Every Man His Own Doctor: The Cold Water, Tepid Water, and Friction-Cure, as Applicable to Every Disease to Which the Human Frame Is Subject, and Also to the Cure of Disease in Horses and CattleClaridge, R. T. (Richard Tappin)
Science
Every Man His Own Doctor: The Cold Water, Tepid Water, and Friction-Cure, as Applicable to Every Disease to Which the Human Frame Is Subject, and Also to the Cure of Disease in Horses and Cattle
Claridge, R. T. (Richard Tappin)
Hydrotherapy; Veterinary medicine
"The perspiratory pores on the palm of the hand, are found to be 3,528
in a square inch; now each of these pores being the aperture of a little
tube of about a quarter of an inch long, it follows that in a square
inch of skin on the palm of the hand, there exists a length of tube
equal to 882 inches, or 73-1/2 feet. Such a _drainage_ as 73 feet in
every square inch of skin, assuming this to be the average for the whole
body, is something wonderful; and the thought naturally intrudes itself,
What if this _drainage were obstructed? Could we need a stronger
argument for enforcing the necessity of attention to the skin?_ On the
pulps of the finger, where the ridges of the sensitive layer of the true
skin are somewhat finer than the palm of the hand and on the heel, where
the ridges are coarser, the number of pores on the square inch was
2,268, and the length of tube 567 inches, or 47 feet. To obtain an
estimate of the length of tube of the perspiratory system of the whole
surface of the body, I think," says Dr. Wilson, "that 2,800 might be
taken as a fair average of the number of pores in the square inch, and
700 consequently of the number of inches in length. Now the number of
square inches of surface in a man of ordinary height and bulk is 2,500,
the number of pores therefore, 7,000,000, and the number of inches of
perspiratory tube 1,750,000, that is 145,833 feet, or 48,000 yards, or
nearly 28 miles.
"This is only a specimen of the extraordinary structure.
"Besides the perspiratory vessels, the skin is provided with vessels for
secreting an oily substance, which is of a different nature at different
parts of the body; with vessels to repair abrasion and provide for its
growth, and carry off its decayed parts; with nerves and blood-vessels
that are probably as numerous and extensive as the perspiratory vessels.
"It must at the same time be remembered, that the interior skin or
mucous membrane, is provided with equally numerous and complicated
vessels, to answer some analogous purposes. The whole of them may be
affected by applications to the external skin."
Dr. Wilson has, in his work, introduced some equally curious and
instructive passages, as to the formation and uses of the oil-glands,
the structure and functions of the hair, the influence of diet and
clothing, and the effect of exercise and cleanliness on the health of
this extensive organ.
V.--IS HYDROPATHY A PANACEA? AND WHAT COMPLAINTS ARE CURABLE BY IT?
Dr. Rauss, author of a work on hydropathy which passed through several
editions, says, "It is almost impossible for any one to die of an acute
disease, in whom reaction can be produced, and who from the commencement
is treated Hydropathically.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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