CHAPTER VI. 



WOOL: ITS HISTORY, USES, NATURE, 

 CULTURE AND DISEASE. 



Wool is a modified form of hair. It is distinguished from 

 hair, however, by certain special and prominent character- 

 istics, while retaining to some extent other properties which 

 are common to the natural covering of all animals. It has 

 precisely the same chemical composition a.s skin, hair, and 

 the feathers of birds, having as these have about 16 per cent 

 of nitrogen and 4 per cent of sulphur. It is distinctly a 

 growth from the ski!n, being rooted in it, and drawing its 

 nutriment from it, and partaking with it in precise sympa- 

 thy its prosperity and adversity; growing luxuriantly, and in 

 its best form, in health; but equally suffering with it in 

 sickness and disease. 



FIG. 1. 



, Epidermis, or surface skin, b, Dermis, or true skin. 

 c, Fiber of wool, with its follicles. d, d, Nutritive glands. 

 e, e, Capillary blood vessels. /,/, Masses of fatty tissue. 

 (Magnified 500 diameters.) 



Its manner of grqwth is peculiar. Its root is a bulb 

 which is inserted in what is called a follicle of the skin, 

 as shown in figure 1. It is not deeply planted, and is thus 

 subject to serious injury under what might be thought quite 



