01?, A TKKATISK OX I'lLK. 107 



speak in another place, and what is there said mvd not be here repeated. (See Chapter 

 V.) But, besides what is there noticed, it is worthy of observation that, during our whole 

 lives, there is an almost insensible regeneration of hair. We may, in almost every hairy 

 region, find long and short hairs, and, upon dissection, hairs are always found beneath the 

 < jiidcrmis, not having yet pierced that integument. This regeneration, as we have else- 

 where remarked, is a portion of the law of living organism, and not a peculiar property of 

 pile. 



On the regeneration of pile after having been drawn out, Heusinger observes, that there 

 is found, in the follicle first, a thin, reddish, or flesh-red colored liquid; afterward, and 

 deeper, a soft, reddish, fleshy substance, which adheres to the sheath and to the bottom of 

 the follicle, but which holds only here and there to the sides of the latter. The hair passes 

 through the middle of this substance. After the shaft has been drawn out, the fleshy sub- 

 stance* swells, and is filled with blood In three days it returns again to its natural state. 

 tu its midst is then discovered a dark, clotted mass, rising from the bottom of the follicle. 

 Five days after the hair has been drawn out, a hair, of the length of two millimeters, is 

 produced. Heusinger adds, that he has seen, in the same follicle, alongside of the old 

 dried bulb, [sheath?] a new hair produced, taking upon itself the form of a black globule. 

 The new hair (he says) grows immediately upon the old one, [the sheath?] and pierces 

 the skin right alongside of it. 



This wonderful power to produce a new hair ought not to excite surprise, when we call 

 to mind the reproductive power of some of the Crustacea. A Crab or Lobster, which has 

 been deprived of a leg or an antena, can, in a short space of time, replace it by a new one, 

 which proceeds from the stump. So the antler of the Stag (which sometimes weighs 30 

 pounds) is reproduced in ten weeks. The old ones, having arrived at maturity, no longer 

 receive the same nourishment from the powerful vessels which were instrumental in their 

 production; still, for a limited time, they continue to live at the expense of their interior 

 vessels ; but these gradually diminish in capacity, and the necessary blood diminishes, 

 until eventually they die and fall. 



Bichat justly remarks, that the season of regeneration of all these integuments is one of 

 much bodily weakness, and is sometimes of incipient disease. He attributes this to the 

 unusual attraction of the products of nutrition, to the exterior, at the expense of the vital 

 functions. This is a valuable hint to the owners of horses, sheep and other domestic 

 animals, to be tender to them when they are renewing their coats. 



"A merciful man is merciful to his beasts." 



It ought also to teach parents to be very careful of their children at the season of 

 puberty. 



OF THE GRADUAL AND PERIODICAL DEciDENCE OF PILE. There are some writers who 

 entertain the opinion that pile, at certain periods, attains the maximum of its development 

 when the stalk becomes a dead mass, like the horns of the Stag, liable to be separated from 



-* Query, if this is not the sheath. 

 27 



