EXTRACT XLIII. 



ON THE NATURE OF BLUSHING, FLUSHING, AND 

 BLANCHING OF THE HUMAN "CHEEK" AND SKIN. 



THE terms here enumerated are as "old as the hills," and 

 are as familiar to every white man and woman as the " air 

 they breathe " or " the raiment they put on " ; besides, have 

 they not given employment to the pen of the poet and the 

 brush of the painter since inspiration stirred the intellect 

 of genius ? And do they not still constitute a theme for 

 thought, and afford scope for the use of language at once 

 picturesque and intense ? Into this department of the 

 " overwhelmingly interesting " subject it would, however, 

 be nothing short of sheer sacrilege to enter ; we, therefore, 

 take up, as more germane and relevant to a strictly scientific 

 treatment of such a physiological problem, the anatomical 

 and histological lines along which we think there is a 

 prospect of arriving at more or less definite conclusions 

 regarding it. 



We have elsewhere endeavoured to point out that there 

 reside in the skin of the body generally, but par excellence 

 in the skin of the hands and face, a dual vasculature, 

 engaged in circulating fluids of very different character and 

 colours, and that these vasculatures maintain their varying 

 patency by virtue of their connection, and continuity with, 

 and of their receiving their contents in different manners 

 from, their respective " fonts of supply " their raison d'etre, 

 indeed, being the transmission, or circulation, of the 

 haemal and neural fluids. 



Of course, it should be mentioned here, for the sake of 

 histological reality, that a third vasculature exists, viz. the 



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