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Chapter VII: The Skin.2135
rapidly, and although constantly casting off matter it as rapidly replaces it. It
is an armor wonderfully adapted to its purposes.
Considering the second named function—that of the conveying of
sensations to the brain, by the sense of feeling, we find another wonderful
adaption of means to end. A moments thought will show you that the great
variety of sense reports that we receive through the sense of touch and
feeling are received through the skin. Millions of sensory nerves terminate
in the skin, and it is through these that we “feel” things. Through them we are
made aware that things are hard or soft; rough or smooth; and the quality
and character of resistence offered by them. There are tiny spots on our skin
which register heat and cold. Some respond only to cold, and some only to
heat. Physiology teaches us strange things about these “hot spots” and “cold
spots,” which however form no part of our present consideration, and we
mention the subject but casually in passing.
Considering the third-named function of the skin—that of the regulating
of the temperature of the body, we find that it is beautifully adapted to this
work. Its vascular mesh is so extensive that it is capable of drawing to it and
holding, in cases of necessity, nearly half of the supply of blood in the entire
body, thus protecting the surface of the body from the effects of extreme
cold. The “reaction,” or flow of blood to the surface of the skin, which we
notice after taking a cold-water plunge, is an evidence of this function.
And, at the other extreme, we have the functioning known as perspiration,
one of the purposes of which is to keep the body cool in hot weather, by
means of evaporation. The average person excretes over one and one-half
pints of perspiration during twenty-four hours, the amount being greater
in warm weather than in cold. In unusual circumstances such as the case of
men working in rolling-mills, tending furnaces on board ship, etc., the skin
sometimes excretes as much as two or three pints an hour.
Considering the fourth-named function of the skin—that of the excretion
of the waste products of the system, we find another instance of Nature’s
wonderful work. The waste products of the system are eliminated through