Page:Letters on the Human Body (John Clowes).djvu/77

Rh reflection, for, without it, what can you know either of or yourself?

Open then your mouth and look at your tongue, which, to judge from appearance only, is nothing else but a lump of flesh, of a particular shape and colour. But are you aware, that this lump of flesh, as it appears to be, is a most extraordinary compound, consisting partly of muscle and dense cellular substance, and partly of innumerable papillæ, or so many tongues in miniature; and that in these papillæ principally resides the sense of what is commonly called taste? Are you again aware, that connected with the tongue, at its lower part, are two glands on each side, which glands are called salivary, because they secrete the saliva,—a transparent, watery, tasteless fluid, so far necessary to the sense of tasting, that all solid bodies must be more or less dissolved in it, before they can aifect the nervous papillæ that constitute the immediate organs of taste?

You are surprised, perhaps, at hearing of all these materials which enter into the composition of a particular member in your body, to which you are principally indebted for all the daily gratification resulting from what you eat and drink; but how much more would your astonishment be excited, if you would be at the pains to read all that the most able anatomists