Sentence:  And so the authors conclude : `` The conduct of the patient in his every-day life and in his work , even more than the foregoing facts [ mentioned above under 1 ] , leave positively no room for doubt that the <WSD>sense</WSD> of touch , in the ordinary sense of the word , was unaffected ; or , to put the same thing in physiological terms , that the performance capacity of the tactual apparatus , from the periphery up to the tactual centers in the brain , - that is , from one end to the other - was unimpaired '' . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  the faculty by which external objects or forces are perceived through contact with the body (especially the hands)