122 SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



were placed partly in small projecting points of the larger 

 papillae, partly in depressions between two of their processes. 

 In the tongue, in which, according to Wagner, something 

 similar to his corpuscles appears to exist, I met, in two cases 

 with no axile corpuscles ; whilst, in a third, I found them 

 tolerably well developed in the papilla fungiformes of the 

 point of the tongue (whether they are to be found in the 

 posterior ones I know not), whilst they were wanting in the 

 p. filiformes and p. circumvallatts. In the p. fungiformes, one 

 or many were situated in the point of the principal papilla, 

 without extending into its simple processes, and therefore lay, 

 as it were, at the bottom of a terminal pit, surrounded by the 

 simple papillae. 



With regard to the course of the nerves of the skin, Wagner 

 confirms the fact discovered by me, that even in man the 

 primitive tubules divide in the terminal plexuses (which I 

 have recently also observed in the hand, the lips, and the 

 tongue) ; and he further states that, in the palm at least, only 

 those papillae contain nerves which possess the axile corpuscles, 

 while they have no vessels. As regards the latter important 

 circumstance, all those who have occupied themselves more 

 particularly with the investigation of the skin, must be 

 aware that nerves are not to be found in all the papillae ; 

 but seeing the difficulty of discovering the nerves in a dense 

 organ like the skin, no one has thought it requisite on this 

 account to depart from the old notion that every papilla con- 

 tains a nerve, and is therefore a tactile process. Wagner, 

 having observed the sharply-defined axile corpuscles of the 

 hand, appears to have been surprised that they occurred only 

 in certain papillae, and that these had nerves ; and struck 

 with this circumstance, adopted the view referred to. As 

 for myself, having again made long-continued investigations 

 into the skin of the palm of the hand, I find that those 

 points of the papillae, or those independent papillae, which 

 contain axile corpuscles, do generally exhibit dark-bordered 

 nerve tubules very distinctly; but from this I should, for the 

 present at any rate, by no means be led to conclude that the 

 other papillae contain no nerves, but only vessels. 



If it be considered that dark-bordered nerve-tubules, though 

 indeed rarely in proportion, are contained in vascular papillae 



