650 FUNCTIONS OF ANIMALS. 



from oxygen gas, as readily when these substances were separat- 

 ed by a bladder as when they were in actual contact. He found, 

 too, that when gases were confined in bladders, they gradually 

 lost their properties. It is clear from these facts, that oxygen 

 gas can pervade bladders : and if it can pervade them, why may 

 it not also pervade the cuticle ? Nay, farther, we know from the 

 experiments of Cruickshanks, that the vapour perspired passes 

 through leather, even when prepared so as to keep out moisture, 

 at least for a certain time. It is possible, then, that water, when 

 in the state of vapour, or when dissolved in air, may be absorb- 

 ed, although water, while in the state of water, may be incapable 

 of pervading the cuticle. The experiments, therefore, which 

 have hitherto been made upon the absorption of the skin are in- 

 sufficient to prove that air and vapour cannot pervade the cuti- 

 cle, provided there be any facts to render the contrary supposi- 

 tion probable. 



Now, that there are such facts cannot be denied. I shall not 

 indeed produce the experiment of Van Mons as a fact of that 

 kind, because it is liable to objections, and at best is very indeci- 

 sive. Having a patient under his care who, from a wound in the 

 throat, was incapable for several days of taking any nourishment, 

 he kept him alive during that time by applying to the skin, in 

 different parts of the body, several times a day, a sponge dipped 

 in wine or strong soup.* A fact mentioned by Dr Watson is 

 much more important, and much more decisive. A lad at New- 

 market, who had been almost starved in order to bring him down 

 to such a weight as would qualify him for running a horse race, 

 was weighed in the morning of the race day ; he was weighed 

 again an hour after, and was found to have gained 30 ounces of 

 weight ; yet in the interval he had only taken half a glass of wine. 

 Here absorption must have taken place, either by the skin or 

 lungs, or both. The difficulties in either case are the same ; 

 and whatever renders absorption by one probable, will equally 

 strengthen the probability that absorption takes place by the 

 other.f 



* Phil. Mag. vi. 95. 



J- Watson's Chemical Essays, iii. 101. The Abbe Fontana also found that, 

 after walking in moist air for an hour or two, he returned home some ounces 

 heavier than when he went out, notwithstanding he had suffered considerable 

 evacuation from a brisk purge purposely taken for the experiment. This in- 

 crease, indeed, might be partly accounted for by the absorption of moisture by 

 his clothes. 



