PACINIAN BODIES. 



275 



FIG. 82. 



numbers at the root of the mesentery ; most distinctly 

 and readily, however, in the mesentery of the cat, in 

 which they extend a considerable distance up, whilst in 

 the human body they are situated only at the root of the 

 mesentery, where the duodenum comes in contact with 

 the pancreas in the neighborhood of 

 the solar plexus. Moreover they pre- 

 sent great variations in different indi- 

 viduals. Some have very few, others 

 a great number, of them, and it is very 

 possible that certain individual pecu- 

 liarities result therefrom. Thus I 

 have, for example, on several occasions 

 found a great number of these bodies 

 in lunatics, though I do not wish at 

 present to lay any great stress upon 

 this discovery. 



A Pacinian body, as seen with the 

 naked eye, is of a whitish colour, usu- 

 ally oval and somewhat pointed at one 

 end, from a line to a line and a half 

 (1 li'") long, and firmly attached to 

 a nerve in such a way that a single 

 primitive fibre passes into each body. 

 It presents a comparatively large num- 

 ber of elliptical and concentrical layers, 

 which at the upper end are in pretty close contact, but 

 at the other are separated by a wider interval, and en- 

 close in their interior an oblong space generally some- 

 Fig. 82. Vaterian or Pacinian body from the subcutaneous adipose tissue of the 

 end of a finger. S. The peduncle, consisting of a dark-bordered, medullated pri- 

 mitive nerve-fibre n, and the thick perineurium p, p provided with longitudinal 

 nuclei. C. The body itself with the concentric layers of the perineurium which is 

 swollen out into a bulbous shape and the central cavity, within which the pale 

 axis-cylinder is seen running along and terminating in a free extremity. 150 

 diameters. 



