Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Supplement to the Edinburgh new dispensatory / by Andrew Duncan. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
241/282 page 231
![ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF TASTES AND SMELLS. In the year 1827, with the view of promoting emulation among my pupils in the class of Materia Medica, and of obtaining from their industry and ingenuity greater knowledge of a subject which seemed to me important, but too much neglected, probably on ac- count of its difficulty, I proposed as the subject of a prize essay a Classification of Tastes and Smells, chiefly with the view of af- fording assistance to the more accurate description of drugs. The prize was awarded to the following essay, which I trust my read- ers will concur with me in considering as a valuable contribution to the elucidation of an obscure and difficult subject. The recent perusal of Cloquet’s learned volume * has satisfied me, if any con- firmation of my favourable opinion had been required, that the essay of Mr Greeves is superior to any thing yet published on those branches of the subjects which it is its object to investigate. -(A. D.) An Essay on the Varieties and Distinction of Tastes and Smells, and on the Arrangement of the Materia Medica. By Augustus Feed. Ad. Greeves, Surgeon, Nottingham, Member of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, Edinburgh and London. Preface. The first idea of the following essay was occasioned by a re- mark made by Professor Duncan in his lectures on Materia Me- dica in the year 1825-6, concerning the importance of a scientific division of smells, and by a subsequent observation that the Pro- fessor had himself examined the subject, but without a satisfac- tory result. Since that period the writer of the following pages has occu- pied much of his leisure in observing the varieties of tastes and smells; and at a very short notice he has thrown his observations into the following form, with the desire of subjecting them to the criticism, at least, of the instigator of them. The essay is purely analytical. The study of an obscure sub- * Ophresiologie, ou Traite des Odeurs, du Sens et des Organes de l’Olfaction, par Hippo]. Cloquet, M. D. 2de edit. 8vo. Paris 1821. Pp. 758.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21978979_0243.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
