CHAP. V. Of the fleshy Pannicle.
AFter the true skin, follows the Membrane, which Anatomists call the fleshy Pannicle,* 1.1 whose nature that we may more easily prosecute and declare, we must first shew what a Membrane is, and how many ways the word is taken; Then, wherefore it hath the name or the fleshy Pannicle. A membrane therefore is a simple part, broad and thin, yet strong and dense, white and nervous, and the which may easily without any great danger be extended and contracted. Sometimes it is called a coat, which is, when it covers and defends some part. This is called the Pannicle; because in some parts it degenerates into flesh, and becomes musculous, as in a man from the coller-bones, to the hair of the head, in which part it is therefore called the broad muscle, whereas in other places it is a simple Membrane, here and there intangled with the fat lying under it, from whence it may seem to take or borrow the name of the fatty Pannicle. But in Beasts (whence it took that name, because in those a fleshy substance maketh a great part of this Pannicle) it appears manifestly fleshy and musculous over all the body,* 1.2 as you may see in Horses and Oxen; that by that means being moveable, they may drive and shake off their flies, and other troublesome things, by their shaking and contracting their backs. These things consi∣dered, we say, the fleshy Pannicle in its proper body, is of a nervous or membranous substance,* 1.3 as that which hath its original from the coat Amnios, (which is next to the Infant) dilated near to the navel, and stretched forth for the generation of this Pannicle; in which thing I think good to note, that as the membranes Chorion and Amnios mutually interwoven with small nervous fibers, encompass and invest the child as long as it is contained in the womb; so the skin and the fleshy Pannicle, knit together by such like bands, engirt the whole body.
Therefore the fleshy Pannicle is equal in magnitude and like in figure to the true skin,* 1.4 but that it lies under it, and is contained in it, in some places mixt with the fat, in others increased by the flesh interwoven with it, and in other some is only a simple Membrane.
The composition of it is such, as the sight of it presents to our eye, that is, of veins, arteries,* 1.5 nerves, and the proper flesh, some whites mixed and interlaced with fat, and sometimes with muscu∣lous flesh. It is but one, by reason of the use we shall presently shew; it is situated between the skin and fat, or common coat of the muscles, annexed to these, and the other parts lying under it, by the veins, nerves, and arteries, ascending from these inward parts, and implanting themselves into the substance thereof, and then into the true skin.
The temperature thereof is divers, according to the variety of the parts interwoven with it.* 1.6 The use of it is, to lead, direct, and strengthen in their passage, the vessels which are disseminated in∣to the true skin, and the whole superficies of the body. But in beasts it hath another commodity,* 1.7 that is, it gives a shaking or trembling motion to their skin and back, for that cause which we formerly touched.