On the special function of the sudoriparous and lymphatic systems : their vital import, and their bearing on health and disease / by Robert Willis.

  • Willis, Robert, 1799-1878.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the special function of the sudoriparous and lymphatic systems : their vital import, and their bearing on health and disease / by Robert Willis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    THE SPECIAL EUNCTION OF THE SPDORIPAPOUS SYSTEM OF GLANDS. The end for wliich. the Cutaneous Exhalation exists has been avowed by the first authorities of the age in chemistry and animal physics not to be understood: “ The quantity of solid matter,” says Berzelius (Chimie, Trad, par Esslinger, tom. vii. p. 330), “which escapes from the body by the skin is extremely small, and all its constituents are besides encountered in the urine ; the elimination of this matter cannot, therefore, be viewed as the principal function of the skin. Water is, in fact, the chief matter thrown off by the skin ; and in discuss- ing the subject of animal heat, physiologists commonly agree in stating that the perspiration serves to regulate or depress the temperature of the body when it might be expected to rise under the influence of violent^ exercise, or any excessive heat of the surrounding atmosphere. But the intimate con- nection that subsists between the function of the skin and the bodily health proclaims it to have been instituted for yet another purpose, the nature of which is unknown to us.” This statement of the distinguished Swedish chemist is re- peated, nearly in the same terms,' by Professor Muller. He saj's briefly (Physiology, English Version, by Dr Baly, 2nd ed. p. 580), “ The object of the cutaneous exhalation is not elucidated by its analysis; for the matters met with in it are