743 
THE VETERINARIAN, DECEMBER 1, 1863. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat.— Cicero. 
ON SOAIE OF THE EUNCTIONS OF THE SKIN. 
The skin ranks among tke great organs of the body, 
and belongs especially to that group which are called 
emunctory, or in other words, the cleansers or purifiers of 
the blood. The skin, the liver, and kidneys, are sometimes 
called the scavengers of the body. But the skin, as a rule, 
is weakened in its powers by bad management, and throws 
an additional degree of labour on its scavenger companions, 
which leads to their deterioration and disease. 
But the skin is not an emunctory or purifier only. 
Besides its vast system of draining tubes which open on 
the surface by seven millions of pores, and which, we are 
told by Mr. Erasmus Wilson, in actual measurement would 
stretch over nearly thirty miles if laid end to end, it has 
the power of drawing from the blood certain organic elements 
in the fluid state, and converting them into solid organic 
formations, known as cells and scales,—these cells and 
scales being the tesselated mosaic with which the skin is 
finished on the surface, so as to render it capable of exist¬ 
ence in the atmosphere of the external world. Besides this, 
the skin is converted into a kind of sponge by the myriads 
of blood-vessels which enter into its structure—blood-vessels 
that many times in an hour bring every drop of the blood of 
the body to the'surface, in order that it may furnish the mate¬ 
rials for the microscopic pavement; that it may be purified 
by the abstraction of its unwholesome principles, and may 
breathe the vital air of the atmosphere without. Besides 
this also, the skin near its surface is one vast network of 
nerves,—nerves, mysterious organs that belong in their 
nature to the unknown sources of the lightning, the electric 
currents of the universe. 
The power possessed by the skin of resisting the effects 
