514 OF ABSORPTION AND SANGUIFICATION. 



who for five weeks passed 24 Ibs. of urine every twenty-four hours ; his in- 

 gesta during the same period amounted to 22 Ibs. At the commencement of 

 the disease he weighed 145 Ibs. ; and when he died, 27 Ibs. of loss had been 

 sustained. The daily excess of the excretions over the ingesta could not have 

 been less than 4 Ibs. ; making 140 Ibs. for the thirty-five days during which 

 the complaint lasted. If from this we deduct the amount of diminution which 

 the weight of the body sustained during the time, we shall still have 113 Ibs. 

 to be accounted for, which can only have entered the body from the atmo- 

 sphere. A case of ovarian dropsy has been recorded, in which it was ob- 

 served that the patient, during eighteen days, drank 692 oz. or 43 pints of 

 fluid, and that she discharged by urine and by paracentesis, 1298 oz. or 91 

 pints, which leaves a balance of 606 oz. or 38 pints, to be similarly accounted 

 for.* The following remarkable fact is mentioned by Dr. Watson in his Che- 

 mical Essays. " A lad at Newmarket, having been almost starved, in order 

 that he might be reduced to a proper weight for riding a match, was weighed 

 at 9 A. M., and again at 10 A. M. ; and he was found to have gained nearly 30 

 oz. in weight in the course of this hour, though he had only drunk half a 

 glass of wine in the interim." A parallel instance was related to the Author 

 by the late Sir G. Hill, then Governor of St. Vincent. A jockey had been 

 for some time in training for a race, in which that gentleman was much inte- 

 rested ; and had been reduced to the proper weight. On the morning of the 

 trial, being much oppressed with thirst, he took one cup of tea ; and shortly 

 afterwards his weight was found to have increased 6 Ibs. ; so that he was in- 

 capacitated for riding. Nearly the whole of the increase in the former case, 

 and at least three-fourths of it in the latter, must be attributed to cutaneous 

 absorption ; which function was probably stimulated by the wine that was 

 taken in the one case, and by the tea in the other. 



679. Not only water, but substances dissolved in it, may be thus introduced. 

 It has been found that, after bathing in infusions of madder, rhubarb, and tur- 

 meric, the urine was tinged with these substances ; and that a garlic plaster 

 affected the breath, when every care was taken, by breathing through a tube 

 connected with the exterior of the apartment, that the odour should not be re- 

 ceived into the lungs.t Gallic acid has been found in the urine, after the ex- 

 ternal application of a decoction of a bark containing it; and the soothing influ- 

 ence in cases of neuralgic pain, of the external application of cherry-laurel 

 water, is well known. Many saline substances are absorbed by the skin, 

 when applied to it in solution ; and it is interesting to remark, that, contrary 

 to what happens in regard to the absorption of these from the alimentary ca- 

 nal, they are for the most part more readily discoverable in the absorbents 

 than in the veins. This is probably clue to the fact, that the imbibition of 

 them is governed entirely by physical laws; in obedience to which, they pass 

 most readily into the vessels which present the thinnest walls and the largest 

 surface. In the intestines, the vascular plexus on each villus is far more ex- 

 tensive than the ramifying lacteal which originates in it; and as the walls of 

 the veins are thin, there is considerable facility for the entrance of saline and 

 other substances into the general current of the circulation ; but in the skin, 

 the lymphatics are distributed much more minutely and extensively than the 

 veins ; and soluble matters, therefore, enter them in preference to the veins. 

 The absorbent power of the Lymphatics of the Skin is well shown by the 

 following experiment. A bandage having been tied by Schreger round the 

 hind-leg of a Puppy, the limb was kept for twenty-four hours in tepid milk ; 



* Madden, loo. oil. In this case, however, something is to be allowed for the quantity of 

 water continued in the solid food invested. 



"I" Dunglison's Physiology, [lith. ed., vol. i. p. G47.] 



