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The human skin is the outer covering of the body and is the largest organ of the integumentary system. The skin has up to seven layers of ectodermal tissue guarding muscles, bones, ligaments and internal organs. Human skin is similar to most of the other mammals' skin, and it is very similar to pig skin.
It comprises the skin and its appendages, which act as a physical barrier between the external environment and the internal environment that it serves to protect and maintain the body of the animal. Mainly it is the body's outer skin. The integumentary system includes skin, hair, scales, feathers, hooves, claws, and nails.
Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other animal coverings , such as the arthropod exoskeleton , have different developmental origin , structure and chemical composition .
The epidermis is the outermost of the three layers that comprise the skin, the inner layers being the dermis and hypodermis. [1] The epidermal layer provides a barrier to infection from environmental pathogens [2] and regulates the amount of water released from the body into the atmosphere through transepidermal water loss.
The skin's protective acid mantle and lipid barrier sit on top of the stratum disjunctum. [5] The stratum disjunctum is the uppermost and loosest layer of skin. The stratum compactum is the comparatively deeper, more compacted and more cohesive part of the stratum corneum. [ 6 ]
This process is a normal protective mechanism of the skin to prevent pathogens from colonizing the skin, and is referred to as desquamation. In healthy skin, desquamation is an invisible process and the stratum corneum is turned over completely within 2–4 weeks, while maintaining the tissue thickness.
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In humans, some of the more common skin appendages are hairs (sensation, heat loss, filter for breathing, protection), arrector pilli (smooth muscles that pull hairs straight), sebaceous glands (secrete sebum onto hair follicle, which oils the hair), sweat glands (can secrete sweat with strong odour or with a faint odour (merocrine or eccrine ...