1897 Pinkus F

 
Über eine Form Rudimentärer Talgdrüsen. Arch Dermatol Syphilis (Berlin) 1897; 41:347–356 (Fig. 3).

View Figure  		Fig. 3  Fig. 1. M, Mantle hair. Fig. 2. M, The same hair with an adjacent mantle, cut open and tilted away.Fig. 3. Cross-section of the same hair through the line a-b. Fig. 4. M, Longitudinal section through a mantle hair.
 

Message

 
Peculiar mantle-like hair appendages were observed as lateral sprouts in longitudinal section and as a ring around the follicle in cross section. Those appendages were connected to the follicle at the same site at which a rudimentary sebaceous gland formed from the outer sheath in the embryo. He named the appendage "mantle hair."
 
In cross section, the mantle is seen to surround the follicle as a ring of epithelium separated from the follicle by a narrow zone of dermis. The mantle consists of several layers of epithelial cells which, in toto, are thinner than those of the outer sheath.
 
The mantle may give rise to sebaceous glands, but it is not the only source of them because similar glands may be found in the outer sheath.
 
Although mantles can be detected in normal skin, they also occur commonly in diseased skin like that of a melanocytic nevus or a seborrheic keratosis. This seems to indicate that pressure by pathologic processes causes mantles to form.
 

Critique

 
Pinkus was the first to describe the mantle as a bell-like structure that surrounds the follicle and to recognize it as the anlage of sebaceous glands.
 
The mantle is a normal component of the folliculo-sebaceous-apocrine unit and is neither an abnormal structure nor the result of a pathologic condition.
 
The mantle is the only source of sebocytes in postnatal life.