206 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



directed to the restoration of the physiological condition,. 

 or status quo ante, by the adoption of remedies which 

 appeal to the proper blood elements, as well as to their 

 containing and circulating vessels. If, on the other hand, 

 the neuro-vasculature and its contained nervine elements 

 be the primary, or main, cutaneous element involved in 

 the pathological process under observation, then it will, 

 equally necessarily, follow that an appeal must primarily 

 be made to the neural economy of the skin, and here it 

 may be asserted that it will, in the large majority of cases 

 of skin disease, be found that they originate in nervine 

 influences, and by degrees, or secondarily, involve the 

 blood vasculature and other structural elements of that 

 great compound anatomical development of superficial 

 protection and sensory organism. As a matter of fact 

 deducible from daily observation, we think it will be found 

 that this large proportion of nervine cutaneous ailments 

 is traceable, to a great extent, to faulty epidermic exfolia- 

 tion, to sudoriferous stasis, to aggravated, or chemically 

 perverted excretion, or to bacterial! y septic conditions of 

 the outflowing fluid. 



As typical examples of cutaneous disease owing to these 

 neuro-cutaneous conditions, we w6uld cite, hyper-keratoxis 

 over-dry and thickened skin variola and the exan- 

 themata generally. The first mentioned is a disease due 

 to aggravated, or retained, epidermal exuviation, and is 

 caused by interference, directly and indirectly, or both, 

 with the economy of epidermal disintegration, such inter- 

 ference being due to increased consistency of the epidermal 

 exuviae, from aggravated cement element, or to hindered 

 shedding, from absence of the disrupting influence of 

 moisture, consequent on a repressive environment, or a 

 deficient sweat excretion, or outflow. The second men- 

 tioned is usually due to the same causes, minus the opera- 

 tion of the influences of epidermal accretion. While the 

 third mentioned is modified by the outflow of a bacteria- 

 laden cerebro-spinal fluid, impregnated and intoxicated, 

 within the cerebro-spinal cavity, with a specific microbe, 

 the outflow and release of which constitutes the familiar 

 marking of the long debated disease small-pox. The 

 exanthemata generally conform, in their main features, to 



