Regeneration of hair follicles and sebaceous glands from the epithelium of scars in the rabbit.

It has been generally accepted that, when all the hair follicles and sebaceous glands in a region of adult skin are destroyed, or the entire region is extirpated, the new epithelium growing in from the side will not regenerate these structures (14). On the basis of this concept, attempts were made to obtain a purely squamous sheet of epi thelium in the rabbit for the purpose of inoculating it with the Shope papilloma virus. A region of skin was surgically removed from the back, and the wound was allowed to heal under conditions that largely prevented contraction and drying. Con trary to expectation, functioning hair follicles and sebaceous glands appeared in the scars, sometimes in great profusion. In the experiments here reported, wounds in various stages of healing were studied in an at tempt to determine the origin of the new hair follicles and glands. The "hair follicle" is here considered a purely