Why Do People Have Hair On Their Bodies?

Birds have feathers, and mammals, such as man, have hair. It is believed that feathers and hair enabled birds and mammals to develop far beyond their common ancestors, the reptiles.

In human beings, there are only two parts of the body where there is no hair; the palms of the hand and the soles of the feet. The hair on the rest of the body is believed to be a leftover from the coat of heavy hair that our pre-historic ancestors had.

When a human baby is about a 100 days old in the mothers womb, a thick coat of hair sprouts from the skin. After another 100 days these hairs are shed. This is called the embryonic hair.

This hair is replaced by the delicate hair of a new born baby. Then this hair is transformed at the time of puberty (about 14 years in boys and 12 years in girls) into the final coat of hair that the person will have.

The development of the adult coat of her is regulated by the sex glands. In males certain hormones promote the development of hair on the face and body and keep down the growth of hair on the head. The female hormones act in just the opposite way.

Why we need this is not quite understood by science. We can say that the hair of the eyebrows, lashes, ears and nose are probably there to protect us against dust and insects.

A man's beard in pre-historic times, probably helped set men apart from women —even at a distance — and help give the man an appearance. The fine hairs of the body help us to shed perspiration and water.

An adult male has from 300 hundred to 500 thousand hairs in his skin. Blonde persons with finer hair have the most hair; red-head people, who have the coarsest hair, have the fewest hairs on their bodies.

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