Generally, and without going at all
deeply into the subject, we may say that wool differs from fur and hair,
of which we may regard it as a variety, by being usually more elastic,
flexible, and curly, and because it possesses certain features of
surface structure which confer upon it the property of being more easily
matted together than fur and hair are. We must first shortly consider
the manner of growth of hair without spending too much time on this part
of the subject. The accompanying figure (see Fig. 5) shows a section of
the skin with a hair or wool fibre rooted in it. Here we may see that
the ground work, if we may so term it, is four-fold in structure.
Proceeding downwards, we have--(first) the outer skin, scarf-skin or
cuticle; (second) a second layer or skin called the _rete mucosum_,
forming the epidermis; (third) papillary layer; (fourth) the corium
layer, forming the dermis. The peculiar, globular, cellular masses below
in the corium are called adipose cells, and these throw off perspiration
or moisture, which is carried away to the surface by the glands shown
(called sudoriparous glands), which, as is seen, pass independently off
to the surface.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27