The mouth is a very efficient part of our heads and contains some very essential parts. These include the teeth (which we are inclined to take for granted unless we have a toothache)that are perfectly adapted to the kind of food we eat.
As the mouth closes on a bite of food, chewing immediately begins. At this time the very active tongue joins in the action, moving the food from one side to the other, all the while gradually working it from the sharp front teeth (incisors and cuspids) on to the bicuspids and finally back to the molars which finish the chewing process. All this time saliva has been added to it so that when the food is reduced to fine particles it is also moist enough to safely enter the throat and pass on down to the stomach.
Where the backs of both the mouth and nose come together there would be danger of the tongue pushing food up into the nose, which could cause a lot of trouble, but a partition, called the palate, prevents this from happening. This palate actually forms the roof of the mouth and toward the front is hard and rigid, but in the back becomes soft and elastic.
Another precaution against food going the wrong way after it has been chewed is a pink safety valve behind all this, hanging down like a baby's thumb, called the uvula. If food or liquid threatens to go the wrong way, this swings upward automatically along with the soft palate to keep it from doing so.
On either side of this little safety valve are the tonsils, which help trap bacteria and other microbes that might get past the controls in the nose.
Your lips are the first to touch anything offered to your mouth. They are very sensitive and signal whether to accept anything that may be too hot or cold. They have a great deal to do with speech and singing, too, as well as visually showing the kind of mood you may be in—cheerful, sad, frightened or surprised. The tongue, which covers the whole floor of your mouth, is the principal organ of taste and decides whether something is sweet, sour, bitter, salty or tasteless.
Doesn't it seem strange that with both the nose and mouth performing so marvelously, we scarcely ever think of them? How good the Creator has been to provide these things that go on performing all the years of our lives, with scarcely a conscious command or instruction from us. Who but God could form each part of our bodies in such wonderful ways?