ABSORPTION BY THE GENERAL SURFACE. 349 



application of fluid to the surface, or even through the medium of the atmo- 

 sphere, in which a greater or less proportion of watery vapour is usually dis- 

 solved. This absorption occurs most vigorously when the system has been 

 drained of its fluid, either by an excess of the excretions, or by a diminution 

 of the regular supply. It may be desirable to adduce some individual cases, 

 which will set this function in a striking point of view. It is well known that 

 shipwrecked sailors, and others, who are suffering from thirst, owing to the 

 want of fresh water, find it greatly alleviated or altogether relieved, by dipping 

 their clothes into the sea, and putting them on whilst still wet, or by frequently 

 immersing their own bodies. Dr. Currie relates the case of a patient labour- 

 ing under dysphagia in its most advanced stage ; the introduction of any 

 nutriment, whether solid or fluid, into the stomacn, having become perfectly 

 impracticable. Under these melancholy circumstances, an attempt was made 

 to prolong his existence by the exhibition of nutritive enemata, and by im- 

 mersion of the body, night and morning, in a oath of milk and water. During 

 the continuance of this plan, his weight, which had previously been rapidly 

 diminishing, remained stationary, although the quantity of the excretions was 

 increased. How much of the absorption which must have taken place, to 

 replace the amount of excreted fluid, is to be attributed to the baths, and how 

 much to the enemata, it is not easy to say ; but it is important to remark that 

 " the thirst, which was troublesome during the first days of the patient's ab- 

 stinence, was abated, and, as he declared, removed by the tepid bath, in which 

 he had the most grateful sensations." " It cannot be doubted," Dr. Currie 

 observes, " that the discharge by stool and perspiration exceeded the weight 

 of the clysters ;" and the loss by the urinary excretion, which increased from 

 24oz. to 36oz. under this system, is only to be accounted for by the cutaneous 

 absorption. Dr. S. Smith mentions that a man who had lost nearly 31bs. by 

 perspiration, during an hour and a quarter's labour in a very hot atmosphere, 

 regained 8oz. by immersion in a warm bath at 95, for half an hour. The 

 experiments of Dr. Madden* show that a positive increase usually takes place 

 in the weight of the body during immersion in the warm bath, even though 

 there is at the same time a continual loss of weight by pulmonary exhalation, 

 and by transudationt from the skin. This increase was, in some instances, 

 as much as 5 drachms in half an hour ; whilst the loss of weight during the 

 previous half hour had been 6 drachms : so that if the same rate of loss were 

 continued in the bath, the real gain by absorption must have been nearly an 

 ounce and a half. Why this gain was much less than in the cases just alluded 

 to, is at once accounted for by the fact, that there was no deficiency in the 

 latter case in the fluids naturally present in the body. 



465. The quantity of water which may be imbibed from the vapour of the 

 atmosphere, would exceed belief, were not the facts on which the assertion 

 rests, beyond all question. Dr. Dill relates the case of a diabetic patient, who 

 for five weeks passed 24 Ibs. of urine every twenty-four hours ; his ingesta 

 during the same period amounted to 22 Ibs. At the commencement of the 

 disease he weighed 145 Ibs. ; and when he died, 27 Ibs. of loss had been sus- 

 tained. The daily excess of the excretions over the ingesta could not have 

 been less than 4 Ibs. ; making 140 Ibs. for the thirty-five days during which 

 the complaint lasted. If from this we deduct the amount of diminution which 

 the weight of the body sustained during the time, we shall still have 113 Ibs. 

 to be accounted for, which can only have entered the body from the atmo- 



* Prize Essay on Cutaneous Absorption, pp. 5963. 



f That part of the function of cutaneous transpiration, which consists in simple exha- 

 lation, is of course completely checked by such immersion; but that which is the result 

 of an actual secreting process in the cutaneous glands (CHAP, xn.) is increased by heat, 

 even though this be accompanied with moisture. 

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