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The Properties of Skin as a Diffusion Barrier and Route for Absorption

1989; Springer Science+Business Media; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-642-74054-1_12

1865-0325

R. C. Scott, P H Dugard,

Contact Dermatitis and Allergies

Mammalian skin is a complex, integrated organ. It is the largest organ in mammals and in an adult human male covers an area of 18–22000 cm2. Essentially, it is composed of the outermost epidermis, an inner dermis and associated hair follicles and sweat ducts. Our main interest in relation to the permeability properties is the epidermis which is responsible for the production of the outermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum. The whole of the stratum corneum is believed to constitute the permeability barrier, with perhaps the exception of the outermost desquamating corneocytes (Kligman 1964).