TASTES of substances

TASTES of substances, particularly Vegetables. The ancients, particularly Aristotle, and Theophrastus, enumerate only seven primitive tastes: 1. Sweet. 2. Fat. 3. Acid. 4. Acrid. 5. Austere or harsh. 6. Acerb. 7. Salt, and bitter. These last are by Theophrastus confounded.—To these seven primitive tastes of Aristotle and Theophrastus, Pliny has added the following six, which, however, appear to be rather intermediate steps of those already enumerated, than simple tastes. 8. Agreeable (suavis), a mode of sweet. 9. Pungent or tart (acutus), a less degree of acid. 10. Bitter (amarus), a simple taste, confounded by the Greek naturalist, as was observed above, with a salt taste. 11. Vinous, a composition, according to Pliny, of sweet, agreeable, pungent, and austere. 12. Milky taste, composed of agreeable and fat. 13. Watery, which is almost insipid.

The school of Salernum distinguished nine simple tastes, which they characterized by their different temperaments, as follows. I. Acrid, bitter, and alkaline salt: WARM. II. Watery or insipid, sweet, and fat: TEMPERATE. III. Acid, harsh or acerb, and acid salt: COLD. The moderns, by distinguishing austere from acerb, adding some things, and retrenching others, have increased the number of simple tastes to ten; which stand thus opposed to each other.

Tastes are distinguished by their quantum of force or intensity into steps or degrees, which are likewise, sometimes, by writers on the materia medica, used for expressing the different temperaments of those tastes. Thus the simple taste bitter has been divided into ten degrees; and we say, that the root of turmeric is bitter in the first or lowest degree, the seed of blue clematis in the tenth or highest. In the same manner, as a bitter taste indicates a warm temperament, other degrees or divisions arise from the intensity of warmth in the instances in question; and we say, that one is warm in such a degree, and the other in a different.

Some tastes affect the organ of sensation sooner than others which are of a greater degree of intensity.

Acid and bitter tastes, as vinegar and wormwood, are soon felt, and quickly gone. Acrid tastes are not felt so soon, and last longer. Thus the sharpness of the seeds of clematis, although in the tenth degree, is not so quickly perceived as the bitterness of roses, although only in the second degree. Hot tastes are slower in affecting the organ of sense, and last longer than others. Thus the bitterness of the roots of black hellebore, which is in the second degree, is perceived on the slightest contact; but its heat, though in the third or fourth degree, is not felt till after two minutes; in like manner, the bitterness of elecampane although only in the fourth degree, is sooner felt than its heat, which is in the eighth.

The climax or increase which is observed in the sensation or perception of tastes, during its continuance, is different in different objects. The heat of galangal causes, at first, a slight sensation, but it is not till the end of one minute that its greatest force is perceived. Black hellebore does not attain its highest sensation till four minutes after its first contact.

The duration of the greatest force of the sensation is likewise different as the substances differ; thus the heat of black hellebore comes to its greatest intensity and diminishes in one minute; that of the root of garden-cress in the same time; that of the root of asarabacca in two minutes.

The leaves of milfoil, which are bitter in the fourth degree, and warm in the first, lose at first their bitterness, whilst their heat still continues. Acorus, or sweet rush, is hot in the first degree, aromatic in the third, and bitter in the fourth; yet its bitterness is presently extinguished; its heat lasts two minutes, and its aromatic sensation seven or eight. The heat of garden-cress endures seven or eight minutes; the bitterness of elaterium a quarter of an hour; the heat of euphorbium and black hellebore half an hour; the acrid sensation occasioned by the root of arum, or cuckow-pint, often lasts 12 hours. From these familiar examples it appears, that the sensation acquires its greatest force in four or six minutes at most from the time of contact; its duration in its decrease is often 30 or 40 minutes and upwards.

Tastes, considered with relation to the parts which they affect, are either, 1. fixed and local; 2. extend themselves to the parts in the neighbourhood of that which is first affected, without, however, relinquishing their former station; as the bitterness of the dried roots of black hellebore, which spreads from the end of the tongue to its middle; and that of the leaves of elaterium, which spreads from the tip of the tongue to its root; or, 3. are translated from one part to another, as in the roots of gentian, the bitterness of which soon relinquishes the tip of the tongue, the part first affected, and translates itself to the middle.

Sapid bodies affect differently the parts which they touch, as the lips, tongue, palate, throat, and gullet.

The lips are affected more strongly by the heat of the root of white hellebore, than any of the other parts.

The tip of the tongue is affected by most plants; gentian and colocynthida affect chiefly the middle; the leaves of elaterium, the root.

The palate is affected by the root of deadly nightshade; its impression lasts four minutes.

Taste
Tatian. The throat is more affected than the other parts by the roots of mercury, asparagus, and jalap.

The œsophagus or gullet is particularly affected with heat by the roots of wormwood; the leaves make no impression of this kind; on which account they are not so stomachic as the roots.

As the taste of the same individual undergoes seeming alterations, according to the perfect or morbid state of the external organ; so different individuals of the same species are liable to real variations from climate, soil, and culture. Apples and pears which grow naturally in the woods, are extremely harsh and acid; wild succory is bitter; wild lettuce disagreeable; culture renders them all sweet and esculent, and moreover produces such variety in the article of taste, that of 172 distinct kinds of pears, and 200 of apples, enumerated by authors, each kind has a peculiar taste.

All the parts of a plant have not the same taste; in some, the fruit has an acid and agreeable taste, whilst the leaves or roots are bitter and disagreeable; in others, the reverse of this happens. It is for this reason that plants can never be properly arranged by their sensible qualities; the different parts of the same plant possessing different qualities, must necessarily be disjoined and arranged under separate articles.

All plants act either by their smell upon the nerves, by their taste upon the muscular fibres, or by both upon the fluids. Sapid bodies never act upon the nerves, nor odoriferous bodies upon the muscular fibres. The former act upon the fluids and solids, and change the fluids, which are evacuated by both sapid and odoriferous substances.

The virtues and qualities of plants are commonly indicated by their taste, smell, and colour.

Insipid plants, and such as have no smell, have rarely any medicinal virtue.

Sapid and odoriferous plants, on the contrary, always possess very strong powers. In fact, to deprive a plant of its taste and smell is to rob it of its virtue, as is evident from the change effected in the succulæ and extracts of arum, calla, cassada, and elaterium.

Sweet-smelling plants are generally of innocent quality; such as are nauseous, and of a rank heavy disagreeable smell, are noxious.

The plants of the following list are striking examples of the latter. Many mushrooms, elder, herb-christopher, aconite, hellebore, asarabacca, stinking bean trefoil, thorn-apple, tobacco, hen-bane, colquintida, and hounds-tongue.