CHAPTER XIV. 



THE SKIN. 



Its Diseases and How to Cure Them. 



Its Parasites and How to Destroy Them. 



Structure of the skin, cracked heels or scratches, netti^e- 

 rash or surfeit, horny sloughs or sitfasts, warts, con- 

 gestion with pimples, animal and vegetable parasites, fis- 

 TULA, ETC. 



^HE skin consists primarily of the superficial laj^er, the cuticle or 

 epidermis without blood vessels; and the deep layer, the corium, 

 dermis or true skin, which has many blood vessels. The cuticle 

 is made up of cells placed side by side and more or less modified 

 in shape by mutual compression and by surface evaporation and drying. 

 The outside layer consists of the cells dried in the form of scales, which 

 fall off continually and form dandruff. The deeper layer is formed of 

 somewhat rounded cells with large central nuclei, and in colored skin 

 containing numerous pigment granules. These cells have prolongations 

 or branches by which they communicate with each other and with the 

 superficial layer of cells in the true skin beneath. Through these they 

 receive nutrient liquids for their growth and increase, and through thesa 

 liquids absorbed by the skin, may be passed on into the vessels of the 

 true skin beneath. 



The TRUE SKIN or dermis has a framework of interlacing bundles of 

 white and yellow fibers, large and coarse in the deeper layers, and fine 

 in the superficial where they approach the cuticle. Between the fibrous 

 bundles are left interspaces which, like the bundles, become finer as they 

 approach the surface, and inclose cells, vessels, nerves, glands, gland 

 ducts, hairs, and in the deeper layers fat. 



