On the sudoriparous and lymphatic glandular systems; the vital nature of their functions in preparing the conditions necessary to venous absorption, and the effect of their derangement in the production of the various diseases ascribed to malaria / by Robert Willis.

Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the sudoriparous and lymphatic glandular systems; the vital nature of their functions in preparing the conditions necessary to venous absorption, and the effect of their derangement in the production of the various diseases ascribed to malaria / by Robert Willis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    mon salt, epithelial scales, and the product of the sebaceous glands. It may not be unimportant here to observe upon the fact that there is nothing peculiar, or upon the most remote presumption, noxious in the solid matter of the sweat; so that it is vain to look in this direction for an explanation of the ill effects that follow implication of the function of the system by which it is secreted. With this fact of the essentially watery constitution of the sweat before us, we perceive that the blood returning in the veins to the heart must necessarily bo more dense than that which is leaving it, by the whole amount of watery fluid which has been abstracted and thrown off by the sudoriparous sys- tem of glands in the course of the perijjheral circulation. That the quantity of water thus dissipated must vary greatly under different circumstances, follows as a necessary conse- quence when we come to understand the end and object for which it is purged away. Inappreciable at one time save by the nicest appliances, the sweat at another is so abundant as to trickle from the body in a stream, and form a pool about the feet. Seguin estimated the loss of fluid from the cutaneous and pulmonary sj-stems conjointly, as taking place at the rate of about 18 grains per minute ; of which quantity he held that 11 grains were due to the action of the skin, and 7 grains to that of the lungs. This estimate may probably be assumed ns correct, the body being at rest, and the atmosphere in a state that would be characterized as temperate. But it is really impossible to speak of any particular amount of cutaneous ex- halation as normal. Proceeding at all times, necessary to life under every variety of circumstance, the amount of the watery secretion of the skin varies from between one and two ounces in the course of an hour in a state of repose, and one, two, three, four, or even five pounds in the same interval of time under the influence of excessive exertion, in such an atmo- sphere as that of the stoke-hole of a steamship, a gas manu- factory, or a glass house.* • Vide The Philosophy of Ilealth, by Soiithwood Smith, M.D.