3d. There is we know absorption of different kinds of virus, of that of hydrophobia, of the small-pox, of the venom of the viper, &c. an absorption, it is true, which rarely takes place when the epidermis is whole, but which uniformly does, when this being removed, the matter is found in contact with the external capillary net-work of which we have spoken. I would remark even that the different kinds of inoculation of the small-pox, of the vaccine disease, &c. evidently prove both the existence and importance of this net-work, to which heretofore sufficient attention has not been paid. There are many contagious principles which are absorbed through the epidermis; such are those of the plague which the clothes communicate and those of different pestilential fevers which penetrate by the skin more than by respiration. I believe cutaneous absorptions from which diseases arise may be divided in the following way: {1st, local, as the itch, herpes, 1st. Absorptions which take place { tinea capitis, &c. &c. through the epidermis, and which {2d, general, as pestilential produce an effect { diseases, putrid fevers taken { in an unhealthy place, &c. &c. {1st, local, as the vaccine 2d. Absorptions which take place { disease, the small-pox, &c. &c. only when the epidermis is removed,{2d, general, as hydrophobia, the and from which arises { venom of the viper, a wound an effect { with an instrument impregnated { with putrid matter, &c. &c.