SECT. VIII. _Of the Skin._ The whole human automaton is covered with a skin, the mechanism of which is not less curious than what we have already described. It is a texture curiously interwoven with an infinite number of tendons, arteries, veins, nerves, and lymphatic vessels. The tendons form the net-work of the whole, and give it an elasticity, from whence it requires a muscular motion; and the rest add each their parts, as I shall hereafter describe. The skin, universally over the whole body, is divided into three parts; but in most parts it is found to have four. The external, is the _cuticula_, or scarf skin; this is a horny and insensible substance, formed by nature as a shelter for the next part of the skin, which is exceedingly sensible; on examination it appears to be a horny substance, and as it were, little scales continued from the immediate skin, which on any external injury, such as repeated friction, fire, scalding, or blistering, separates from the main skin. The next is the real skin, called _cutis_; This is strongly interwoven with tendinous and nervous fibres, interspersed with numberless ramifications of arteries, veins, and lymphatic vessels; whence it is not only exquisitely sensible, but elastic, and on the least injury, subject to bleed. On the external surface is a very thin _plexus_, called the _reticulare_; which has the tinge of the natural hue of the skin, and distinguishes the complexion of the _negro_, the _tawny_, and _white_, from each other.