132 SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



appear especially in the compound papilla, in particular cusps, one or 

 two together, which may project more or less, and are sometimes shorter, 

 frequently longer ; they occur more rarely in the simple papillae, as 

 oval or cylindrical bodies, occupying J to f the width of the summits of 

 the papillae, and 4 to J, or as much as f the length. In the points of 

 the fingers, they occur in the proportion of 1 to every 2-4 papillae ; 

 in the first phalanx, on the other hand, in the length of 1 line, only 

 2-6 are to he found, and in the palm they are still more rare. Fre- 

 quently the axile corpuscles exhibit local constrictions, especially after 

 the addition of acetic acid, are even spirally contorted, so that they 

 often have a certain similarity to a bundle of connective tissue treated in 

 the same way, or with a spiral sudoriparous duct. Upon the back of 

 the fingers and in the heel there appeared, in many individuals to be 

 no axile corpuscles in the papilla ; in a small number, however, they 

 were to be found even here, but scattered and small, in a few papillae. 

 In the lips, I saw in two individuals axile corpuscles similar to those 

 in the hand ; in one they were wanting. They existed only in that part 

 of the red margin of the lip, which is visible when the mouth is closed ; 

 they were very minute, and were placed partly in small projecting points 

 of the larger papillae, partly in depressions between two of their pro- 

 cesses. In the tongue, in which, according to Wagner, something 

 similar to his corpuscles appears to exist, I met, in two cases, with no 

 axile corpuscles ; whilst, in a third, I found them tolerably well deve- 

 loped in the papillae fungiformes of the point of the tongue (whether 

 they are to be found in the posterior ones I know not), whilst they were 

 wanting in the p. filiformes and p. circumvallatce. In the p. fungifor- 

 mes, one or many were situated in the point of the principal papilla, 

 without extending into its simple processes, and therefore lay, as it 

 were, at the bottom of a terminal pit, surrounded by the simple papillge. 

 "With regard to the course of the nerves of the skin, Wagner confirms 

 the fact discovered by me, that even in man, the primitive tubules divide 

 in the terminal plexuses (which I have recently also observed in the 

 hand, the lips, and the tongue) ; and he further states that, in the 

 palm at least, only those papillae contain nerves which possess the axile 

 corpuscles, while they have no vessels. As regards the latter impor- 

 tant circumstance, all those who have occupied themselves more parti- 

 cularly with the investigation of the skin, must be aware that nerves 

 are not to be found in all the papillae ; but seeing the difficulty of dis- 

 covering the nerves in a dense organ like the skin, no one has thought 

 it requisite on this account to depart from the old notion that every 

 papilla contains a nerve, and is therefore a tactile process. Wagner 

 having observed the sharply-defined axile corpuscles of the hand, ap- 

 pears to have been surprised that they occurred only in certain papillae, 

 and that these had nerves ; and struck with this circumstance, adopted 



