Observations on the anatomy of the skin of a species of muraena / by Andrew Clark.

  • Clark, Andrew, 1826-1893.
Date:
[between 1850 and 1859?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the anatomy of the skin of a species of muraena / by Andrew Clark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    10/18 (page 8)
    as yet unexpressed, relation to llie various maturely developed dermal appendages. Glands. These are formed by inflections of the ])rimary or germinal membrane and its epithelium; and are situ- ated in the textures of the skin, on the free surface of which they terminate by open mouths. Some of these openings are visible to the naked eye: others require the aid of the microscope for detection : the former arc confined to the lateral line; the latter are of two kinds, — - the one studded over the whole surface of the skin, — the other found only around the anal orifice. These openings are the orifices of follicles or glands, — the first and last superficially, the second deeply seated in the structure of the skin. The glands of the lateral line are continued onwards to the head, with the ossicles of which they communi- cate by branched and complicated diverticula. It is to these glands, as they are found along the lateral line of the body that I shall confine my present obser- vations. These vary from four to nine lines in length, the chief portion of which lies in a direction nearly parallel to the surface of the skin. The orifice is about half the diameter of the body of the follicle, which im- mediately within the mouth is pretty equal in breadth throughout. They do not resemble in shape, there- fore, nor as we shall afterwards see in structure, the flask-shaped glands of the skin of Amphibia. The margins of the openings of these glands are thick, rounded, almost papilliform; and their cavities.