nerves. Flavors excite the olfactory nerve instead, ' and are transmitted by it to the brain A person whose sense of smell ia impaired is unable to detect the flavor of the food he -eats, although he has the taste sensation that it stimulates. ,This is an explanation of the effect that influenza l of ten has apparently on the taste, but really on. the sense of smell.