Microscopical Society, 2181 



formed by inflexions of the primary or germinal membrane and its epithelium, and are 

 situated in the textures of the skin, on the free surface of which they terminate 

 by open mouths. The margins of the openings are thick, rounded, almost papilli- 

 form, and their cavities filled with small epithelial cells in various stages of develop- 

 ment. Upon removing these, the interior of the gland is seen to be lined by a layer 

 of small, flattened, nucleated corpuscles, resting on and attached to a very delicate 

 homogeneous membrane, which lines the cavity of the follicle. Some of the openings 

 of these glands or follicles are visible to the naked eye, as are those of the lateral line, 

 while those of the general surface are only visible by the aid of the microscope. The 

 fibrous tissue is well seen by examining a horizontal section of the skin by means of 

 a deep lens, when numerous bundles of that tissue will be seen crossing each other at 

 nearly right angles, so as to have more or less regular quadrilateral interstices. One 

 series of these fibres is circular, the other longitudinal : they occur in alternate layers, 

 which commence and end with the circular. Each layer is distinct, as are also the 

 individual bundles composing it. Upon examining prepared vertical sections of the 

 skin, with a power of about 200 linear, and by transmitted light, we find, 1st, the germi- 

 nal membrane and its epithelium ; 2nd, a layer of reticulated fibrous tissue, contain- 

 ing the granular pigment in its meshes ; 3rd, from fourteen to eighteen rolls or 

 bundles of fibrous tissue, running nearly parallel to the surface of the skin, traversed 

 vertically by the wavy tubes of the follicles, and by certain arctuous bands, which pro- 

 ceed inwards from the areolar tissue beneath the germinal membrane, pass round the 

 innermost fibrous bundle, and become firmly connected with the arctuous bands of 

 other layers : they are composed of elastic fibrous tissue, and in their progress upwards 

 give off subsidiary bands, which pass between the individual bundles, and become con- 

 nected with other off-sets from different parts. 



April 26. — George Busk, Esq., President, in the chair. 



A paper was read by John Quekett, Esq., ' On the Value of the Microscope in the 

 determination of Minute Animal Structures of a Doubtful Nature.' 



The author, after alluding to the number of highly interesting and valuable facts 

 in Natural History which are daily revealed by the microscope, went on to state, that 

 even zoological classification, which in early times was based upon certain distinctions 

 and peculiarities in external form, had principally now begun to take a higher stand : 

 in one order of animals the nervous system, in others the digestive, in others the mi- 

 nute structure of the external or internal skeleton, form at the present time the best 

 grounds for their classification ; and often one and the same material chemically is so 

 moulded into an infinity of forms, and each form so perfectly characteristic of the 

 genus, or sometimes of the species of animals, that a mere microscopic examination 

 only is required to identify them. The force of this argument is exemplified by the 

 structures known as hair or wool. The author then stated, that early in the year 1847, 

 through the instrumentality of Sir Benjamin Brodie, he received from Albert Way, 

 Esq., a gentleman so well known in archaeological science, a portion of skin supposed 

 to be human, which had been taken from underneath some of the ornamental iron- 

 work of one of the doors of Worcester Cathedral, with a request that he would favour 

 him with an opinion as to whether it were human skin or not, as a tradition existed in 

 Worcester that a man — having been caught in the act of committing sacrilege — was 

 flayed, and his skin nailed upon the church-door, as a terror to the sacrilegious. On 

 VI 2 G 



