QUARTERLY CHRONICLE OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 197 



September and October, 18T3 ; also separately, pp. 56, with 

 six plates). 



2. Thyroid — Boechat (' Recherches sur la Structure nor- 

 male du Corps Thyroide,' Paris, 1873, 8vo, pp. 44, one plate) 

 describes the normal structure of the thyroid. 



XI. Skin and Hair. — 1. Tactile corpuscles. — Thin ('Journal 

 of Anatomy and Physiology,' November, 1873, p. 30) describes 

 the structure of the tactile corpuscles. After referring to the 

 views of several observers, he gives an account of his own 

 observations, made on recently amputated skin, hardened 

 chiefly in osmic acid. A vertical section through the meridian 

 of a corpuscle shows either a simple homogeneous, more or 

 less rounded body, enclosed in a capsule, or two or more 

 such simple capsulated bodies arranged in a row parallel to 

 the vertical axis of the papilla, and enclosed in a common 

 oblong capsule. The former he designates single, the latter 

 compound corpuscles. Each single corpuscle, and each member 

 of a common corpuscle, is penetrated by one, and never by more 

 than one, medullated nerve-fibre. A nerve never leaves a 

 corpuscle after having entered it, but when it has penetrated 

 to a certain depth bends round and describes part of a circle. 

 In this terminal course the nerve retains its medulla, and 

 between the medulla and corpuscle substance a space is seen 

 which corresponds to the position of the sheath of Schwann. 

 Thin has never seen the nerve-fibre divide, either in- 

 ternal or external to the capsule, and does not hesitate to 

 deny the alleged division. The conclusion is that each single 

 corpuscle, and each member of a compound corpuscle, repre- 

 sents the termination of a single medullated nerve-fibre. 



The so-called transverse elements {querelemente of German 

 authors) are the nuclei of oblong cells which anastomose 

 with one another, by means of prolongations of elastic-tissue- 

 tibres. The capsule of the corpuscle is formed by a circular 

 layer of elastic tissue made up of the anastomosing continua- 

 tions of cells. The network of elastic tissue and the cells do 

 not communicate with the medullated nerve-fibres. The 

 division of the papillae of the skin into vascular and nervous 

 is not borne out by these investigations, since in the 

 majority of the so-called nerve-papillse vascular loops are 

 found. 



2. Lymphatics of the shin. — Neumann Q Zur Kenntniss 

 der Lymphgefasse der Haut des Menschen und der Sauge- 

 thiere.' Mit 8 chromolithographirten Tafeln. Wien, W. 

 Braumiiller, 1873. 'Medical Record,' 1873, p. 664) has 

 arrived at results which may be summed up as follows : 



(1). The lymphatics of the skin present an enclosed tubular 



