OF THE SKIN IN GENERAL. 223 



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of the skin, begins to show itself: at birth the skin is covered 

 with it, and is of a rosy white; after birth, the skin soon ac- 

 quires the colour peculiar to the race and increases in thick- 

 ness and strength until the adult age; in old age it becomes 

 dry, wrinkled, and gradually loses its colour. 



The skin is thinner, finer and softer in females; but these 

 characters sometimes disappear after the age of puberty. 



320. The differences presented by the skin in the various 

 races, have been already noticed [112, 116.] Individuals of 

 the coloured races and even negroes are born with nearly 

 the same colour as whites. The colour begins to show it- 

 self from the moment the child breathes, but particularly, 

 about the third day after birth, round the nails, nipples, eyes, 

 anus, and the organs of copulation; by the seventh day the co- 

 louring is everywhere extended, the palm of the hand and 

 sole of the foot excepted, which remain whitish. The colour 

 is not intense during the first year, it afterwards augments, 

 and continues for the greater portion of life to diminish in old 

 age. The odour of the skin, like its colour, varies in the races. 

 Independently of national varieties, they are many among in- 

 dividuals. 



321. The morbid alterations of the skin are extremely 

 numerous. We have already spoken of cicatrices or of acci- 

 dental reproductions of this membrane [258.] The new tis- 

 sue is analogous to the old one, but is not the same. The der- 

 mis is more dense, less areolar, more compact, less vascular, 

 and less papillary than that of the skin. The epidermis evi- 

 dently exists on it, though quite recently this has been denied; 

 it is an error. The corpus mucosum exists there also, as well 

 as its coloured layer; and Camper is wrong when he asserts, 

 that the cicatrices of the negro are white; the hue is merely a 

 little different. Horny productions sometimes form upon the 

 cicatrices; these accidental teguments are very liable to ul- 

 cerate. 



Accidental skin is sometimes found in the cysts of the ova- 

 ries, it is probably an imperfect production of a foetus, either 

 engendered, or enveloped in the foetal state, by the individual 

 which contains them. 

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