148 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Feb. 20, 1885. 



and weighing about 54 kilogrammes (145 l'>. troy, or 119 lb. 

 av.), he took in twenty-four hours, 94;', oz. troy of solid 

 and liquid food. Of this there passed oft' 



By the liowels 6i oz. troy. 



Kidneys 4G-^ 



Skin and lungs 40J „ 



03 

 This under ordinary circumstances of temperature and mode- 

 rate exerci.;e. With violent exercise and exposure to high 

 temperature, a robust man may throw ofl' as much as four 

 pounds of perspiration in the course of an hour. Valentin 

 found that, while sitting, he lost 32 8 grammes per hour 

 by cutaneous exhdation — insensible perspiration. On 

 taking exercise in the sun with an empty stomach he lost 

 89 .3 grammes. Dnring violent exercise after a meal, with 

 the air at 72 Fahr., he perspired 132" grammes. 



A descripti'^n of the consequences of suppressed action 

 ■of the perspiratory organs would constitute a medical 

 treatise. The inner lining of the lungs, and that of the 

 ■whole of the digestive organs, is an infolded and modified 

 coutiiniatiou of the true skin. Any di-turbance of the 

 functions of the .skin disturbs this continuous mucous 

 membrane, and thus deranges all these internal organs more 

 or less. 



Tlie fatal consequences of an extensive superficial scald, 

 or burn, are due to internal sympathetic inflammation, rather 

 than the direct superficial injury. Baron Dupuytren, the 

 celebrated French surgeon, doubted the possibility of 

 recovery when as much as one-eighth of the surface of the 

 skin is snifioiently burnt to destroy lh°. sweat glands, on 

 account of the internal inflammation resulting from the 

 suppression of their functions. 



Fourcault varnished the skin of animals, and found that 

 ■death foUowel in some instances in a few hours, but gene- 

 rally in one, two, or three days. In all cases the qualify of 

 the blood was altered, and the mucous and serous mem- 

 branes lining the interior of the body were diseased. 



I need scarcely stite the very obvious demand for [orosity 

 in all our clothing which these facts so unanimously indi- 

 cate; but shall have to discuss the question of how to obtain 

 it presently. 



I have already stated that the ciitiule is a natural over- 

 coat composed of ill-conducting material, which, ■with the 

 fat beneath it, supplies us with some degree of protection 

 against the chilling effects of the cool outer air. The true 

 skin, ■which underlies it, is a vascular structure, a network 

 of invisibly minute blood vessels, so clo.'ely interhced that, 

 as everybody knows, we cannot insert the point of a needle 

 without rupturing some of th'-m and drawing blood. 



The blood that enters these vessels comfs from the 

 arteries, is red, and charged with active oxygen. "When it 

 leaves them it is darker coloured, and some of this oxygen 

 Las combined with combustible matter ; slow combustion 

 has occurred, and heat has been consequently evolved. This 

 general envelope of the body — the active, vascular, inner 

 cutis — is, therefore, one of the vital heat-generators of the 

 system. That inner continuation of the skin, the mucous 

 •membrane, which lines all the inner ]iassages of the body 

 that have any outlet, acts in like manner, and the same is 

 probably the case -with the serous membranes, or those 

 which lice the shut-up cavities. 



I mention this at the outset, as it bears so directiv on 

 •my subject, and more pirticularly because I find that many 

 beginners in the study of physiology (and every human 

 being should be a stm^ent of this subject) have been led by 

 fal e analogy to regard the lungs as the furnace of the 

 body, as the organ in which animal heat is generated. If 

 it ■were .«o, the temperature nf the lungs should be much 



higher than that of the rest of the body, which is not the 

 case. 



The arterial blood carries the oxygen taken in by the 

 lungs to all parts of the body ; the venous blood carries 

 from all parts of the body the carbonic acid which is 

 thrown out V)y the lungs ; the combustive combination 

 takes place throughout where the capillary bhiod-vessels 

 are distributed, and where the work of life is done. The 

 bearing of this upon the suVject of clothing will be under- 

 stood when we reflect on the fact that a certain initial 

 temperature is demanded for the origination and mainte- 

 nance of this combustion. 



Not only does the skin envelop the body in a warming 

 sheath of mild combustive activity ; but, by means of the 

 .sudoriparous apparatus above described, it regulates the heat 

 thus generated in the skin itself, as well as that similarly 

 generated internally. It has a cooling as well as a warming 

 efficiency, as I shall explain more fully in my next. I 

 merely add here that, although artificial clothing cannot 

 imitate the actively heating functions of the true skin, it 

 may, when properly constructed, cooperate as a protection 

 against excessive beat, as well as against the too rapid 

 cooling of the bod v. 



PLAXT LIFE AND PLANET LIFE. 



By Eichard A. Proctor. 



"VTTHEX we look at .some noble tree, one of the 

 \\ monarchs of the forest, with giant trunk and out- 

 spread arms, mighty to rtsist the fiercest storm, extending 

 its long roots to " grip the hard bowels of the solid earth," 

 it seems incredible that that vast bulk, with all its multi- 

 plicity of detail, -nith all its wealth of vitality, can have 

 grown from a seed which a child could have held in the 

 hollow of its hand. To some insect race dwelling within 

 the compass of that tree, or perhaps passing its whole life- 

 time within but a small portion of tlie tree, the thought 

 would have been inconceivable that the tree could have 

 grown at all. One can jdcture the holy horror and pious 

 grief with which such creatures, could they reason about 

 their suri'oundings, would reject the idea that even a twig 

 of that tree was a product of a process of development. 

 "This," would they say, "is to set on one side the 

 Creator in the name of Evolution. Those who thus fondly 

 imagine that a twig has grown, will tell us next week that 

 a bough has been developed ; nay, they will not stop there, 

 but one day we shall find the monstrous doctrine that the 

 whole tree, this glorious univer.^ie of leaves in which our 

 own twig home is set, has been evolved. May they not 

 even tell us one day that this tree is but one of nrany trees, 

 and that the whole system of trees has been formed by some 

 process of evolution?" While we can well believe that 

 those who rejected this monstrous doctrine of tree and 

 forest development would err thus wildly, we can imagine 

 also that those bold thinkers who recognised the evidence 

 of such development wt uld form wild and fanciful ideas 

 as to the way in which the tree had been developed. Some 

 might imagine that the tree had been formed from a 

 vast cloud by a procpss of contraction. Others might 

 imagine that the aggresation of rain drops and the 

 dust of the air had formed that beautiful and compli- 

 cated mass of verdure. Or other theories might be 

 formed as far from the truth as we, with our wider know 

 ledge, know it. Do we smile at such laboured nonsense 1 

 Mayhap our own ideas about the development of the solar 

 system are as wide of the truth or even far wider. Our 

 objections against the very doctrine of development as 



