66 
ON THERAPEUTICS. 
atmosphere. That profuse sweating should occur under any 
of these conditions we can easily understand; but when we 
find it to result from the action of a nauseant, or during pul¬ 
monary congestion, or when it precedes death, and further, 
when we observe that the skin and the moisture covering: it 
are cold instead of hot, as they under ordinary circumstances 
would be, we are constrained to admit the phenomena to be 
incomprehensible. Under all these circumstances, the system 
is depressed ; the secretion must therefore arise from some 
local nervous action, and not from the usual nervous and 
vascular excitement. 
The value of the bath in any form, for the purpose of 
preserving a healthy condition of the skin, is universally 
admitted. The impossibility however, of cleansing the 
enormous length of tubing distributed in the integument 
by any surface washing seems to have presented itself; 
however, only quite recently, at least in our own country, the 
“ tables are turned” with a vengeance, and we are in a mea¬ 
sure compelled to see that the “ great unwashed,” for whose 
particular benefit Baths and Wash-houses were established, 
are, after all, the really clean members of society, as, from 
the laborious nature of their avocations, the filth collecting 
in their perspiratory ducts is constantly carried out by a 
stream of sweat and deposited on the surface, on their under 
garments; while those who, in their laudable desire to pre¬ 
serve healthy and decent bodies, are constantly scrubbing 
and washing, are all the while leaving the inside full of all 
manner of uncleanness, and even assisting to rub the dirt 
into the open-mouthed canals; so that their linen after wear 
is in no way objectionable to the olfactory sensibilities, while 
the shirt of the working-man gives striking, if unpleasant, 
evidence of the amount of filth of which his system has 
been relieved. Leaving this cheering consideration to work 
its own way, we pass to the discussion of certain “ popular 
fallacies” connected with the subject. 
The public mind generally holds a decided abhorrence of 
violent contrasts both in regard to the treatment of its own 
and other animal bodies; it reads of the Russian, who takes 
a vapour-bath until he resembles in colour a boiled lobster, 
and then plunges into a river after a run through the snow, 
with mingled feelings of pity and admiration. To drink cold 
water, or to expose the body to cold air, while in a state of 
perspiration is considered tantamount to the statement that 
“ life is no longer dear.” Our infantine mind was constantly 
harrowed, we remember, by recitals of cases illustrative of 
the appalling effects of drinking cold water immediately after 
