1065 



The Cerium, Cutis Vera, Dennis, or True Skin is tough, flexible, and highly 

 elastic. It varies in thickness in different parts of the body. Thus it is very 

 thick in the palms of the hands and soles of the feet; thicker on the posterior aspect 

 of the body than on the front, and on the lateral than on the medial sides of the 

 limbs. In the eyelids, scrotum, and penis it is exceedingly thin and delicate. 



It consists of felted connective tissue, with a varying amount of elastic fibers 

 and numerous bloodvessels, lymphatics, and nerves. The connective tissue is 

 arranged in two layers: a deeper or reticular, and a superficial or papillary. Un- 

 striped muscular fibers are found in the superficial layers of the corium, wherever 

 hairs are present, and in the subcutaneous areolar tissue of the scrotum, penis, 

 labia majora, and nipples. In the nipples the fibers are disposed in bands, closely 

 reticulated and arranged in superimposed laminae. 



EPIDERMIS 



>CORIUM 



SUBCUTANEOUS 



TISSUE 



RETE 

 VENOSUM 



IG. 9-12. The distribution of the bloodvessels in the skin of the sole of the foot. (Spalteholz.) 



The reticular layer (stratum reticulare; deep layer) consists of strong interlacing 

 bands, composed chiefly of white fibrous tissue, but containing some fibers of yellow 

 elastic tissue, which vary in number in different parts; and connective-tissue cor- 

 puscles, which are often to be found flattened against the white fibrous tissue bundles. 

 Toward the attached surface the fasciculi are large and coarse, and the areolse 

 left by their interlacement are large, and occupied by adipose tissue and sweat 

 glands. Below the reticular layer is the subcutaneous areolar tissue, which, except 

 in a few situations, contains fat. 



The papillary layer (stratum papillare; superficial layer; corpus pap'dlare of the 

 corium) consists of numerous small, highly sensitive, and vascular eminences, 

 the papillae, which rise perpendicularly from its surface. The papillas are minute 

 onical eminences, having rounded or blunted extremities, occasionally divided 

 into two or more parts, and are received into corresponding pits on the under 

 surface of the cuticle. On the general surface of the body, more especially in parts 

 endowed with slight sensibility, they are few in number, and exceedingly minute ; but 

 in some situations, as upon the palmar surfaces of the hands and fingers, and upon 

 the plantar surfaces of the feet and toes, they are long, of large size, closely aggre- 

 gated together, and arranged in parallel curved lines, forming the elevated ridges 



