Crystalline Structure of the Cuticular Sheath of Wool Fibres

Abstract

IN a recent communication in Nature¹, Alexander and Earland have described experiments in which wool keratin has been rendered soluble in dilute ammonia by pretreatment with peracetic acid. In these experiments they obtained an insoluble sheath-like residue, presumably the remains of the cuticle, amounting to some 10 per cent of the original fibre weight, and found, in collaboration with Happey², that this material gave a β-type X-ray photograph.