The infrequency of evident scientific interest in and concern for taste and
olfaction in recent years stands in striking contrast to the earlier appreciation
of the importance of these senses. Shakespeare, in "As You Like It," equated
taste with sight and lamented the decline in its acuteness as:
The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon. . .
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
sans teeth, sans eye, sans taste, sans everything.