CHECKED PERSPIRATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXIII, Issue 72, 13 April 1901, Page 4

CHECKED PERSPIRATION.

This is the fruitful cause of sickness, disease, and death to multitude! every year. If a tea-kettle of water is boiling on the lira steam is seen issuing from the spout, carrying the extra heat with it. but if the lid be fastened down and the spout be plugged, a destructive explosion follows in a very short time. Heat is constantly generated within the human body by the chemical disorganisation, the combustion of the food we ea«. There are seven millions of tubes or pores on the surface of the body, which in health are constantly open, conveying from the system by what is called insensible perspiration this internal heat, which, having pswered its purpose, is passed off like the jets of steam which are thrown from the escape-pipe, in puffs, of any ordinary steam engine; but this insensible perspiration carries with it, in a dissolved form, wry much of the waste matter of the system, to the extent of a pound or two or more, every twenty-four hours. It must be apparent, then, that if the pores of the skin are closed, V the multitude of valves which are placed over the whole surface of the human body art that down, two things take place. First, the paternal heat is prevented from passing offt it accumulates every moment, the person jxptesses himself as burning up, and large draughts of water are swallowed to quencb the interna] fire—this we call "Fever." When the warm steam is constantly escaping from the body in health it keeps the skis moist, and there is a soft pleasant feel and warmth about it. Bnt when the pores are closed the skin feels harsh and hot and dry ' But another result follows the closing oi theyores of the skin, and more immediately dauerous: a main outlet for the waste of the Body is closed, it remlngles with the blood, which, in a few hours, becomes impure, and begins to generate disease in every fibre of the system—the whole machinery of the man becomes at once disordered, and he expresses himself as "feeling miserable." The terrible effects of checked perspiration of a dog, who sweats only by his tongue, is evinced by his becoming " mad." The water tuns in streams from a dog's mouth in summer, if exercising treely. If it ceases to run that is hydrophobia. If has been asserted by a Frendi physician that if a person suffering under hydrophobia can be only made to perspire freely he is cnred at once. It is familiar to the commonest observer that in all ordinary forms of disease the patient begins to get better the moment he begins to perspire, simply because the internal heat is passing off. and there is an outlet for thi wait• oftba system.