The Structure and Function of the Skin in the Cold

The skin may often be assessed as nonimportant, passive, cosmetical cover or frame of human being. As a living organ forming the surface of the human body towards the environment, the skin plays, however, an essential role in the perception of the environmental temperature and its changes. The skin also plays an active role in maintaining the thermal homeostasis of the body by many necessary structural and functional skin responses, mainly by regulating the dissipation of thermal energy to the environment. During the late phase of cooling of the body, the skin may partly turn into a passive insulative bark of the body diminishing thus the thermal loss to a minimum. In a recent disser tation the behaviour and thermophysiology of skin in the cold is reviewed (Lehmuskallio 2001).