Other drinks, on the contrary, create sensation because they are neither more nor less than liquids filled with appreciable particles.
It would be in vain for the mouth to fill itself with the divided particles of an insoluble body. The tongue would feel by touch the sensation of their presence, but not that of taste.
In relation to solid and savorous bodies, it is necessary in the first place for the teeth to divide them, that the saliva and other tasting fluids to imbibe them, and that the tongue press them against the palate, so as to express a juice, which, when sufficiently saturated by the degastory tendrils, deliver to the substance the passport it requires for admission into the stomach.
This system, which will yet receive other developments, replies without effort to the principal questions which may present themselves.
If we demand what is understood by sapid bodies, we reply that it is every thing that has flavor, which is soluble, and fit to be absorbed by the organ of taste.
If asked how a sapid body acts, we reply that it acts when it is reduced to such a state of dissolution that it enters the cavities made to receive it.
In a word, nothing is sapid but what is already or nearly dissolved.
FLAVORS.
The number of flavors is infinite, for every soluble body has a peculiar flavor, like none other.
Flavors are also modified by their simple, double, or multiple aggregation. It is impossible to make any description, either of the most pleasant or of the most unpleasant, of the raspberry or of colocynth. All who have tried to do so have failed.