NERVE FIBERS 



227 



a plexus beneath the true skin and send branches thence to the 

 follicles, though the exact mode of termination is a question of 

 some obscurity. 



Terminations between epi- 

 thelial cells are probably more 

 common than any other method 

 of sensory distribution. The 

 fibers, having passed to the sur- 

 face of the skin or mucous mem- 

 brane, lose everything excepting 

 the axis cylinder, which, dividing 

 into minute ramifications, passes, 

 by means of these fibrillae, among 

 the epithelial cells. This mode 

 of termination is held by some 

 to prevail in the glands. It cer- 

 tainly prevails in parts other 

 than the skin and mucous mem- 

 branes. 



Sensory nerves further termi- 

 nate in (a) the corpuscles of 

 P acini or Vater, (b} the end bulbs, 

 or tactile corpuscles, of Krause, 

 (c) the tactile corpuscles of 

 Meissner, (d) the tactile menisques, 

 and (e) the corpuscles ofGolgi. 



(a) The Pacinian corpuscles 

 are oval elongated bodies. Each 

 corpuscular body has a length of 

 about 1*2- of an inch, and is 

 about half as broad. It is made 

 up of a number of concentric 

 layers of connective tissue in a hyaline ground substance, and is 

 attached by a pedicle to the nerve whose termination it is. 



FIG. 70. Vater's or Pacini's 

 corpuscle. 



a, stalk; b, nerve fiber entering it; c, 

 d, connective-tissue envelope; e, axis- 

 cylinder with its end divided at /. 

 (Landois.) 



