The Art of Living in Australia: Together with Three Hundred Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. WickenMuskett, Philip E.
Science
The Art of Living in Australia: Together with Three Hundred Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. Wicken
Muskett, Philip E.
Australia -- Social life and customs; Cooking, Australian; Health; Hygiene
The use of the scarf skin is manifestly to protect the more delicate
true skin, while at the same time it allows the waste products and
used-up material to escape from the body. In the substance of the true
skin are thousands of minute little bodies called papillae, which are
specially concerned in the sense of touch, for the vast majority of
these papillae contain the end of a small nerve. The numberless fine
ridges seen on the palmar surface of the hands and fingers, and on the
soles of the feet, are really rows of these papillae, covered of course
by the layers of the outer skin. The supply of blood to the skin is
also very plenteous, each of its innumerable papillae being abundantly
supplied in this respect. As a proof of the amount of blood circulating
within the skin, and of its extensive nerve supply, it is only
necessary to mention the fact that the finest needle cannot be passed
into it without drawing blood and inflicting-pain. In addition to the
foregoing the skin also contains a countless number of very fine tubes,
which penetrate through its layers and open on its surfaces by minute
openings called pores. There are altogether three different varieties
of these tubes distributed throughout the skin, namely, those intended
for perspiration; secondly, those which lead from the oil glands; and
lastly, those which enclose each hair of the body. The first of these,
which carry away the perspiration from the body, are very fine, the end
away from the surface being coiled up in such a way as to form a
ball or oval-shaped body, constituting the perspiration gland. The tube
itself is also twisted like a corkscrew, and widens at its mouth. It is
estimated that there are between 2,000 and 3,000 of these perspiration
tubes in every square inch of the skin. Now, as we have already seen,
the external skin of an ordinary adult is equal to an area of about
twelve square feet, and in a tall person it may be as much as eighteen
square feet. The number of these tubes, therefore, in the whole body
will be many hundreds of thousands, so that it will readily be seen how
exceedingly important it is that they should be kept in thorough
working order by cleanliness. The two great purposes fulfilled by the
perspiration are the removal by its means of worn-out or effete
material which is injurious to the system, and the regulation of the
heat of the body by its influence. When it is stopped by any reason,
such as catarrh or disease, the skin fails in its work, and the noxious
matters, instead of being expelled from the body, are thrown back into
the system. Hence there is a good deal of truth in the belief that a
freely acting skin is always a safeguard against disease.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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