Introduction
Sweat glands are normally called the so-called eccrine sweat glands, i.e. those sweat glands that are distributed over the entire body with a few exceptions. Their task is to secrete sweat, which makes an important contribution to the regulation of the heat balance of our body. Furthermore, there are the so-called apocrine sweat glands, which are located only in certain regions of the skin and whose function is the secretion of scents.
Occurrence
The eccrine sweat glands belong to the skin appendages, just like nails and hair. In humans, they are found everywhere in the skin except in the lips and the glans (the inner part of the foreskin). However, the density with which the skin is covered with sweat glands varies greatly from area to area.
Thus, most sweat glands are found on the soles of the feet and palms of the hands, about 600 per square centimeter. In addition, they also occur in large numbers on the forehead and in the crook of the arm. Places where there are only about 60 to 100 glands per square centimeter are for example the back and thighs. Eccrine sweat glands are embedded in the subcutaneous tissue (subcutis) and have an average diameter of 0.4 millimeters.
Structure of the sweat glands
These glands are unbranched and conduct the produced fluid through tubular ducts through the cutis to the surface of the skin, where the glands are then expanded in a ball and secretion takes place. The eccrine (like the apocrine) sweat glands are surrounded by a basal membrane. However, between the gland and this membrane there is still a layer of smooth muscle cells.
These help to practically express the secretion from the glands and since they are controlled by the autonomic nervous system, they are not subject to our arbitrary control. The secretion of sweat follows the exocrine mechanism, which describes the release of a substance to an internal or, as in the case of the sweat glands, external surface. Among the exocrine glands, the sweat glands belong to the group of eccrine (merocrine) glands, which means that the secretion of their secretion occurs without any detectable loss of cellular components.
All articles in this series:
