Skin - The Wonderwrap - 7

The skin is an important basic sense organ. At least five different senses are associated with the skin. They are the - pain, heat, cold, touch, and pressure.

When the babies are too tiny and can not see or hear they still can get the sensation of touch. Dry, warm, soft touches make them feel cozy and comfortable. Wet, cold, stinging touches can make them cry.

When we are not well and a close friend or family member touches our forehead to check fever, how much better do we feel! While going away from home for a long time or meeting our friends and family after a long time we are not satisfied with just exchanging a few words with them or giving them only a handshake. We hug the person we love. Even while selecting clothes, we touch the cloth and get a feel before its final selection. There are half a dozen receptors in the skin which are considered as tactile i.e. touch receptors. They are the – (1) free nerve endings –found all over the skin including the cornea, the transparent front part of our eye. (2) Meissner’s corpuscles- these are egg like in shape, are surrounded by a capsule of connective tissue. They are found in smooth non-hairy skin areas like the tips of fingers, lips, palms and soles as well as in nipples and lips.These areas are very sensitive to touch. (3) Merkel’s discs - these are in the smooth hairless skin, as also in hairy areas of the skin. They are believed to give signals about continuous touch (like of the clothes we wear). Their ends are expanded like a disk. (4) Ruffini’s end organs – these too are surrounded by a capsule of connective tissue. The Ruffini’s end organs are in the skin as well as in deeper parts of body like – the capsules of joints. (5) Hair end organs – these are at the base of hair. Any movement of hair like bending, due to an insect crawling or a breeze of air can be detected with the help of these receptors. (6) Pacinian corpuscles – these are in the skin as well as deeper parts of body such as – tendons, joint capsules, covering of the bone and even inside the pancreas. They can detect vibrations and other rapid mechanical changes in tissues The Pacinian corpuscle is conspicuous and is about 1 m.m.in length. It looks like an onion at the tip of a slender stalk. The stalk like thing seen inside the Pacinian corpuscle is the nerve ending. In between the concentric layers of the onion bulb -like part a thin film of a fluid is seen. Total number of layers in a Pacinian corpuscle is in the range of 20-70. The Pacinian corpuscles are responsive to pressure.

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