St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1896-09-05

THE SKIN AND ITS CHILDREN.
A Han Who Has Coanted the Hairs Of tho
Human Head.

A Mea who Has cosntsd the Hairs Of tAs
Hamaa Head.
There are 234.OOO hairs on the human
body. Prof. Charles Stewart, who de
posed to this at the Royal institution re
Gently, has coui:ted them. He would
not, of course. be particular to hair
or two one way or the other, but this on
the average is the result. The skin has
therefore. a very respectable family OF
offsprings. for the biologists can show
us beyond all doubt that hairs are after
all only special parts of the skin that
nature has modified in this way in order
to better protect and keep warm her
highly important works within. The
human skin is a much more complex
sort of fabric than is properly imagined
The true skin is right underneath. You
can make it's acquaintance with the aid
of file or the sharp corner Of door
lock. The outer skin or cuticle is really
acknowledgements shield Of horny
scales, which are the cast-off dead cells
of the living layer below. The under
skin is the real business article, full OF
cunning little "touch nerves." blood
vessels, lymphatics. sweat glands, fat
glands, hair follicles and what not.
The follicles are the pits in which the
hairs are grown, something like celery,
and nature has expended apparently a
quite ridiculous amount Of care on
these structures. The hair in each cell
is direct growth of the skin. 1t grows
at the rate of half an inch a month. The
coloring matter, as we know, is apt to
fade and leave us at the mercy Of thos.,
who commend fluids which ''are not
dyes" Prof. Stewart thinks it quite pos
sible that sudden fright may blanch the
pigment 'in a single night" but how ii
Is done, since this pigment in most cases
is far away from any visible nervous
control, he fails to see. Some people
have a peculiar sparkling look about
their sandy hair. The professor traces
this to alterations of white and col
ore6 growth. which he finds correspond
with alternate periods of 12 hours
normal growth. The pigment is. per-
haps. not deposited during the night,
hut is during the day. or vice versa.
Each particular hair stands up
like quills upon the fretful porcupine"
(which. by the way. arc also hairs) by
virtue of an erector muscle, one end OF
which is fastened to the bulb of the hair
and the other to the point near the sur
face OF the skin. When the muscle con-
tracts under nervous excitement the
hair is pulled up vertically lit usually
lies a little slantingwise). The ''pull''
on the muscles is also seen at the point
of attachment in the skin, giving rise
to the little dimples which, in conjunc-
ton with the erect hairs, produce the
appearance known as "gooseflesh."
Other children of the skin, but only
90 in number. are the nails. These
arise out Of sharp folds in the skin, and
are essentially very tough, horny ma
terial built up from the living skin cells,
much in the same way as hairs are built
up. The growth is at the rate of about
the thirty-secondth of an inch a week.
The nail is fastened to the under skin
by . peculiar system of locking teeth.
While talking about the skin Prof. Stew
art did not overlook the "sweat glands y
which lie buried in the under skin, ex-
tracing from the blood some so ounces
Of watery waste products a day. These
pass out through corkscrew passages
in the outer skin, emerging in the shape
of the myriad little pores. which we can
just make out by the aid of an ordinary
pocket lens. There are about 5000 OF
such openings ON the palm of ones
hand. Prof. Stewart has counted them,
hut again he will not risk his reputation
for strict veracity on the question of n
single pore one way or another. 1t is
averages he deals in, feeling. of course.
that the public are not eNacting in such
matters.-London Graphic.