54 o The Needle Ordeal in Witchcraft: [September, 
exist in faft, in the skin, special nerves for the different 
qualities of sensations, or to rejeCt the law above clt ^ . 
not universally applicable. It has been demonstrated by 
recent experiments that in fadt, f or at ! least c >f t he 
sensations mediated by the nerves of the skin there ex t 
especial terminal apparatus, and therefore probably especial 
conductions to the nervous centres. 
Researches in this direction have been conducted by Herr 
Blix More recently Dr. Goldscheider has independently 
examined this question, and has communicated his lesu Us 
in a memoir read before the Physiological Society of Berlin, 
and to the “ Naturforscher ” His investigation was con- 
ducted with a solid cylinder of brass, terminating 
rounded point. This instrument can be heated or cooled L at 
nleasure and is in connection with a writing-pencil. If tl 
sensitive points are marked with colours we can convince 
ourselves that only certain points of the skin are capable 
recognising temperatures. Further, those which perceiv 
cold (the cold-points) are separate from those which perceive 
heat (the heat-points). We presume that by cold and hea 
the author must mean' temperatures respectively coldei 
hotter than that of the human body. On examining more 
closely the distribution of these points, it appeals that tl > 
are arranged in chains which radiate out from certain poi 
of the skin, and take generally a more or es ®. c t ulV ' h f “ 
course. The chains of cold-points are mostly distmCt from 
those of heat-points, but there occur occasionally mixed 
chains of both kinds of points. In the hairy parts of t 
body these chains radiate, with a striking regularity, fiom 
the hairs. In the hairless parts the arrangement is similar , 
there are radiating points at . similar d stances , as in the 
hairv parts. The prominent signification of the hair -places 
for the temperature P sense is visible in those regions which 
contain few temperature-points. Here it occurs that such 
points are found only at the hairs, whilst between them is 
everywhere insensibility against temperature. . 
The temperature-points are anatomically constant , for 
such points P when they have been marked on the skin can be 
recognised as such, on a renewed examination, a lon & tin 
afterwards. They may even be recognised after the remova 
of the epidermis, and they have consequent y no 
common P with its thermic condudtivity. The heat-points 
are everywhere less numerous than the cold-points. I he 
number of the temperature-points altogether varies locally, 
and falls distinctly into the back-ground in those surfaces of 
