468 ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE CUTANEOUS SECRETIONS. 
according as perspiration has or has not been driven in, for certain 
it is not the only cause ; and, in proof that it is not, we may ad- 
duce the habit of the local disease not appearing immediately after 
the application of the repellent cause upon the skin. Ordinarily, 
some time elapses, days even, before any well-defined disease be- 
comes manifest in its seat. For a time the symptoms denoting 
actual disorder of the organism remain general, and during this 
interval the most rigid examination, the profoundest study of the 
interior organs fails to elicit the locality of the disease, since as yet 
it is not fixed to the spot it is about to take possession of. There is, 
in fact, for inflammatory diseases, such as in our nosography go by 
the names of pneumonia, pleurisy, enteritis, and even acute founder 
— there exists, we say, for such diseases, a veritable period of circu- 
lation — a sort of nascent state , during which the pathogenic condition 
exists in the organism, though it has not yet determined on its local 
disturbance. Well, in what does this pathogenic condition consist? — 
whereabouts is it seated ? 
The general and undefined mode it has of shewing its presence 
in the organism points this out. Immediately subsequent to the 
action of the cause, the actual seat of the generative condition of 
the disease about to appear is the blood : this fluid it is which, 
having become actually modified in its chemical composition under 
the influence of the cause that has momentarily obstructed the 
cutaneous exhalations, carries about everywhere with it the dis- 
ordered condition, and ultimately gives rise, through it, to some local 
disease, as a sort of eruptive effort analogous in its object, but 
often less salutary in its effects; owing to the functional importance 
of the part attacked, to the external eruptions produced by the 
presence in the blood of virus which alters both its dynamic and 
chemical properties. 
But what is the nature of this alteration ? In this case, every 
clue to the solution of this question fails us. We know well, 
when the experiment is designedly prolonged, the blood grows 
black, as in asphyxia, through the combination with it of carbonic 
acid, whose presence is opposed to the absorption of oxygen. But 
what relation is there between this chemical alteration of blood 
here and the modifications in composition it may undergo under 
the influence of instantaneous suppression, but not persistent, of the 
cutaneous exhalations and secretions ? Are these phenomena of 
the same order ? Is the second equally as simple as the first ? 
We think not. The influence of cold upon skin raised to a high 
temperature is doubtless more complex in its modus operandi than 
that of a general plaster covering the skin. There is a something 
in this phenomenon which escapes our penetration ; though, in spite 
of the obscurity in which a part of this question is involved, it is 
