Chap, xv.] PERIPHERAL NERVE-ENDINGS. 



119 



into the interior of the corpuscle, where the axis 

 cylinder branches ; its branches re- 

 tain a coiled course all along the 

 tactile corpuscle (Fig. 73), anastomose 

 with one another, and terminate in 

 slight enlargements, pear-shaped or 

 cylindrical. These enlargements, ac- 

 cording to Merkel, are touch cells. 

 The matrix, or main part of the 

 tactile corpuscle consists, besides the 

 fibrous sheath with nuclei and numer- 

 ous elastic fibres, of fine bundles of 

 connective tissue, and of a number 

 of nucleated small cells. 



155. The end- bulbs of 

 Krause. These occur in the con- 



/.,. -, j Showing the convolu- 



lunctiva of call and man, and are tions of the nerve- 



* , , T j i fibre. (E. Fischer and 



oblong or cylindrical minute corpus- w. Fiemming.) 

 cles situated in the deeper layers of 



the conjunctiva, 



the 



Pig. 73. A Tactile 

 Corpuscle of Meiss- 

 ner from the Skin of 

 the Human Hand. 



near 

 margin 



Fig. 74. An End-bulb of Krause. 

 a, Medullated nerve-flbre ; b, the capsule of the 



corneal 

 A medul- 



lated nerve - fibre, 

 with Henle's sheath, 

 enters the corpuscle 

 (Fig. 74). This 

 possesses a nu- 

 cleated capsule, and 

 is a more or less 

 laminated (in man 

 more granular- 

 looking) structure, 

 numerous nuclei be- 

 ing scattered be- 

 tween the laminse. 

 Of the nerve-fibre, 

 as a rule, only the 



