CHAPTER III. 



On the Hair, Beard, and Colour of the IrL 



Every part of our frame deserves to be attentively consi- 

 dered and investigated. The hair, whieh is found, in vari- 

 ous form and quantity, over nearly the whole external sur- 

 face, might seem at first view an excrescence hardly worthy 

 of notice. We are soon struck, however, with the contrast 

 between man and animals, in respect to this growth ; with 

 its general abundance over the whole body in the latter, and 

 the comparative nakedness of the former, while in the head 

 these proportions are reversed, and its copious and long 

 growth, to which there is nothing parallel in animals, forms 

 a distinguished and peculiar ornament, imparting a charac- 

 ter of dignity and majesty to the human head. It presents, 

 again, well-marked varieties in the different races of men : 

 compare tlie short woolly knots on the head of the genuine 

 Negro, or the coarse, straight, and thin hair of an American 

 or Mongolian, together with their beardless faces, to the 

 ample growth of fine and undulated locks and the full beard 

 which so gracefully adorn the head and face of the Cau- 

 casian races. The physiologist will be interested in examin- 

 ing the relation between the hair and the integuments; and 

 in noticing the sexual distinctions, which are more or less 

 strongly marked by this production. 



Implanted in the skin, and deriving from the cutaneous 

 vessels the materials of its growth, the structure and proper- 

 ties of the hair are closely allied to those of this organ. The 

 horny substance composing it is very analogous to that of 

 the cuticle ; and being equally destitute of vessels, nerves, 

 sensibility, and all power of exhibiting vital processes may 

 be regarded, like it, as dead matter. 



Each hair may be traced, through the cuticle and surface 

 of the cutis, to a bulb situated partly in the corion of the 



