The principles and practice of medical hydrology, being the science of treatment by waters and baths.

  • Fox, Robert Fortescue, 1858-1940.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The principles and practice of medical hydrology, being the science of treatment by waters and baths. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    perspiration is a matter of great consequence to health in hot countries. In dry hot countries, Uke India or Egypt, evaporation is at a maximum, and the un- impeded cooHng of the body induces a feeUng of fitness. On the other hand, in hot but humid cHmates, Hke that of British East Africa, evaporation is too often at a minimum, and the excess of bodily heat is with difficult}'' got rid of, and is a source of unfitness and ill-health.^ As a nervous The skin may lastly be described as a nervous organ a eren organ. relationship with the external world, inasmuch as it contains an expansion of the nervous system spread out over the body, which may be compared in sensi- tiveness to a photographic plate. This nervous net- work includes the various sensory end-organs for touch, pressure, pain and temperature. The skin is a great absorber of energy, as every one who has been exposed to the solar rays must have experienced. This nervous surface organ is constantly engaged in receiving and transmitting to the centres in the brain and spinal cord an infinite number of impressions from the outside world. It is true that these afferent impulses do not for the most part affect the conscious brain. There is reason to believe that in mankind the surface of the body is more sensitive and takes a more important part in physical and mental processes than in any other animal. Emphasis may be placed upon the Relation of the relation of the skin to the mental activities. Not only cerebral IS it developed from the same embryonic tissue as that centres. from which the nerve centres are derived, but it is probable that in the process of evolution the fmictioning of the skin and nerve centres are intimately related and proceed pari passu. It is by means of the skin as an organ of relationship that the body is enabled mthout dangerous reduction of temperature to maintain a constant and effective relation with external conditions and the various forms ^ See Halliburton's Physiology, 1911, ]i. 631.
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