increased. Hence, contagious diseases are more readily caught by touch when the body is warm and moist, than when dry and cold. A pure and bracing atmosphere is well known to be more conducive to health than one which is heavy and relaxing.

"When the skin is in a proper condition, and the atmosphere pure, the vital functions suffering no impediment from external circumstances, proceed with the requisite energy, and the feelings enjoy that degree of buoyancy which is the best criterion of a good state of health. We confine ourselves to the injuries likely to ensue from a derangement of the perspiratory organs in the skin. The derangement most to be avoided is the stopping of the pores, and consequent suppression of the insensible perspiration. Sudden exposure to cold, after being heated, ordinarily produces this effect. When it occurs, the duty of expelling the excess of matter which would have escaped by the pores is thrown upon the lungs, the bowels, or the kidneys, causing undue irritation and disorder. Very commonly the lungs are the readiest to suffer. They become clogged with phlegm, which produces an irritation, and this irritation causes a cough, and with the cough, expectoration (spitting). In instances of this kind the sufferer is said to have a cold, but, correctly speaking, his pores have been shut by some cold exposure.

“When in a perfectly healthy condition, the skin is soft, warm, and covered with a gentle moisture; the circulation of the blood is also in a state of due activity, giving it a fresh and ruddy colour. The degree of redness, as, for instance, in the cheeks, is usually in proportion to the exposure to the outer atmosphere, such

Dangers of Suppressed Perspiration.

13

exposure, when not too severe, causing active circulation of the blood, not only throughout the body, but to the most minute vessels on the surface. Hence the pale and unhealthy hue of persons confined to the house, and close sedentary employment, and the ruddy colour of those who spend much of their lives in the open air.

'When the exposure is too severe, or more than can be conveniently counterbalanced by the animal heat, a chill, as already stated, is the consequence, and the skin assumes a pale appearance, the forerunner, it may be, of bodily indisposition: the insensible perspiration has been suppressed, and the lungs have got into a state of serious irritation. Warmth and other remedies restore the healthy functions of the pores; but when the cold is neglected, inflammation of the bronchic, or air-tubes communicating with the lungs, or some other pulmonary affections, ensue, the lamentable issue of which may be— death. The danger of suppressing the perspiration is increased by another circumstance. Along with the liquid exhalation, passes off the superabundant heat of the body. If, therefore, we check the insensible perspiration, this superabundant quantity of heat is unable to make its escape by the surface, and returns upon the vital organs within. Fevers, rheumatism, and other dangerous maladies, are the consequence of this form of derangement, the end of which also is too often-death. In the greater number of cases, the skin may be said to be in a condition neither precisely healthy, nor unhealthy, but between the two. The pores, partially clogged, are unable to expel the insensible perspiration with sufficient energy, and the kidneys and lungs are correspondingly charged with an excess of duty-not,

perhaps, to a degree sensibly inconvenient, yet in some measure detrimental to general health, as well as to the mental functions dependent on it."

These extracts will speak for themselves, and will well repay the reader by a careful and studious perusal.

The following is a poem written by Sir Alfred Power, and published by the National Health Society, which is so good that I cannot omit it:

"THE SKIN.

"There's a skin without and a skin within,

A covering skin and a lining skin;

But the skin within is the skin without,

Doubled inwards, and carried completely throughout.

“The palate, the nostrils, the windpipe, and throat,
Are all of them lined with this inner coat,

Which through every part is made to extend,
Lungs, liver, and bowels, from end to end.

"The outside skin is a marvellous plan

For exuding the dregs of the flesh of man,

While the inner extracts from the food and the air
What is needed the waste of the flesh to repair.

"Too much brandy, whisky, or gin,

Is apt to disorder the skin within;

While if dirty and dry, the skin without
Refuses to let the sweat come out.

"Good people all, have a care of your skin,
Both that without and that within;

To the first give plenty of water and soap,
To the last, little else but water, we hope.

"But always be very particular where

You get your water, your food, and your air,
For if these be tainted or rendered impure,
It will have its effect on the blood, be sure.
"The food which will ever for you be the best

Is that you like most and can soonest digest;

The Surface of the Human Body.

All unripe fruit and decaying flesh

Beware of, and fish that is not very fresh.

"Your water, transparent and pure as you think it,
Had better be filtered and boiled ere you drink it,
Unless you know surely that nothing unsound
Can have got to it over or under the ground.
“But all things the most I would have you beware
Of breathing the poison of once-breathèd air;
When in bed, whether out or at home you may be,
Always open the window and let it go free.

"With clothing and exercise keep yourselves warm,
And change your clothes quickly if caught in a storm,
For a cold caught by chilling the outside skin
Flies at once to the delicate lining within.

"All you who thus kindly take care of your skin,
And attend to its wants without and within,
Need never of cholera feel any fears,

And your skin may last you a hundred years.'

15

We will now proceed to consider farther the surface of the human body. We are told that it contains about 2,500 inches (superficial), and each inch containing 3,500 pores; here is the amazing number of from eight to nine millions of perspiratory canals, and, when in a healthy state, carrying off from the system in every twenty-four hours from three to four pounds weight of deleterious matter; and if from any cause, with or without contagion, those pores should close, at once this deleterious matter accumulates, and immediately begins its work of diseasing the whole system, while all the incidents of every disease, by any name known, must be the result. The safety-valves, therefore, must be opened, or death. ensues. Nature, aided by the free action of the pores, will drive the enemy out, and if, at an early stage, on discovery of their closing, this is done, the worst forms

To

of disease may be avoided; but if this is not effected, then the consequence is, that in every twenty-four hours, virus is produced sufficient for all the pustules a person suffering from smallpox may have, and which nature inflicts upon man when her laws are disregarded, thus throwing out the accumulated poison in the best possible way. Here is the preventive, and here the cure. save humanity from disease and death, it is first the skin and last the skin! for unless the skin is kept in a healthy condition, it is impossible to preserve life. It is, therefore, my humble opinion, that in cases of cholera, it will be found that the normal condition of the skin has ceased, the whole system is vitiated, and, by its being so, and probably increased by fear, this dreadful plague proceeds in its march of suffering and death. Whereas, if the skin was the first object of the doctor's solicitude for a patient, is it not reasonable to suppose that the first obstacle in the way of health and happiness would be removed? When a closing of the pores of the skin is sufficient to cause death without the pains of cholera, it must be obvious to my readers that the best and surest way to secure and preserve health is by getting the skin to act.

Inaction of the Skin produces Disease.

The writer has himself suffered from Indian cholera in its worst form, and, consequently, can speak a little from experience. He has seen forty-five funerals in one parish churchyard on a Sunday afternoon, while hundreds were dying all around. A gentleman - a member of the Society of Friends-who had no fear, in his mind, and who took every opportunity to visit all cases he heard of to assist those afflicted with cholera, by keeping his