hair

A corneous outgrowth from the epidermis, consisting of a long, fine, tubular, elastic body, growing from a follicle of the skin and containing a medullary substance (the h. pith), filling a narrow, irregular cavity in the center of the h. Its shaft and a portion of its root are covered by an epidermis consisting of a thin lamella of flattened horny cells, overlapping each other distally. auditory h's. The fine fibrillae forming prolongations of the spindle-shaped nerve cells connected with the termination of the vestibular nerve, body of a h. See h. shaft, downy h. See lanugo, extraneous h. H. growing in unusual places, falling of the h. See alopecia, h. bulb. The bulbous end of a h. root lodged within the h. follicle and containing the h. papilla, h. cell. See under cell. h. follicle. A cavity of the skin which contains the root or implanted part of a h. h. root. That portion of the h. which is concealed in the follicle lying below the orifice of the 398 sebaceous gland, h. scales. The spindle like or platelike cells forming the cortical or principal part of a h. h. shaft. The free part of a h., as opposed to the root. h. sheath. The h. root sheath, horse h. The bristly appendages (mane and tail) of the horse;, used for suture material, hypertrophy of the h. See hyper trichosis, matted h. See plica polonica. olfactory h's. The cilia like projections from the olfactory cells in Amphibia. [Ang.-Sax.„