What If Humans Didn't Have Skin? | Unveiled

What If Humans Didn’t Have Skin?

Lots of things are essential to how the human body works, but few things are more essential than its outermost layer.

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; what if humans didn’t have skin?

You’ve probably heard that your skin is your body’s biggest organ. It trumps the brain, the lungs, the heart and the intestines, mostly because one of its main purposes is to cover up all of those things and keep them all in place. Skin is the barrier between our insides and the outside world, blocking germs and disease, preventing injury and regulating temperature. It’s actually divided into two main layers; the epidermis on the outside, and the dermis on the inside. And then there’s subcutaneous tissue below that, connecting your skin to your bones and muscles.

The first thing you’d notice if humans suddenly didn’t have skin would be all the general grossness. We’re talking blood and flesh, muscles and organs, all totally exposed like something out of a horror movie. You wouldn’t even have eyelids for your eyeballs anymore. Your muscles - your biceps, triceps, calves, quadriceps and the rest - would lose a lot of their stability, and while they would still be attached to the rest of your body, they could slip and slide all over the place without their outer casing. Your skeleton would also be exposed, and while human bones are remarkably strong, they’d soon get scratched and scuffed up without the skin to protect them. And all while your major organs move around and dislodge, too, particularly in your abdominal core. Suffice to say, skinless humans would not be a pretty sight.

But the really frightening thing is just how vulnerable we would be without skin. In fact, we’d be more than just vulnerable, we’d be dead. The skin stops millions and millions of microbes and particles from entering our bodies every second of every day, but now we’d be an open table for germs. Rot or mould would quickly set in, and poisons and toxins would have free passage. Not that we’d have the chance to develop any kind of long-term illnesses, because we just wouldn’t survive long enough. Without our skin to block out all the bacteria and dirt, our bodies would be like a once well-oiled machine grinding to a very definite halt.

If we were out in the open, then our prospects would be even worse. One of the skin’s most vital jobs is to protect us from the sun’s UV rays. Now, though, without skin, there’d be nothing to block the light, and nothing to stop it from killing us. Consider, too, that the skin is also important in ensuring that our bodies don’t dry out, and our organs and muscles under direct sunlight would very quickly shrivel and husk. The fluids inside us would plain evaporate, and our entire biological system would overheat before cooling forever. In the case of the heart, for instance, we’d have effectively cooked it inside our own ribcage… which just isn’t a pleasant thought! And, at the other end of the scale, if we didn’t have skin but we did have rain, or a swimming pool to fall into, then what’s left of our bodies would no longer be water resistant, either… it would just be a mushy mess.

Aside from protecting and regulating our bodies, however, the skin’s other main purpose is sensation. It’s packed with nerve endings, powering our sense of touch. If, then, your skin was no more, you wouldn’t have any of those nerve endings and your ability to feel would be severely hampered. At least initially. There are nerves in other parts of your body, including in your bones and muscles, but without skin you’d have a numbness until they were triggered. And, so, if you were somehow able to stay alive long enough to see how it all worked, you’d likely struggle to perform even simple tasks - like picking an object up with your fingers or kicking it with your feet. Without the full coverage of nerve endings that the skin provides you with, there’d be little for your brain to compute and act upon. It’s one of many reasons why third-degree burns are so dangerous (or any injury which affects all layers of your skin). The burns themselves are sometimes described as painless, but that’s only because the nerves in the injured region have been so severely damaged. And long-lasting nerve damage sometimes never improves, which means lifelong problems performing even simple tasks.

Clearly, though, thanks to the gruesome accidents and injuries that we know the human body can withstand, it’s by no means unheard of for people to lose significant portions of their skin and live. In some cases, patients have suffered deep burns over 90% of their bodies… and survived. There are, of course, plenty of variables at play - including how quickly a patient receives medical care, how effective that care is, whether or not they can avoid getting an infection, and whether or not they can avoid going into shock. But assuming they get through all of that, the options for reconstructive surgery are improving and innovating all the time.

To begin with, our skin has remarkable self-healing properties. But, failing those, there are various categories of skin graft (or skin transplant) which can be performed by specialist surgeons. Of course, in an alternate world where humans just didn’t have skin, these wouldn’t be an option - as there’d be nothing by way of a donor. But, as we found earlier, those alternate world, 100% skinless humans will’ve also all died off far too quickly to even begin to contemplate surgery…

Back in the real world, though, and in 2020 reports emerged that an electronic skin had been developed - something which could change the face of biomedicine and robotics in the future. The breakthrough came at RMIT University, in Melbourne, Australia, where scientists have produced a high-tech, artificial skin which they claim can sense touch and even pain like human skin does. It’s stretchy, flexible and durable, also like human skin, with the hope that it might one day provide an alternative option for patients needing a skin graft. Or that it could be used on future prosthetics. Meanwhile, reliable electronic skin is also seen as a potentially crucial next step along the road toward genuinely intelligent robots. Before long, then, humans might not even need their skin… because we’re busy perfecting a futuristic replacement for it.

Until then, however, it’s clear that our skin is vitally important to us. And if humans didn’t have it, well, we’d just be totally different, probably unviable creatures. We could try our best to do as insects do… and evolve our way toward some sort of exoskeleton as an alternative means of protection. But even most insects have some kind of epidermal layer underneath those outer shells. The skin is just too important to how the body functions.

Yes, we’re developing ways to live without it, ways to replace it, and to replicate it… but there’s no substitute for the real thing. And that’s why you should always try to take care of your skin - use sunscreen, and moisturiser, and just generally try not to burn or damage it. It has been estimated that if we could take our skin off, it would weigh around ten pounds in our hands. And, even if it feels as though it’s quite a thin part of your anatomy as a whole, it’s really the everyday shield between you and near-certain death. Because that’s what would happen if humans didn’t have skin.