OF PERSPIRATION. 125 



most truly electrical. They are very easily nourished, 

 and even reproduced, unless where the skin is diseased. 



192. Besides the functions ascribed to the integu- 

 ments in the former Section, must be enumerated their 

 excretory power, by which foreign and injurious matters 

 are eliminated from the mass of fluids.* 



This is exemplified in the miasmata of exanthematic 

 diseases, in the smell of the skin after eating garlic, 

 musk, &c. and in sweating and similar phenomena. 



193. What is most worthy our attention, is the tran- 

 spiration of an aeriform flukl, denominated, after the 

 very acute philosopher who first applied himself pro- 

 fessedly to investigate its importance, the perspirabile 

 Sanctorianurn,f and similar to what is expired from the 

 lungs. $ It likewise is composed of various proportions 

 of carbon, § nitrogen, and hydrogen, || precipitates lime 

 from solution, and is unfit to support either flame or 

 respiration. 



194. The sweat, which seldom occurs spontaneously 

 during health and rest, unless in a high temperature, 

 appears to arise from the perspirable matter of Sanc- 

 torius being too much increased in quantity by the 

 excited action of the cutaneous vessels, and from its 



* Hence the danger of contagion from hairs, as miasmata adhere to them 

 very tenaciously for a great length of time. Vide Cartwright, Journal of 

 Transactions on the Coast of Labrador, vol. i. p. 273. vol. ii. p. 424. 



f Ars Sanctor. Sanctorii de Statica Medicina aphorismor. sectionibus vij. 

 comprehensa. Vcnet. 1634. 16. 



J C. de Milly and Lavoisier, Memoir es de tAcad. des Sc. de Par Li. 1777. 

 p. 221 sq. 360 sq. J. Ingen-Houz, Expts. upon Vegetables. Lond. 1779. 8vo. 

 p. 132 sqq. J. H. Voight, Versuch einrr neuen Theorie des Fevers, p. 157 sq. 



§ W. Bache, On the morbid effects of Carbonic Acid Gaz on healthy animals. 

 Philadel. IMft. 8vo. p. 46. 



|| Abernethy, 1. c. 



