ioo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



der the skin, supposed by Krause (Baker's Kirk, page 427) to be 

 between two and three millions in number in the parts where 

 they are least abundant they are over four hundred to the square 

 inch offers evidence of a physiological character on the point, 

 even if, as is stated, some small part of skin perspiration takes 

 place independently of these glands. Then we have the evidence 

 of the disagreeable odor from the skin and clothes where cleanli- 

 ness is not observed ; again, we have the curious facts of death 

 having both actually and nearly occurred in cases where the body 

 has been covered (the mouth having been left free) with gold-leaf 

 or plaster of Paris. Various explanations have been given, 

 but Prof. Foster seems to think (page 697) that the retention 

 of poisonous matters " constituents of sweat, or the products of 

 some abnormal metabolism " (change) which would have been 

 discharged through the sweat-glands, is largely concerned in the 

 matter. We venture to believe quite independently of certain 

 experiments that this conclusion can not be avoided. 



We have also a most remarkable case recorded by Sir D. Gal- 

 ton. Some men in the horse artillery had left their bedding rolled 

 up for two months, without its being opened to the air. When 

 first used again, man after man who had slept on this bedding 

 came into hospital with " a suspicious fever." It would be diffi- 

 cult to find a case that more vividly illustrates both the poisonous 

 character of the emanations of the body and the necessity of free 

 ventilation in order to render them harmless. Again, when se- 

 rious consequences result from a chill owing to the constriction 

 of the blood-vessels of the skin and interference with the sweat- 

 glands such as a dangerous affection of the kidneys (Richardson, 

 page 283), or a congestion of the spleen (Richardson, page 307), or 

 the inflammation of bone and periosteum (Richardson, page 323), it 

 seems probable that the cause of mischief in all these cases is 

 either the retention of normal poisons that ought to have escaped 

 through the skin, or the formation of abnormal poisons during the 

 inaction of the skin. [We think it is Dr. Richardson who makes 

 this suggestion.] Again, the fetid exhalations from lungs and 

 skin in starvation seem to show that the breaking down of tissue, 

 which is very rapid in these cases, is resulting in a larger dis- 

 charge than usual, through skin and lungs, of putrescent matter. 



From what has been already said, we ought not to feel surprised 

 that those who live in foul air are not only lowering their health, 

 but are carefully preparing themselves both for lung and bron- 

 chial affections, and for such diseases as scarlet fever, typhoid, 

 small-pox, dipththeria, dysentery, cholera, etc. As regards cholera, 

 we extract the following interesting account given by Dr. Car- 

 penter. He states (page 360) that in the fatal autumn of 1849 there 

 was at Taunton an exceedingly badly ventilated workhouse. In 



