The body needs to be topped up with nourishment all the time. Inside you it is like a chemical factory, using liquids to dissolve materials in food and get them to where they are needed. But chemical actions work faster on small bits with a large surface area, and so right at the front of your mouth are the teeth that do just that job.

The mouth is also important in making sounds so that we can talk with one another. Although sounds are made in your throat, they way they come out depends on the shape of your tongue, lips, and jaw.

The mouth is always moist. There is a special lining that keeps releasing moisture. It is called a mucus membrane. It meets the skin in the lips. Look at your lips to see how the inside of the lips is a quite different surface to the outside.

The front of the roof of your mouth is formed by part of your skull. It is made of bone and called the hard palate.

Behind it, the inner part of the roof of your mouth is made of muscles and called the soft palate. You can feel the hard palate by running your tongue over the roof of your mouth, but the soft palate is right at the back of the mouth and so your tongue won’t reach there.

The soft palate is responsible for closing off the airway when you swallow. Hanging from it is a small conical muscle (the uvula). Open your mouth and look in a mirror and you can see it hanging down. This acts like a trigger mechanism. Think of it like a mouse trap tripwire. When food and drink touch it, it causes the soft palate to snap the airway shut so you don’t get food into your lungs.

The floor of your mouth is formed by the muscles of the tongue. mucus membranes line the sides and undersurface of the tongue and up to the junction with the teeth. This is a place where lots of saliva is produced. Normally you would swallow this automatically, but you may notice how much saliva you produce if you go to the dentist for treatment and find the nurse having to suck the saliva away.

There are salivary glands all around your mouth. These are patches of tissue that release saliva. Saliva contains special chemicals (enzymes) that begin to break down the food as soon as you eat it. Saliva is what you can feel as liquid inside your mouth. If you see some food you like, your eyes and nose sense that and start pumping out saliva. That is why your mouth ‘waters’ when you see food to like.