PERSPIRATION. 133 



taking place more rapidly when the surrounding temper- 

 ature was lowered. 1 



In some later observations upon this subject by Yalentin 

 and Laschkewitsch, facts, still more curious, have been de- 

 veloped. Laschkewitsch a found that the peculiar effects of 

 an impermeable coating to the surface were much less 

 marked in large than in small animals. Horses treated in 

 this way lived for several days, but rabbits died in a few 

 hours. In rabbits, death frequently occurred after coating 

 only one quarter of the surface. Yalentin and Laschke- 

 witsch confirmed the observations on the lowering of the 

 animal temperature; but they found that when the heat 

 was kept at the normal standard by artificial means, no mor- 

 bid symptoms were manifested. Neither of these observers 

 could detect any accumulation of excrementitious or other 

 morbid principles in the blood ; and the results of their ex- 

 periments were opposed to the view that death takes place, 

 under these conditions, from asphyxia. The cause of death 

 has never, indeed, been satisfactorily explained, partly for 

 the reason that we are unacquainted with the nature and 

 properties of all the excrementitious matters exhaled from 

 the skin ; and it is not easy to understand why coating the 

 surface should be followed by such a rapid diminution in 

 the temperature of the body. The experimental facts, 

 however, would indicate that the skin possesses important 

 functions with which we are entirely unacquainted. Phy- 

 siological chemists have detected urea and some other effete 

 matters in the perspiration, but it is probable that some vol- 

 atile principles are eliminated by the general surface, which 

 have thus far escaped observation. The importance of free 

 action of the skin in the human subject was strikingly illus- 

 trated in the case of a child who was covered with gold-leaf in 



1 BERNARD, op. cit., p. 177. 



2 LASCHKEWITSCH, Ueber die Ursacken der Temperatur-Erniedrigung bei Un- 

 terdriikung der Hautperspiration. Archiv fur Anatomic, Physiologic, und wis- 

 senschaftliche Median, Leipzig, 1868, Xo. i., S. 61, et seq. 



