the fingers ; those on the other two sides, and OH the 

 elliptic ridges, to the pressure of the hand or fingers 

 en Is against any body, requiring them to yield to the 

 right and left. 



The pores are placed on these ridges, not in the fur- 

 rows between them, that their structure may be less 

 liable to be injured by compression, whereby the 

 furrows only are dilated or contracted : the ridgts 

 constantly maintaining themselves; and so the pores are 

 unaltered. For the same reason the pores are very 

 large, that they may be the better preserved ; though 

 the skin be never so much compressed and condensed, 

 by the constant labour of the hand : and so those on 

 the feet, that they may be preserved, notwithstanding 

 the compression of the skin, by the weight of the 

 whole body. 



Through the pores there continually transudes a 

 subtle vapour from every point of the body, being 

 what redounds of the aliment, comminuted to the 

 highest degree, arid sent to repair every particle of it. 

 And the matter thus evacuated is more than is thrown 

 out by all the other passages together. 



A person of middle age found what he perspired was 

 five eighths of the food taken in, so that there remain, 

 ed only three eighths for nourishment and all other 

 evacuations. Me observed also that so much is per. 

 spired in one day, as passes by stool in fourteen ; ariu 

 more particularly, that in a nig Ill's time about sixteen 

 ounces are usually thrown out by urine, four by stool, 

 and about forty by insensible perspiration, 



If a man eats and drinks eight pounds in a day, five 

 pounds of it pass by perspiration; namely, about one 

 pound within five hours after eating, (perspiration be- 

 ing least of all soon after eating) from the fifth to the 

 twelfth hour, about three pounds, and from the 

 twelfth to the sixteenth, scarce half a pound. Exercise 

 increases perspiration much ; but it is naturally less iu 

 women than men. 



While this steam Hows from our body, it constantly 

 imbibes a supply of moisture from the air. which serves 

 c 2 



