NERVES OF SPECIAL SENSE. 281 



guished from the vessels), is in immediate contact with the 

 cells of the rete mucosum (Fig. 83). The case is espe- 

 cially favourable when, in consequence of any disease, as 

 for example small-pox, a slight tumefaction of the whole 

 thickness of the skin in the parts affected has taken place, 

 and the corpuscles are a little larger than they normally 

 are. In ordinary papillae it is somewhat more difficult 

 to discover these elements, still upon closer examination 

 they may be seen everywhere, even by the side of the 

 tactile bodies. 



Thus, even in the finest of these prolongations of the 

 cutis, it is not an amorphous mass which is found, bear- 

 ing a constant relation to the vessels and nerves ; on the 

 contrary this mass of connective tissue always manifests 

 itself as the one thing invariably present in the structure, 

 as the real fundamental constituent of the different (vas- 

 cular and nervous) papillae, and the individual papillae do 

 not acquire a different character until in the one case 

 vessel, in the other nerves, are added to this funda- 

 mental substance. 



We certainly know little concerning the special rela- 

 tions which the vascular papillae bear to the functions of 

 the skin, still it can scarcely be doubted that an import- 

 ant relation must exist, and that as soon as we are better 

 able to separate the different offices of the skin, greater 

 importance will be attached to the vascular papillae also. 

 This much however we can even now say, that it is incor- 

 rect to imagine that a special nervous branch exists in 

 every anatomical division of the skin : just as physiolo- 

 gical experiments* show that considerable sensitive dis- 

 tricts exist in the skin, so also more minute histological in- 

 vestigation teaches us that there is a relatively scanty ter- 

 mination of nerves upon the surface. If therefore we 

 think fit to divide the skin into definite territories, those 



* The allusion is to Weber's experiments with compasses. Trans. 



