This is a subject of great importance to the farmer; for many of the diseases of cattle arise from the filthy, obstructed state of the surface. This neglect of cleansing the hide of cattle arises, in some cases, from the absurd notion (often expressed to the author) that the hide of cattle is so thick and dense that they never sweat, except on the muzzle! For the information of those who may have formed such an absurd and dangerous notion, we give the views of Professor Bouley. "In all animals, from the exterior tegumentary surface incessantly exhale vaporous or gaseous matters, the products of chemical operations going on in the interior of the organism, of which the uninterrupted elimination is a necessary condition for the regular continuance of the functions. Regarded in this point of view, the skin may be considered as a dependency of the respiratory apparatus, of which it continues and completes the function, by returning incessantly to the atmosphere the combusted products, which are water and carbonic acid. "Therefore the skin, properly speaking, is an expiratory apparatus, which, under ordinary conditions of the organism, exhales, in an insensible manner, products analogous to those expired from the pulmonary surface; with this difference, that the quantity of carbonic acid is very much less considerable in the former than in the latter of these exhalations; according to Burbach, the proportion of carbonic acid, as inhaled by the skin, being to that expired by the lungs as 350 to 23,450, or as 1 to 67. "The experiments made on inferior animals, such as frogs, toads, salamanders, or fish, have demonstrated the waste by general transpiration to be, in twenty-four hours, little less than half the entire weight of the body." The same author remarks, "Direct experiment has shown, in the clearest manner, the close relation of function existing between the perspiratory and respiratory membranes." "M. Fourcault, with a view of observing, through different species of animals, the effect of the suppression of perspiration, conceived the notion of having the skins of certain live animals covered with varnish. After having been suitably prepared, some by being plucked, others by being shorn, he smeared them with varnish of variable composition; the substances employed being tar, paste, glue, pitch, and other plastic matters. Sometimes these, one or more of them, were spread upon parts, sometimes upon the whole of the body. The effects of the operation have varied, showing themselves, soon or late afterwards, decisively or otherwise, according as the varnishing has been complete or general, or only partial, thick, thin, &c. In every instance, the health of the animal has undergone strange alterations, and life has been grievously compromised. Those that have been submitted to experiment under our eyes have succumbed in one, two, three days, and even at the expiration of some hours." (See _London Veterinarian_ for 1850, p. 353.)