290 On the Sense of Feeling. 



It is in man, that this investing membrance is found to be most higlily 

 organised, since, besides its other functions, it is, over his whole body, an 

 organ of tact. 



Continental anatomists, at all times remarkable for their bias towards 

 analogical discovery, have been disposed to regard the skin as tiie parent 

 of all the other organs. For each of these organs they have described it 

 as undergoing appropriate modifications, enabling it to discharge the new 

 duties imposed upon it. With respect to the organ of digestion, as the 

 skin may unquestionably be traced into the intestinal canal, as into the 

 other mucous cavities of the body, this view of the question, which has the 

 sanction of the great anatomist, Bichat, seems reasonable and advantageous. 



The integument has been considered under two distinctions ; one, as re- 

 lates to the 'forms of animals,' called therefore ' Morphology ; another, as 

 the seat of a sense, ' Aisthesology.' Our business with it is chiefly in the 

 latter capacity, though we shall make passing observations upon it under 

 the former. We shall now commence with the integument in man. 



Beneath the proper integument, lies a soft couch of membrane or tissue, 

 upon which it is deposited, and which is called the cellular membrane, 

 being composed of a number of plates of membrane irregularly disposed, 

 and forming a series of cells, which communicate freely with each other. 



This membrane, in a greater or less quantity, is the connecting medium 

 between almost all the structures of the body: it supports the integuments, 

 invests the muscles, encompasses the different viscera, dips down to form 

 the sheaths of and separations betv\een the nerves, blood-vessels, and ab- 

 sorbents ; and, from its uses and extent, becomes a very important consti- 

 tuent of the animal frame. It is in the cells of this membrane that the 

 fat is deposited, as well as, in a certain class of dropsical diseases, the 

 fluid; and it is this membrane which enhances the danger of many surgical 

 operations, not unfrequently, from the low state of its vitality, falling into 

 mortification. The integument, of which the cellular membrane is only 

 the substratum and bed, has been divided, in consequence of the discoveries 

 of Malpighi, an illustrious anatomist in the nineteenth century, into three 

 principal layers, of which the lowest is called the dermis, the next the reti- 

 culated or mucous structure, and the third and most superficial the epi- 

 dermis. We shall, however, on the present occasion consider the dermis 

 and epidermis only as the principal structures, and describe the mucous 

 structure, not as a distinct layer, but as composed of a series of nerves, 

 ducts, and vessels, altogether subservient to the dermis ; and in so doing 

 we follow the method* of M. M. Breschet and Vauzeme, as laid down in 

 a paper of which only a portion has appeared ; but which, as far as we can 

 at present judge, has, as a record of elaborate and successful investigation, 

 rarely been equalled, and very seldom indeed surpassed. 



• Annales des Sciences Naturelles. 



