EFFECTS OF VARNISHING THE SKIN. 



727 



skin is increased by exercise, a rise of temperature, and by any cause 

 which produces increased vascularity of the skin, such as friction, warm 

 baths, and electric shocks. 1 It is also said to be influenced by food 

 arid by exposure to light. 2 



The experiments of Gerlach, Kohrig, and others show that the skin 

 of animals will absorb carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulphuretted 

 hydrogen, and the vapour of chloroform and ether. 



The effects of varnishing the skin. The old theory, held by Galen, 

 Sanctorius, and others, that many diseases were due to the retention of 

 waste substances which in a normal condition \vould have been dis- 

 charged from the body, received great support from experiments in 

 which the skin of animals had been covered by an impermeable layer 

 of varnish or ointment. At the same time it was held that the results 

 showed the imperative necessity of cutaneous respiration and perspira- 

 tion. The symptoms observed after the skin of an animal was varnished 

 were restlessness, shivering, increased rapidity of breathing and heart- 

 beat, soon followed by slow respiration and pulse, a fall in temperature 

 to 20 or 19, the discharge of albumin in the urine, spasms, and death. 

 Examination of the body after death showed congestion of the skin, 

 subcutaneous tissue, muscles, and internal organs. 3 



The earliest experiments appear to have been made by Fourcault, 4 

 Ducros, 5 Becquerel and Brechet, 6 Gluge, 7 and Magendie. 8 The tempera- 

 ture was observed by Gerlach, 9 who obtained the following results for 

 a rabbit and a horse, after their skins had been covered with a layer of 

 linseed oil : 



Edenhuizen 10 showed that death followed even when only one-sixth 

 of the total cutaneous surface was varnished ; he believed that the 

 symptoms were due to an alkali which he found in the skin. A further 

 advance in knowledge was made when Valentin n discovered that the 

 discharge of carbon dioxide from the lungs was reduced to one-eighth or 



1 Gerlach, Aubert, Rohrig, Barratt, loc. tit. 



2 Fubini and Roiichi, loc. cit. Here other references will be found. 



3 Valentin, Arch. f. physiol. Heilk., Stuttgart, Bd. xi. S. 433. 



4 Compt. rend. A cad. d. sc., Paris, Mars 16, 1837. 



5 Notiz. a. d. Geb. d. Nat.-u. Heilk., Weimar, 1841, Bd. xix. 

 Arch. gen. de med., Paris, 1841, tome xii. p. 517. 



7 Abhandl. z. Physiol. u. Path., Jena, 1841, S. 66. 



8 Gas. med. de Paris, Dec. 6, 1843. 



9 Arch.f. Anat., Physiol. , u. ivissensch. Med., 1851, S. 431. 



10 Nadn\ r. d. k. Gesellscli. d. W-iwiisch. u. d. Georg.-Aiig. Univ., Gottingen," 1861, 

 S ^88 

 ' u Arch.f. physioL Heilk., Stuttgart, Bd. iu S. 433, 



