ABSORPTION BY THE SKIX. 439 



In severe cases of dysphagia, when not even fluids can 

 be taken into the stomach, immersion in a bath of warm 

 water or of milk and water may assuage the thirst ; and it 

 has been found in such cases that the weight of the body 

 is increased by the immersion. Sailors also, when destitute 

 of fresh water, find their urgent thirst allayed by soaking 

 their clothes in salt water and wearing them in that state 

 but these effects may be in part due to the hindrance to 

 the evaporation of water from the skin. 



The absorption, also, of different kinds of gas by the 

 skin is proved by the experiments of Abernethy, Cruik- 

 shank, Beddoes, and others. In these cases, of course, 

 the absorbed gases combine with the fluids, and lose the 

 gaseous form. Several physiologists have observed an 

 absorption of nitrogen by the skin. Beddoes says, that he 

 saw the arm of a negro become pale for a short time when 

 immersed in chlorine ; and Abernethy observed that when 

 he held his hands in oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid, and 

 other gases contained in jars, over mercury, the volume of 

 the gases became considerably diminished. 



The share which the evaporation from the skin has in 

 the maintenance of the uniform temperature of the body, 

 and the necessary adaptation thereto of the production of 

 heat, have been already mentioned (p. 239). 



