424 THE SKIX. 



little else than a mass of fibrous or connective tissue, 

 surrounded by elastic fibres, and formed, according to 

 Huxley, by an increased development of the neurilemma 

 of the nerve-fibres entering thej papilla). Wagner, how- 



ever, to whom seems to belong the merit of first fully 

 describing these bodies, believes that, instead of thus 

 consisting of a homogeneous mass of connective tissue, 

 they are special and peculiar bodies of laminated structure, 

 directly concerned in the sense of touch. They do not 

 occur in all the papilla of the parts where they are found, 

 and, as a rule, in the papillae in which they are present 

 there are no blood-vessels. Since these peculiar bodies in 

 which the nerve-fibres end are only met with in the papilla) 

 of highly sensitive parts, it may be inferred that they are 



* Fig. 113. Papillae from the skin of the hand, freed from the cuticle 

 and exhibiting the tactile corpuscles. Magnified 350 diameters. A. 

 Simple papilla with four nerve-fibres : a, tactile corpuscle ; Z>, nerves. 

 . Papilla treated with acetic acid : a, cortical layer with cells and 

 fine elastic filaments ; b, tactile corpuscle with transverse nuclei ; c, 

 entering nerve with neurilemma or perineurium ; d, nerve-fibres wind- 

 ing round the corpuscle, c. Papilla viewed from above so as to appear 

 as a cross section : a, cortical layer ; J, nerve-fibre ; c, sheath of the 

 tactile corpuscle containing nuclei ; d t core (after Kolliker). 



