Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/270

 than the shaft. This portion is the bulb or root of the hair. It is firmly fixed in the true skin or derma, and from it, as the tree from its root, the hair draws its sustenance. The shaft, when examined by a microscope, is seen in straight hairs to be nearly or quite round, but more or less flattened when the hair is wavy or curly, for the flattening of the hair causes this curliness.

If a hair is drawn between the fingers from its root to its point, it feels smooth, but when drawn from its point to its root, it leaves a sensation of roughness. This is because each hair is covered with minute scales, in appearance like those on a fish or a snake, disposed from root to point, one overlapping the other like slates on a steeple.

Beneath this layer of scales is a mass of fibrous cells, in shape like spindles, which form the body of the hair. They contain the coloring matter which imparts to the hair its hue. Through the centre of the hair, from root to tip, is a very minute canal filled with air. So that in fact a hair is a delicate tube with two walls, the inner one of strong fibrous cells containing coloring matter, the outer one of flat scales.

Everybody knows what a difference there is in the size of hairs. Some are fine and silky, others coarse and bristly. But every one does not know that the coarsest hair is found in women. We would naturally suppose that men would have it, but it is not so. The