The Relation of Taste-Buds to Their Nerve-Fibres

Abstract

Taste-buds on the barbels of the catfish, Ameiurus nebulosus, disappeared earlier after nerve cutting at high temperatures than at low. Electrical stimulation of the severed nerve had the same hastening effect as increase of temp. The results are interpreted to mean that there exists in nerves a nutrient material necessary for the existence of both the taste-buds and the nerves, a material whose utilization is accelerated under stimulus of either heat or electric current. This conception is supported by the rapid elimination of taste-buds when the nerve is removed in toto. Progressive disappearance of the buds along the length of a barbel suggests the flow of such a material along the nerve.