404 MOTION OF THE JUICES IN THE ANIMAL BODY. 
out losing one or more nags “ gone in the loins,” often their best 
Arabs, whilst it has cost the Company, to my knowledge, heavy 
sums, both in the cavalry and studs. I beg you, therefore, to 
open your columns to any statements of the experience of others 
which this letter may elicit. 
Calcutta, January 26, 1848. 
The Motion of the Juices in the Animal Body. 
[From Dr. Gregory’s Translation of Liebig’s Work.] 
That the skin of animals, and the cutaneous transpiration, as 
well as the evaporation from the internal surface of the lungs, exert 
an important influence on the vital processes, and thereby on the 
state of health, has been admitted by physicians ever since medi- 
cine has existed ; but no one has hitherto ascertained precisely in 
what way this happens. 
From what has gone before, it can hardly be doubted that one 
of the most important functions of the skin consists in the share 
which it takes in the motion and distribution of the fluids of the 
body. 
The surface of the body of a number of animals consists of a 
covering or skin permeable for liquids, from which, when, as in the 
case of the lung, it is in contact with the atmosphere, an evapora- 
tion of water, according to the hygrometric state and temperature 
of the air, constantly goes on. 
If we now keep in mind that every part of the body has to 
sustain the pressure of the atmosphere, and that the gaseous fluids 
and liquids contained in the body oppose to this pressure a per- 
fectly equal resistance, it is clear that, by the evaporation of the 
skin and lungs, and in consequence of the absorbent power of the 
skin for the liquid in contact with it, a difference in the pressure 
below the surface of the evaporating skin occurs. The external 
pressure increases, and in an equal degree the pressure from within 
towards the skin. If now the structure of the cutaneous surface 
does not permit a diminution of its volume, a compression (in con- 
sequence of the loss of liquid by evaporation), it is obvious that an 
equalization of this difference in pressure can only take place from 
within outwards ; first from within, and especially from those parts 
which are in closest contact with the atmosphere, and which offer 
the least resistance to the action of the external pressure. 
Hence it follows, that the fluids of the body, in consequence 
