The skin is a surface organ that forms the organism's boundary to the outside world. It protects the human body from pathological germs, sunlight and dehydration, among other things.
Human skin has a total surface area of about 1.8 m2 and is about 1.5 to 4 mm thick. Its total weight is approx. 3.5 to 10 kg. If the fatty tissue is included, a weight of approx. 20 kg is possible.
Macroscopically, two functionally different skin forms can be distinguished on the human body:
The skin is supplied by numerous epifascial arterial and venous blood vessels, which are connected to each other in the subcutis by collateral vessels. Its sensory innervation takes place via superficial cutaneous nerves.
The skin is made up of different layers:
The skin contains skin appendages (hair, nails, sweat, sebaceous and scent glands), blood vessels, nerve endings, thermoreceptors and mechanoreceptors, which serve to protect the skin, but also to interact with the environment.
The border area between the dermis and epidermis is known as the dermoepidermal junction zone.
Author: Joshua Soeder, DocCheck, created with BioRender.com; adapted from "Anatomy of the Skin" licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
