324 THE ACTION OF THE NERVES 



bably in all cases take part in what may be called 

 genei-al sensatiou. It is tlirough the agency of the 

 beautiful little " tactile corpuscles " in the papillae of 

 the skin that we are able to distinguish those very 

 slight dilierences of quality in fabrics when the tip 

 of the finger is gently drawn across them. But if 

 every tactile corpuscle were destroyed, we should still 

 be able to feel, and the skin of the finger would still 

 be differently acted upon by hot things and cold things. 

 The same sort of reasoning, justifies the supposition 

 that the nerves which I have shown are distributed 

 to the capillai'ies of voluntary muscle, act as sensitive 

 fibres, and are perhaps concerned in conveying to us 

 the sensation by which we are enabled to form a 

 conception of the exact degree of contraction which 

 has been efiected in the muscle under different cir- 

 cumstances. And in certain forms of disease in 

 which there is no loss in the power of contracting 

 the muscle, but in which the mind does not form an 

 accurate idea of the degree of contraction which has 

 been induced, it is probable that these nerve fibres, 

 or the centres with which they are connected, are the 

 particular parts of the nervous system which are 

 involved. The cold feeling, the chill and shivering 

 which precede a cold or an attack of fever, result, I 

 believe, from a change brought about in these fibres 

 distributed to the capillaries, consequent upon dis- 

 turbance in the capillary circulation, and the phe- 

 nomena induced thereby just outside the minute 

 vessels. 



Their connection with ganglia. — Few questions are 

 of higher importance than the determination of the 

 relationship between the nerves distributed to the 

 capillaries and those ramifying in such great number 

 on and amongst the muscular fibre cells of the small 

 arteries which divide into the branches from which 

 the capillary vessels spring. Now, I can adduce 

 direct anatomical observations in favour of the view 



