Volume 2

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    on the Marquesas Islands, and entered into friendly conversation with the people. Suddenly one of their number was violently seized by the chief, and his friends expected every moment to see him murdered. Nothing, however, was further from the mind of the chief. A hair on the face of the officer had offended his ideas of good taste, and he simply wished to perform the friendly act of plucking it out with his shell tweezers. Let us in the next place consider whether the short hairs scattered over the body fulfil any useful function, and if not, how we can account for their presence. They are so few and short, as a rule, that we cannot regard them as affording the skin an effective covering. Nor can we believe, as some do, that they protect the surface of the body from the effects of friction. Just look at any part of the skin which is especially subjected to friction, as, for instance, the skin of the wrists over which the stiff margins of the cuffs play, and you will observe that instead of the hairs being especially developed they are, in a great measure, rubbed off. Then if they counteract the effects of fric- tion, where should we find them better marked than on the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands, whereas the skin of these regions is characterized not only by the total absence of hair, but also of the power of producing hair. In short, we are driven to the conclusion that the short hairs are rudimentary structures, or, in other words, vestiges of a hairy covering which at one time did fulfil a protective and sheltering function. In this respect they are quite analogous to the rudimentary teeth which appear in the young whale-bone whale. These teeth never cut the gum, and are perfectly useless. The analogy is rendered still more striking by the fact that on certain parts of the body it is no uncommon thing for hair to be formed in the skin which never reaches the surface except to be shed. The skin of the nose is, to all intents and purposes, quite bald, yet minute hairs are being constantly formed in its midst. To prove this you have simply to squeeze out the contents of one of the sebaceous follicles there, and amidst the fat which exudes the microscope will reveal a number of short delicate hairs.