Abstract
Two distinctive features of the scale edges on the cuticle of keratin fibers are: (i) their position does not always coincide with that of the distal ends of cuticle cells, the finer fibers having extra scale edges in between these positions; (ii) the edges are remarkably sharp, appearing to have experienced considerable pressure from the corresponding edges on the inner root sheath (IRS) at some stage during their formation. This second observation necessitates the conclusion that at some stage during growth the cuticle of the fiber travels outwards through the follicle more rapidly than the cuticle of the IRS. If this is accepted, observation (i) can be explained by a stick-slip mechanism operating during growth of the fiber.
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