THE INTEGUMENT AND ORGANS OF SENSE, ETC. IN MAN. 24:. 



LECTURE V. 



THE INTEGUMENT AND ORGANS OF SENSE AND SPEECH IN MAN. 



1. — TJie Integument. 



a. It would appear to be essential for the economy of every 

 kind of organism that the general mass of structure should 

 be invested by an integument. 



b. The integument may serve as a means of preserving 

 the general form, as a protection from external influences, as 

 an excretory apparatus, as an absorbent medium ; and, lastly, 

 as an arrangement for placing the nervous system in relation 

 to external objects. 



c. All these functions of the integument are brought more 

 or less prominently into operation by special modifications of 

 structure in the animal kingdom. But in no animal do we 

 find the integument so harmoniously developed, for all its 

 special ends, as in man. 



d. In no animal is the sub-cutaneous fatty tissue com- 

 paratively so coherent and elastic as in man ; nor in any 

 animal is it disposed so as to afford that strongly-marked but 

 softened display of the form and movements of subjacenl 

 parts, which contributes so much character to the human 

 form. 



<■. Like the general muscular system, which is fully special- 

 i ed in man, ilic cutaneous muscular system, or panniculus 

 carnosus, although of comparatively limited extent, is also 

 fully specialised, and, in this respect, distinguished from the 

 corresponding system in the animal No animal presenl 



