Did you know that your skin is overlaid with what dermatologists call “Blaschko’s Lines”? These lines are a pattern of stripes that cover your body from head to toe, running up and down your arms and legs, and hugging your torso. They even wrap around the back of your head and across your face. Don’t you wish you could see it?
From the article:
“In the early 1900s, German dermatologist Alfred Blaschko reported that many of his patients’ rashes and moles seemed to follow similar formations, almost as though they were tracing invisible lines. But those lines didn’t follow nerves or blood vessels. They didn’t represent any known body system.”
To explain what he thought he understood, he drew the following:
We also know a bit more about them today. They are actually cellular relics of our development from a single cell to a fully formed human. Every human starts as a single cell and then as the cells divide, they change: some become muscles, some bones, and still others organs. And some become skin. So, as those skin cells continue to divide, they expand and stretch to cover your quickly growing body.
Most of us will never see our own stripes, but they are there. Isn’t life amazing?
Source: Mental Floss
