Microscopy

• In any struggle between victim and attacker, hairs and fibres from one are inevitably transferred to the other.
• • By the early 1900s microscopic examination of hair was well established.
• Aparting from burning, hair is virtually indestructible. It remains identifiable even on bodies in an advanced state of decomposition
• The forensic scientist using a microscope can make even a single hair yield information about the race, sex and age of its owner
• • Hair is an appendage of the skin that grows out of an organ known as the hair follicle
• • Hair is composed of a group of proteins (keratins) that interconnect to form stable fibrils
• There are three basic scale structures: Coronal  - (crown-like)

  Spinous  - (petal-like)

  Imbricate - (flattened)