Clearly, the idea of there being five senses is not universal. How old is our modern idea of there being five senses? How has it changed over the years? I'm aware that the number of senses being limited at five is also not generally accepted anymore, but I'm curious how we got to the point that children are shown diagrams of the five senses in some schools.
My source for the quotation is in "The Sovereign's Foreigners: Classifying the Native Peoples in Seventeenth-Century Siberia" by Yuri Slezkine, in Russian History, Vol. 19, No. 1/4, 1992, p. 478.
The quote is slightly wrong, it does not say "the three senses" but "three senses" without the article. If you check texts from the same period, you will see references to "the five senses". Zuazo, however, is talking about food, that's why he mentions the need to scrutinise it using three of the senses: sight, smell, and taste. I'll give you the quote and translate it:
"Véndense asimismo muchas frutas, manzanas, ciruelas blancas, andrinas negras, e ciruelas coloradas, uvas muy buenas, aunque dicen que son salvajes; con otro gran género y especies de frutas, cuyos nombres no escribo, pues por ello V. R. no caerá en la calidad de la fruta, como en cosa semejante para comprenderlo hay necesidad de tres sentidos: vista, olor, y sabor".
TRANSLATION: There are also many fruits for sale, apples, white plums, blackthorn berries, and red cherries, very good grapes, though they are said to be wild; and other great many species of fruits the names of which I don't write, for with it may Your Reverence not grasp the quality of the fruit, as for understanding such a thing there is need of three senses: sight, smell, and taste.