The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-06-21
THE SKIN AND ITS CHILDREN.
Here's "A Man Who Has Counted the
Hairs of the Human Head.
From the London Graphic.

From the London Graphic.
There are $4,000 hairs on the human
body. Prof. Charles Stewart, who depos-
ed to this at the royal institution recent
ly, has counted them. He would not, of
course, be particular to a hair or two one
way or the other, but this on the average
is the result. The skin has, therefore,
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
i'll 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 popularity
imagined. The true skin is right under
meath. You can make its acquaintance
with the aid of a file or the sharp corner
of door lock. The outer skin or cuticle
is really a continually renewed shield Of
horny scales, which are the CASTOR dead
cells Of the living layer below. The under
skin is the real business article, full Of
cunning little touch nerves." blood YES
sells, 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 a di-
rect growth of the skin. 1t grows at the
rate of half an inch a month. The color
ing matter, as we know, is apt to fade
compound fluids which ARE not dyes
Prof. Stewart thinks it quite impossible
that sudden fright may blanch the pig
ment ''in a single night" but how it is
done, since this pigment in most cases is
far away from any visible nervous con-
troll he fails to see. Some people have a
peculiar sparkling look about their sandy
hair. The professor traces this to altera-
tions of white and colored growth, which
he finds correspond with alternate periods
Of twelve hours normal growth. The pig
ment is, perhaps, not deposited during the
night, but is during the day, or vice versa.
"Each particular hair stands up like
quilts upon the fretful porcupine' (Which
by the way, are also hairs) by virtue of an
erectOr muscle, one end Of which Is fast
ened to the bulb of the hair and the other
to the point near the surface OF the skin.
When the muscle contracts under nervous
excitement the hair is pulled up vertically
Gt usually lies little slantingwise). The
pulp on the muscle is also seen at the
point Of attachment in the skin, giving
rise to the little dimples which, in con-
| junction with the erect hairs, produce the
appearance known as goose flesh"
Other children of the skin, but only
twenty in number, are the nails. These
arise out of sharp folds in the skin, and
ial 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
| system of locking teeth. While talking
| about the skin Prof Stewart did not over
| look uhe sweat glands which lie buried
| in the under skin, extracting from the
| blood some fifty ounces of watery waste
products a day. These pass out through
| corkscrew passages in the outer skin,
| emerging in the shape of the myriad lit
| tie pores which we can just make out by
| the aid of an ordinary pocket lens. There
are about $4,000 of such openings on the
palm of ones hand. Prof. Stewart has
| counted them, but again he will not risk
| his reputation for strict veracity on the
1 question of q single pore one way or an
rth L. Il. zlr,1- IA.
| of course, that the public are not exacting
| in such matters.