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CHAPTER XIII. 



OF THE PACINIAN CORPUSCLES OF THE NERVES. 



WE propose to give in this chapter an account of certain very 

 remarkable structures, appended to the nerves, to which attention 

 has only very recently been drawn in this country."* These are the 

 Pacinian corpuscles, so named by Henle and Kollikerf from their 

 discoverer, Pacini.J In the human subject they are found in great 

 numbers, in connexion with the nerves of the hand and foot, the 

 nerves, as it may be presumed, of touch ; but they also exist spar- 

 ingly on other spinal nerves, and on the plexuses of the sympathe- 



A 



E 



A. Nerve from the finger, natural size shewing the Pacinian corpuscles. 



B. Ditto, magnified 2 diam. ; shewing their different size and shape. 



c. Unusual form, from the mesentery of the cat ; shewing two included in a common envelope : 

 a. b. are the two nerve-tubes belonging to them. 



D. Another, from the same ; shewing an offset from the central cavity, containing a branch of 

 the pale nerve. 



E. Rare form, from the mesentery of the cat (reduced from Henle and Kolliker) ; shewing two 

 corpuscles placed in succession on a single stalk, and furnished with the same nerve-tube, which re- 

 sumes its white substance in the interval between them. 



* Brit, and For. Med. Rev., Jan. 1845. 



t Ueber die Pacinischen Korperchen an den Nerven des Menschen und der 

 Saugethiere. Zurich, 1844. 



t Pacini first noticed them in 1830, and subsequently in 1835 ; and in 

 1840 gave an account of them (Nuovi organi scoperti nel corpo umano dal 



