Tactile Sensations, Position Sense and Temperature

Abstract

Until the discovery by Blix in 1884 that cutaneous sensibility is point-like, it was generally thought that touch or tactile sensation was a single unitary sense. Thus pressure, cold, warm, tickling, etc., were considered as subqualities of one sense, that of touch or ‘skin feeling’. Blix’s finding of distinct spots of sensitivity to different kinds of stimulation, together with subsequent histological studies, established that the sense of touch, instead of being a unitary sense, can be divided into separate senses such as touch—pressure, vibration—flutter, warm and cold.