THE BIG PORES. 267 



Perspiration then is not only purification, but emission, and ema- 

 nation or creation. We now proceed to the other half of the sub- 

 ject — to the renewal of the body through its cutaneous surface 

 from the external world, or its reception of fluids and exhalations 

 from without. And first for the fact It is proved by the absorp- 

 tion of medicated substances when rubbed upon the skin ; by the 

 relief of thirst, the increase of weight, and the nutrition of the 

 body, when plunged in baths of water, or of alimentitious fluids ; 

 by increase of weight from the air itself, during sleep, as well as 

 at other times, and which cannot be accounted for by the food 

 taken; also by the phenomena of sympathy and antipathy, and by 

 the effects of mesmerism ; and in short by the same evidences that 

 attest the cutaneous exhalation. There is then a parallel of giving 

 and taking; the man and the world cross hands; the exchanges 

 are balanced between the skin of the body and the skin of the 

 planet, the atmosphere being their market ; the spirit, lymph, and 

 blood modify nature by their sphere ; and nature by hers constitutes 

 their circumstances and supports their reactions. This is also 

 shown by the organic effects of climate, and by the geographical 

 colorings and other differences of the skin. The rule here is, that 

 as the atmospheres, as well as the earth, environ the skin, the 

 latter is natively adequate to avail itself of their wealth, whether 

 ponderable or imponderable, and to feed its own system with what- 

 ever is inferiorly organic, or earthy, watery, airy, gaseous or 

 ethereal. In short the skin man is a sponge immersed in nature's 

 plenum, and soaking us through, soul-deep, with the substantial 

 properties of every medium. 



This which is established by facts, and afterwards appears self- 

 evident, is the point whence to start in unraveling the texture of 

 the skin ; common sense being the way to uncommon sense. In 

 this texture there are several kinds of fibres that are unaccounted 

 for ; the microscope has done its best, yet they are known but as 

 threads, of different colors and varying elasticity. Are they not 

 conduits of some reasonable stuff to the frame ? Are the primary 

 fibres impervious, the dams and hindrances of motion, spoiling its 

 current by their inadmissive contractedness ? Truth is shocked at 

 the supposition, and answers that nature, the deeper and smaller 



