OBSERVATIONS ON THE 
MUSCULAR TISSUE OF THE SKIN 
[Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, vol. i (1853), p. 262.] 
AmonG the abundant new matter contained in those parts of Kdélliker’s 
Mikroskopische Anatomie that are hitherto published, there is perhaps nothing 
more striking than the announcement that small bundles of unstriped muscle 
exist in all parts of the dermis that are provided with hairs, connected in- 
feriorly with the hair-follicles, just below the sebaceous glands, and passing 
up obliquely towards the free surface of the skin. 
The effect of the contraction of such little muscles must necessarily be to 
thrust up the hair-follicles and depress the intermediate portions of skin; in 
other words, to produce cutis anserina; and thus this condition, previously 
quite unaccounted for, received at the hands of Professor Kolliker a simple 
and beautiful explanation. 
In March of the present year (1853) I made an attempt to verify this most 
interesting discovery ; and although the somewhat arduous duties of a resident 
office in University College Hospital prevented me from making the investiga- 
tion as extensive as I could have wished, yet I found myself able not only to 
verify, but in some slight degree to add to Kolliker’s observations. And as 
the main fact of the muscularity of the skin had not previously, so far as I am 
aware, found confirmation in this country, I have been induced to publish 
my results in the hope that they may prove acceptable to the microscopical 
anatomist. 
Kolliker originally described! these muscles of the skin as flat bundles 
of unstriped muscular tissue, from 1-120th of an inch to 1-75th of an inch in 
breadth, of which there appeared to be one or two in connexion with each hair- 
follicle : it seemed probable to him that they arose from the superficial parts 
of the corium, and he had clearly seen them passing obliquely downwards to 
their insertion into the hair-follicles, close behind the sebaceous glands which 
they embraced. In his Handbuch der Gewebelehre published in 1852, he gives 
in the text exactly the same account of these muscles, except that he no longer 
expresses any doubt regarding their origin from the superficial parts of the 
corium. He afterwards states in a note that these muscles had been very 
1 Vide Mikroskopische Anatomie, vol. ii, part 1, p. 14. 
* Vide Handbuch der Gewebelehve des Menschen, p. 82. 
