But, continues Dr. Cohausen, it is not only the exhalations from the lungs which are life-generative, but also those from the pores. The pores are little mouths situated all over the body, constantly engaged in the aëration of the blood; they inhale the surrounding atmosphere and then exhale it again, charged with balsamic and sulphurous particles taken up from the system. Men’s bodies are pneumatic-hydraulic machines, composed of fluid and solid materials, and health depends on the fluids being prevented from coagulating, by being stirred up by the constant operations of the currents of air which penetrate the frame through the pores and mouth. The solid portion of the body is disposed to harden and dry up and become stiff, and this produces age and decay; but if the circulation of the fluids be kept up by the healthful infusion of fresh vital force and living energies, then decrepitude and death may be almost indefinitely postponed. Now the lips of the little mouths or pores all over the person can be kept flexible by oil, and therefore enabled to perform their functions with facility. Thus Pollio, an ancient soldier of the Emperor Augustus, when asked how he had succeeded in prolonging his energies over a hundred years, replied that he had daily moistened his outer man with oil, and his inner man with honey. Dr. Cohausen proceeds to lay down that it is better to absorb the exhalations of little girls than those of little boys, because females are more oily than males--a view we in no way feel inclined to dispute, without having recourse to the receipt of Mocrodius for wholesale incremations, which the doctor quotes to establish the fact:--“Lay one female body to six male bodies, in a great pyre, for thereby the male corpses are the more speedily consumed.” No doubt about it: there is enough combustible material in one woman to set any number of men in a blaze. Johannes Fabricius, in his _Palladium Chymicum_, relates that he knew of a lady whose hair when combed emitted sparks. Bartholinus mentions in his _Tractatus de Luce Hominum_ the case of a female who flashed fire whenever her limbs or back were rubbed with a towel. These examples lead our author to conclude that in women there is not merely a considerable amount of oil, but that there is also no small item of latent fire; we are inclined to add, explosive material as well.