Pore (biology)

“ I strike at the root of the disease. If you were going to build up a house that was out of repair and encumbered with rubbish, you would naturally clear away the rubbish first and then begin your repairs. Well, that is just how I go to work with disease. Every pore of the skin must be cleansed, opened, and stimulated to action. ”

“ When the pores are allowed to fill with dust, dirt or the impurities discharged by the system, irritation is quick to start. Inflammation sets in. Pimples, skin eruptions and kindred ailments, in many cases, are directly traceable to this cause—uncleanliness. If every pore is kept immaculately clean, free from all impurities and in good working order, danger of infection is greatly minimized. ”

“ The heat makes it secrete more perfectly, and the chemical combination makes the removal of the secretion easy. It is possible to block the pores up, but it is not very easy to do so. A healthy pore will send its secretions out through very close stuff. It is only by something like very strong varnish that it can be prevented. ”

“ Every pore is the mouth of a tiny tube which is carrying off waste matter and water from your body. If you could piece together all these little perspiration tubes that are in the skin of one person, they would make a line more than three miles long. ”

“ Look upon your skin as an organ, an organ that must continually perform an important duty in relieving the system of impurities.
Like the rest of your body, the skin requires nutrition and the utmost cleanliness if it is to be healthy.
It is easy to appreciate the importance of keeping the pores active, when we stop to think that when the surface skin is destroyed, and the pore action interrupted, as in cases of severe burns, the danger is grave and that when as much as one-third of the body is so affected death is inevitable. ”

“ Keep the stomach and bowels in good order.
BLACKHEADS.—The most frequent inquiry in the "beauty pages" of the papers is what to do for blackheads. In the first place, don't allow yourself to get them. Keep your face clean. A blackhead is simply a pore that is filled with oil and dirt. Sometimes they are as large as the head of a pin. When taken out they leave an enlargement known as a coarse pore. Do not steam the face to remove them. Wash the face well with soap and hot water; wring cloths out of hot water and hold to the face then massage with cold cream. ”

“ They should be thoroughly pressed out of every pore, or there they will remain, and no cosmetic will dislodge them. When this is effectually done, the following safe and simple application may be tried: take one ounce of bitter almonds and one ounce of barley-flour; mix them with honey, until they form a smooth paste, and anoint the skin at night. Gentle friction, either with the hand or with a soft glove, is also good. When this state of the skin is induced by bilious disorders, indigestion, &c., sulphur, purgatives, and other remedies must be taken to remove it ”

“ Having observed, as in the year 1802, a spontaneous moisture on the skin on the first day of the disease, in several cases, I was led to assist this disposition in nature to be relieved by the pores, by means of sweating remedies, but in no instance did I follow it, without previous evacuations from the blood-vessels or bowels; for, however useful the intimations of nature may be in acute diseases, her efforts should never be trusted to alone, inasmuch as they are in most cases too feeble to do service, or so violent as to do mischief. ”

“ The dorsal pore persists as the proboscis-pore; the notochord and numerous gill-slits are developed as outgrowths of the alimentary canal, the reproductive organs make their appearance, probably from the mesoderm, [38] the trunk meanwhile elongating so that the proportions of the adult are acquired. ”

“ Can any one suppose, for a moment, that so curious and complicated an organ as the skin, and one of such considerable extent, has nothing to do?
Nearly every living person has some idea, of greater or less intensity, of pores in the skin ”

“ Attention to the state of the skin is of great importance in a hygienic point of view. The perspiration and sebaceous matters which are naturally poured out upon the surface of the body, with an intermingling of particles of detached epidermis, fragments of fibres from the dress, dirt, etc., if not removed, gradually form a crust which soon materially interferes with the due excreting action of the skin. ”

“ First of all, you must keep your skin clean, and that's a particular job.
You have nearly thirty miles of pores in your body. These pores are sewers; they discharge in a healthy person nearly two pounds of waste material every day.
If these pores are stopped up or clogged, the waste material is secreted in the skin.
The stopped pores secrete the greasy waste matter. This greasy substance attracts dirt, dust and germs, and soon blackheads, pimples or blotched skin will result.
Washing the skin with strong soap is not good. ”

“ Remember that the fluid must act upon the inside of the skin, for the epidermis is often almost impervious to it. If you allow the skin to lie upon itself in thick folds, stuck together on the inside, those spots are liable to lose their hair in a most unaccountable and aggravating way. If the skin is small and thin, the bath soon does its work; but if it is a large skin, move it up and down, and all about, every day for the first two or three days. By the end of that time its preservation will be complete. ”

“ The description and use of the Pores in the skin of the hands and feet, by the learned and ingenious Nehemiah Grew, M.D. fellow of the College of Physicians and of the Royal Society. By Pores, Physicians mean no more, than certain permeable spaces between the parts of a Body. Wherefore, that there are Pores in the skin of every man's Body, is no more to be question'd than whether Men do ever sweat of perspire. ”

