208 GENERAL ANATOMY. 



dermis by a mucous or glutinous layer, which fills up the in- 

 tervals like a net-work, transferred that layer, by analogy, to 

 the skin of man; Ruysch afterwards gave a figure of this net- 

 work. From that period anatomists have been singularly di- 

 vided as to the existence of this membrane: some denying it 

 entirely, and admitting only the dermis and epidermis as con- 

 stituents of the skin; others admitting its existence in the co- 

 loured race only; others again improving upon Malpighi, and 

 admitting of several layers in the mucous body of the skin, as 

 many, as it were, as there are anatomical elements in that 

 membrane, or as it exercises functions. 



296. The blood-vessels, lymphatics, and nerves of the 

 skin penetrate, as they divide, through the areola of the der- 

 mis: supported by a fine cellular tissue which surrounds them, 

 they thus attain its superficies, where they are increased to 

 myriads, which by their ultimate divisions constitute the pa- 

 pillae and the vascular net- work. As relates to the disposition 

 of these parts, and particularly of the vessels, it has been gene- 

 rally conceded that they are foreign to the dermis, and that 

 they merely traverse it to form the vascular net-work above. 

 M. Chaussier, on the contrary, admits that all the anatomical 

 elements of the skin are united in the dermis itself. Gordon 

 even goes so far as to say that the injected dermis is every 

 where equally vascular, as much so on its deep surface as on 

 its superficies. To say that the vessels are foreign to the der- 

 mis, and that they merely form a sub-jacent layer to it, would 

 be incorrect; but it would be equally so to affirm, that the ves- 

 sels are as much divided, and are as numerous on the deep face 

 of the dermis, as they are on its opposite one. The vessels 

 divide and ramify in the dermis, as they penetrate into its 

 thickness, and their last divisions, prodigiously multiplied, are 

 distributed in the external surface of that membrane, and in 

 the eminences that cover it, parts, consequently, much more 

 vascular than the deep face. It is precisely the same as re- 

 gards the nerves. 



297. The dermis or corium, corium, derma, vera cutis, 

 is a fibro-cellular membrane, which constitutes the deep and 

 principal layer, and almost all the thickness of the skin. Its 



