Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1901-03-21
The Skin, Hair and Nails.

LII an tlI NIN4O ShNANANN NA-'' -
Binding" in Ainslee's Magazine Har-
vey Sutherland discourses as follows
on the skin, hair and nails:
1t is fayorite simile with educators
that each human life is volume whose
pages are blank at birth, but are writ
ten upon more and more as the years
pass. 1t will be a good deal for most
of us if we know all there is to be
known about the binding of this vol
ume. "What, the skin p I fancy |
hear someone say. What is there
about the skin that would interest any,
body except, maybe, doctor =
By the skin alone we become cog
nizant of ourselves and of what is
about us. The hardness of candy is
determined by the teeth, which are
not bony structures, but notifications
of the ephithelium, the thin, papery
cover to the skin. So are the finger
nails and the hair.
Psychologists are now wrangling
over the point whether we are afraid
because our skin get. goose-heshy and
wet with perspirstion and the muscles
all of a tremble because Of the sudden
cold that comes from the moistened
surface, or whether our mind perceives
that there is danger. | do not know,
but it seems to me that long, long ages
ago, when the animal man had fur on
him, instead of the delicate, useless
fuzz or lanugo that now covers his
body, it was of very great use to him
in a moment Of peril to have that fur
stand up so that the attacking beast
could not get firm grip with its fangs;
it was of great use to him that he
should sweat profusely and suddenly
so as to become what we call "a slip
perry customer to handle and the
shivering must have helped him to
wiggle out of tight'place more than
once.
The skin is also an organ Of absOrp-
ton. Man is not so far removed from
those animals that swim in their nour-
i.hment and take their meals through
their pores that he has wholly lost the
trick of it. l have not been able to
find any recorded experiments Of men
bathing in soup and coming out with
the fine, comfortable feeling that one
has after dining well but it is we'll
known that shipwrecked sailors relieve
their thirst by soaking their clothing
in the salt water that they dare not
drink. a man after coming out of a
hot bath will find that he has lost
pound or two of the weight he had
when he stepped into it, But in
couple of hours, though he neither eat
nor drink in the meantime, he will re-
gain his weight. His skin has alb
sorbed the missing fluid from the air.
That the skin is intimately connect
ed with the lungs is proved by the
fact that our minor i'll Of the respira-
tory tract-colds, for instance-are
almost always traceable to checking
of the perspiration SO that the impur-
tiles of the blood poison US. Every
body knows the story about the little
boy that was covered with gold leaf
as a cherub for some Roman pomp and
how he died in agony few hours af-
terward. Varnish an animal and it
will die in from six TO twelve hours,
say some authorities. This incontro-
vertible fact is matched by another
equally incontrovertible, that nobody
ever heard of any case of tarring-and
feathering that killed the victim. He
might have had all kinds of trouble
in getting the stuff off and he might
have felt certain shock to his pride,
but he didn't die that anybody ever
heard of.
1t may be interesting to know that
one perspires more on the right side
of the body than on the left, and that
the skin of the palm of the hand ex-
cretes four and half times as much
proportionately to the surface as the
skin of the back. The pores in the
ridges Of the palm number as many
as 8 1000 to the square inch. They are
scarcest on the back, where they are
only 400 to the square inch. These
pores are not simple holes or perfora-
tons IN the hide, as some imagine,
but are little pockets lined with the
same ephithelium or pavement stuff
that covers the external of the body.
They run straight down into the deep
ast strncture Of the skin and there