Regency Health and Medicine: On Perspiration

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PERSPIRATION With respect to the glands under the skin we cannot assert that they are found in every part of it as they cannot be every where discovered by dissection But in most parts of the body though washed ever so carefully the linen is found to be soiled with what appears to be the excrements of the skin Very corpulent persons will soil their linen in twenty four hours After drinking plen tifully of red wines this soiling is of a purple colour There is in health a constant flow of moisture
from the skin which is commonly insensible but may easily be made apparent by the simple experi ment of holding a cold piece of glass for a few seconds near the skin when it will be covered with moisture When this flow of moisture is increased by exertion or by external heat it becomes visible in drops upon the skin and tends to cool the body by its evapora tion The rank smell of this moisture is caused by the intermixture of the oil of the skin hence it is found to be more fœtid in the armpits where this oil is most abundant Both blood and small sand have according to Baron Haller been known to pass through the skin with the sweat It is the scent arising from perspiration which en ables dogs to follow their masters and as they have been known to do this even in a crowd we infer that the perspiration of each individual affords a dif ferent scent Alexander the Great was said to emit a fragrant odour from his body

The Art of Beauty; Or, the Best Methods of Improving and Preserving the Shape, Carriage, and Complexion. Together with the Theory of Beauty, 1825

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