252 



Dr. G. Thin. Anatomy of the Skin. 



[Jan. 16, 



chiefly of the white variety, such as constitute the chief part of the 

 fibrous and areolar tissues, and are arranged in stout interlacing 

 bundles, except at and near the surface, where the texture of the 

 corium becomes very fine." Neither in the above quotation, nor in 

 the sections of the same volume in which areolar tissue and fibrous 

 tissue are described, can I find anything analogous to Rollett's de- 

 scription of definite subdivisions of the bundles as distinct from the 

 fibrillar. 



In a paper presented to the Royal Society in 1875, I stated that in 

 portions of the cutis, macerated for a few days in aqueous humour or 

 blood serum, the tissue is seen to be composed of extremely fine but 

 sharply contoured fibrillae, arranged in parallel bands, whose breadth 

 approaches the diameter of a human red blood-corpuscle. These 

 bands are the subdivisions (Abtlieilungen) of the bundles described by 

 Rollett, with whose memoir I was not then acquainted. 



During the interval that has elapsed since I wrote the paper referred 

 to, I have been frequently engaged in examining skin affected by 

 various pathological changes, and I have had occasion to observe that 

 the structure of the " bundle " of anatomists, as understood by Rollett, 

 is sometimes seen very clearly in disease. Its recognition is, as I have 

 elsewhere* pointed out, necessary to a right appreciation of some of 

 the appearances seen in cancer of the skin. 



It is partly the object of this paper to describe some methods by 

 which this structure of the bundles can be demonstrated, and also to 

 describe some other points in the anatomy of the skin which I have 

 observed whilst studying the tissue by means of these methods. 



The nomenclature I shall use is the following : By the term 

 bundle or secondary bundle, I designate the ordinary bundle of authors, 

 which is more or less conspicuous in all preparations of skin, and 

 which is analogous in structure and size to the bundles as usually 

 described and figured in tendon-tissue. The element described by 

 Rollett as " connective tissue fibre," I shall describe as 'primary 

 bundle, to distinguish it more markedly from the fibrillge which 

 compose it. 



When groups of secondary bundles are isolated, each group being- 

 composed of several secondary bundles, I term the group a tertiary 

 bundle. 



These elements can be isolated by first saturating the corium with 

 chloride of gold solution and then macerating the tissue in acids. 

 Portions of skin, with a thick layer of the panniculus adiposus, were 

 taken fresh from the mamma of a middle-aged woman, which had 

 been removed for a tumour of the gland — the portions of skin chosen 

 being well clear of diseased tissues. The stretched skin was pinned 

 down to a cork beard, the under surface uppermost, and then saturated 

 * " Trans. Hoy. Med. Chir. Soc," vol. lix, p. 189. 



