Principles and Practice of Fur Dressing and Fur Dyeing

by William E. Austin

CHAPTER II
STRUCTURE OF FUR

Fur is made up of two main components, the hair and the skin, and each of these has a very complex structure.

In the living animal the skin serves as a protective covering, and also constitutes an organ of secretion and of feeling; consequently it is of a highly complicated nature. The skin of all fur-bearing animals is essentially the same in structure, although varying considerably as to thickness and texture. It consists of two principal layers, which are entirely different in structure and purpose, and correspondingly different in both physical and chemical respects: the epidermis, epithelium or cuticle, which is the outer layer, and the dermis or corium, which is the true skin. ([Fig. 1A]).

The epidermis is very thin as compared with the corium. Its outer layer consists of a tissue of cells, somewhat analogous to the horny matter of nails and hair. The inner surface, called the ‘rete malpighi,’ rests on the true skin, and is a soft, mucous layer of cells. These cells are spherical when first formed, but as they approach the surface become flattened, and dry up, forming the horny outer layer of the epidermis, which is constantly throwing off the dead scales, and which is constantly being renewed from below. It is from this inner layer of the epidermis that the hair, the sweat-glands, and the fat-glands are developed.

The corium, or true skin, consists essentially of white, interlacing fibres of the kind known as connective tissue. These fibres are themselves made up of extremely fine smaller fibres, or fibrils, cemented together by a substance of a somewhat different nature from the fibres, the coriin. Towards the center of the skin, the texture of the interweaving fibres is looser, becoming much more compact at the surface just beneath the inner layer of the epidermis. This part of the corium is so exceedingly close that the fibrils are scarcely recognizable. It is in this part that the fat-glands are situated, while the hair-roots and sweat-glands pass through it into the looser texture of the corium. The surface next to the flesh is also closer in structure than the middle portions of the skin, and has somewhat of a membranous character due to the fibres running almost parallel to the surface of the skin. The skin is joined to the body proper by a network of connective tissue, frequently full of fat-cells. This layer, together with portions of the flesh which may adhere to it, is removed by the process called ‘fleshing,’ and this side of the skin is known as the flesh side. The corium also contains a small proportion of yellow fibres, known as ‘elastic fibres,’ which differ physically and chemically from the rest of the skin substance.

During the course of the development of the embryo animal, a small group of cells forms like a bulb on the inner side of the epidermis, above a knot of very fine blood-vessels in the corium. This group of cells grows downward into the true skin, and the hair-root which is formed within it, surrounds the capillary blood-vessels, drawing nourishment from them, and thus forming the papilla. ([Fig. 1A]). Smaller projections also form on the bulb, and the fat-glands are gradually developed. The sweat-glands are formed in a manner similar to the development of hair.

The individual hair fibre is quite as complicated in structure as the skin, and is made up of four distinct parts. ([Fig. 1B]).[2]

The medulla, or pith, is the innermost portion of the hair, and is composed of many shrunken cells, often connected by a network which may fill the medullary column partially or wholly.

Surrounding the medulla is the cortex, which is made up of spindle-shaped cells fused into a horny, almost homogeneous, transparent mass, and forming a large proportion of the hair shaft.

In the majority of the fur-bearing animals, there is distributed within and among the cells of the cortex a pigment in the form of granules or minute particles, arranged in the different hairs in fairly definite and characteristic patterns. It is to these pigment granules that the color of the hair is due primarily. In some cases the coloring matter of the shaft is uniformly diffused and not granular.