XXVI 



ox THE STRUCTURE AXD RELATIOX OF THE 

 CORPUSCULA TACTUS (TACTILE CORPUSCLES OR 

 AXILE CORPUSCLES), AXD OF THE PACINIAN 

 BODIES. 



Quarterly Journ. Microsc. Sty'., voi. ii-, 1854, /. 1-7. 



In February, 1852, Professor Wagner published in tire Gottingen 

 ' Gelehrte Nachrichten,' the results of some observations, made by 

 G. Meissner and himself, the tendency of which was to establish the 

 existence of peculiar bodies in certain of the papilla of the fingers and 

 palm of the laand, to which, from their relation to the nerves entering 

 the papilla, he ascribed special functions, and thence proposed to con- 

 fer upon them the name of corpuscula tactjis — Tactile corpuscles. 

 Wagner's principal positions are the following : — 



1. The papillae of the hand are of two kinds — nervous and vascular 

 — the vascular papillae containing no nerves, and the nervous papillae 

 possessing no vessels. 



2. The nervous papillae contain a peculiarly constructed oval 

 mass, like a fir-cone, composed of bands or rows, arranged one behind 

 the other. 



3. The dark-bordered nerve-fibres enter the papilla, pass to this 

 " tactile corpuscle," and terminate in it, either free or dividing into 

 five branches. 



4. These corpuscles are analogous to the Pacinian bodies. 



5. They are specially subservient to sensation. 



Professor Kolliker, whom this Memoir touched somewhat directly, 

 replied in the ' Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaftliche Zoologie ' of the 

 follo\\'ing June, by an essay on the same subject (Ueber den Bau der 

 Cutispapillen und der sogenannten Tactkorperche R. Wagner's), in 



