Merkeln.

1890 J. S. Billings National Med. Dict. II. 140/1 Merkel's corpuscles, small bodies in the epidermis of man composed of a capsule enclosing two, three, or more large, granular, somewhat flattened, nucleated, and nucleolated cells, piled one on the other in a vertical row; each corpuscle receives a medullated sensory nerve-fibre, which branches to terminate in the cells themselves or in the disc lying between the cells, or..in minute swellings in the interstitial substance between the cells.

1900 J. N. Hyde & F. H. Montgomery Pract. Treatise Dis. Skin (ed. 5) 33 Merkel's Touch-cells are oval, nucleated bodies found in the lower animals, but also in man. They are supposed to be connected with the ultimate nerve-fibers.

1965 Jrnl. Cell Biol. 26 82/2 The neurite usually conforms to the shape of the Merkel cell, and at the point of contiguity the neurite appears to be expanded.

1968 Brain 91 549 When Meissner counts were low, papillary nerves and Merkel endings were also reduced in number.

1990 D. Ackerman Nat. Hist. Senses ii. 84 Our menagerie of touch receptors also includes saucer-shaped Merkel's disks, which lie just below the skin surface and respond to continuous, constant pressure.