SKIN. 
W. E. WATT. 
One said he wondered that lether was not dearer than any other thing-. Being 
demanded a reason: because, saith he, it is more stood upon than any other thing in the 
world. — Hazlitt. 
"What! is the jay more precious than the lark, 
Because his feathers are more beautiful? 
Or is the adder better than the eel, 
Because his painted skin contents the eye? —Shakespeare. 
ft GILDED live pig is a sight 
rarely seen. The rarity of 
putting gold leaf all over a 
living animal of any kind 
comes from the fact that the animal 
dies so soon after the operation. It 
has been tried several times and always 
with the same result. 
The idea arose from an experiment 
unfortunately performed upon a child 
on the accession of Leo X. to the papal 
chair. The child was gilded all over 
to represent the Golden Age. The 
people of Florence were delighted with 
the idea, but the death of the child 
took place so quickly that some 
thought the brief duration of the 
Golden Age was miraculously repre- 
sented as well as its great glory. 
The experiment has never been re- 
peated upon a human subject, but men 
of science cautiously tried to find out 
the secret of the child's living but a 
few hours after the operation, and so 
gilded pigs and varnished rabbits and 
other small animals. From such tests 
of the value of an open skin to animal 
life they found that all things that have 
breath must have open skin pores in 
order to maintain life. 
Closing the pores of the skin causes 
the temperature to fall directly and 
the heart and lungs become gorged 
with blood. The circulation of the 
blood is seriously interfered with and 
death follows with the usual symptoms 
of asphyxiation. 
Strange as it seemed to those who 
first witnessed such experiments, the 
life of an animal is more directly de- 
pendent upon the action of the skin 
than upon that of the stomach, the 
liver, or even the brain. Monstrosities 
have been born without brains; but 
they have frequently lived for some 
time, taking their food regularly and 
having the appearance of as much com- 
fort as others of their kind with brains. 
They died early, but their life was uni- 
formly longer than the time which 
elapsed after the application of a coat- 
ing which stopped the skin of other 
animals until death ensued. 
A man will live much longer without 
stomach action than without the proper 
functions of the skin. In fact, the 
skin may take the place of the stomach 
in sustaining life for awhile, where the 
act of swallowing has been prevented 
by disease or accident. Feeding the 
patient through the skin has been ac- 
complished with varying degrees of 
success. A bath of warm water or 
milk and water assuages thirst. Sail- 
ors deprived of fresh water wet their 
clothes with salt water, and the ab- 
sorption of moisture sustains them 
where salt water taken into the stomach 
might have resulted fatally. 
The health of the skin is closely con- 
nected with that of the whole system. 
Its appearance and condition as to 
moisture and dryness, as well as its 
temperature and color are regularly 
examined when the system is out of 
order. Since the skin is so important 
to the general health and its condition 
is placed so completely within our con- 
trol, it is wise to care for it judi- 
ciously. We often find other organs 
of the body in an unsound condition 
and begin to doctor them when the 
whole trouble has arisen from bad 
treatment of the skin. The skin needs 
more care than the liver or the stomach, 
and many of the troubles laid at the 
door of one or both these organs may 
be avoided by proper care of the one 
organ over which we have entire con- 
trol, the skin. Where the skin is pre- 
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