Diseases of the Respiratory Organs. 75 



tissues. The application of cold constringes the vessels and 

 lessens the freedom of the circulation and suppresses the normal 

 cutaneous exhalation. A somewhat similar condition may be in- 

 duced by prolonged exposure to the rays of a burning sun, the 

 skin becomes hot, dry and rigid, and incompatible with the main- 

 tenance of the respiratory function. In either case there is a 

 retention of effete and deleterious matters in the circulation 

 which it was the function of the skin to have eliminated. The 

 danger of such retention may be best exemplified by noting the 

 result of the complete repression of perspiration in the remarka- 

 ble experiments of Fourcault and Bouley. The former covered 

 dogs and other .small animals with an impermeable varnish which 

 induced death after some days or in some cases in a few hours. 

 Bouley shaved three horses and covered the skin with tar. There 

 resulted dullness, torpor, deep, slow breathing, weak and dimin- 

 ishing pulse, muscular tremors, manifest cooling of the body and 

 expired air, and deep violet color of the mucous membranes. 

 They died respectively on the seventh, ninth and tenth days. A 

 fourth horse covered with a layer of strong glue and then with 

 tar perished nine hours after the application. The bodies were 

 like those of animals that had died of suffocation. The mucous 

 membrane of the stomach and bowels was gorged with black 

 blood, the lungs violently congested — dark red and heavy — the 

 air-tubes filled with frothy material, and the lining membrane of 

 the heart had dark spots of blood extravasation. It is no longer 

 then matter for surprise that temporary suppression of the insen- 

 sible perspiration should be followed by diseases of the chest or 

 abdomen, that extensive burns of the surface of the body should 

 be speedily followed by inflammations of internal organs or that 

 extensive and severe cutaneous inflammations should be associated 

 with internal lesions. 



Since the days of Hippocrates it has been universally acknowl- 

 edged that moist seasons and localities are less salubrious than 

 dry ones. As already observed moisture in a cold atmosphere 

 intensifies its effect. In a hot, close atmosphere it strongly con- 

 duces to putrefaction in dead organic matter, and the air becomes 

 loaded as a consequence with noxious gases, and in its lower 

 strata with bacteria in a state of active growth. This condition 



