52 CUTANEOUS ABSORPTION. 



being nearly transparent, they are sometimes named 

 ymphatics. 



Some ascribe great, and others very little, import- 

 ance to cutaneous absorption. In some diseases, 

 as in diabetes, in which, occasionally for weeks in 

 succession, the urinary discharge exceeds, by many 

 ounces daily, the whole quantity of food and drink, 

 without the body losing proportion ably in weight, 

 we can account for the system being sustained only 

 by supposing moisture to be extensively absorbed 

 from the air by the skin and lungs. The ancients, 

 indeed, believed that, when food could not be retained 

 in the stomach, a person might be nourished by 

 placing him in a bath of strong soup or milk ; but 

 recent experiments serve to show that, in such 

 circumstances, absorption is too trifling in amount 

 for any such result. Some indeed deny that any 

 absorption would take place at all, because it is 

 observed as a general fact that the body does not 

 gain in weight by immersion in a warm bath. But 

 the inference is not well founded, for occasionally 

 weight is gained ; and even when it is not, as much 

 water must have been absorbed as would make up 

 the loss sustained during immersion by perspiration, 

 which is believed to go on more rapidly in warm 

 water than in the open air. 



That animals absorb copiously when immersed in 

 water has been amply proved by Dr. Edwards and 

 other physiologists. Dr. Edwards selected lizards 

 as the subjects of experiment, because he regarded 

 heir scaly skins as unfavourable for absorption. 

 After reducing the bulk of a lizard by several days' 

 exposure to a dry air, he immersed its tail and hind 

 Jegs in water, and found that absorption took place 

 to such an extent as to restore the original plump- 

 ness of all parts of the body. The same result at- 

 tended a variety of other trials, so that the fact does 

 not admit of doubt. In man, absorption from the 

 surface is greatly retarded by the intervention of the 