“ The surfaces of the body protect from invasion to a greater or less degree. The skin protects by the impervious horny layer on the outside, the external cells of which are dead and constantly being thrown off. Bacteria are always found on and in this layer, but the conditions for growth here are not very favorable and the surface is constantly cleansed by desquamation. The new cells to supply the loss are produced in the deepest layer of the epidermis, and the movement of cells and fluids takes place from within outwards. ”

“ Experiments in the laboratory and in practice have shown that it is not the dissolving action on the skin substance in the narrow sense which is desired in bating the derm with dogs’ dung, but in order to prepare the hide for the manufacture of a soft and elastic leather, the albuminous intercellular substances and more particularly the layers of fat lying at the roots of the hair, in the corium and in many cases also on the epidermis, must be dissolved and thereby the fibrils of the skin loosened. ”

“ The color and surface of the skin cannot be changed by any application which does not close the pores; the pores, which are so exquisitely fine that there are millions of them to the square inch, and which must be kept open if a healthy and cleanly body is to be preserved. There is more breathing done through the pores of a healthy person than through the lungs ”

“ In the skin of a middle-sized man there are two millions three hundred and four thousand of these holes, called pores. Those pores are the mouths of exceedingly small vessels made to carry off fluids, which are continually formed in the human body, and need to be continually carried off. This process is going on all the time, whether we are sleeping or waking, hot or cold. When we are cool and at rest, that which passes off is invisible ”

“ The prevailing opinion among medical men is, that the latter is by far the more efficacious in most disorders, and more conducive to health than the former; because, where a person continues immersed in saline water for some time, it enters into the pores of the skin, and by that means is more likely to be of benefit in cutaneous or other disorders for which it is usually recommended. ”

“ But if, the skin being very dry, we suddenly sweat, as after drinking tea, then the little drops which escape from the whole cutaneous surface, not having had time to run together, but remaining separate, we see, by the places where they are, the orifice of the exhalants. Besides, if we examine against the light a considerable portion of epidermis, its transparency allows us to see many small pores separated from each other by interstices, and which pass through it in an oblique direction. ”

“ Improved Hygiene of the Skin and Kidneys through Bathing—Foot-baths. Every day we are getting rid of the superficial layers of the skin, which process can become so intense in some people that the skin looks as though it were covered with flour dust; and in some persons with dry skin such apparel as stockings sometimes gets full of this. These minute scales, which get necrotised in the upper parts of the skin, are apt to clog the pores, which can also become closed by particles of dust, or by products of the sebaceous glands and by perspiratory residues. ”

“ If the pores of the body are filled up with dust, or [247] any kind of dirt, the fluids cannot pass off through them, as Nature intended; and, being shut up, they become corrupt and produce fevers and bad humors. This is the reason why physicians always advise people to be careful and keep their pores open. ”

“ Where a wide ulcer has eaten away the deep-seated layer out of which the epidermis grows, or where this layer has been destroyed by an extensive burn, the process of healing is very significant. From the subjacent tissues, which in the normal order have no concern with outward growth, there is produced a new skin, or rather a pro-skin; for this substituted outward-growing layer contains no hair-follicles or other specialities of the original one. ”

“ Much of the dirt that gathers on the body comes, not from the outside, but from the inside of the body. The skin is full of little pores. These pores are the mouths of tiny pipes, or tubes, millions of which are found in the skin. ”

“ The internal layer is the rete mucosum. It lies immediately upon the true skin, and consists solely and wholly of cells, being equally destitute of vessels and nerves. Here begin the first discrepancies in the opinion of writers. Some deny that it belongs to the epidermis, looking upon it as a separate substantive tissue, neither skin nor scarf-skin, but intermediate to the two. Others find it only in the coloured families of mankind. It occurs, however, universally; being of a yellowish-white colour in Europeans, and dark brown or black in negroes, Indians, and the so-called dark races. ”

“ It is usually regarded by those imperfectly acquainted, with its action as simply the chief factor in a sweating process, but it is more than that. Not only does it open up the pores and soften the scales of the skin, but it "draws" the morbid matter from the interior of the body, through the surface to the pores. ”

“ The appendages of the skin are the hair, nails, the sebaceous and sweat-glands. This complicated structure is supplied with blood-vessels, lymphatics, and nerves.
The Epidermis.—The outer layer of this is the horny layer; when a blister is formed, its fluid raises the entire epidermis from the true skin. The flat scales forming the [Pg 25] horny layer are continually being thrown off; this process of desquamation is increased by the friction of the clothes, of bathing, massage, and so forth, and is as constantly being replaced by new cells from underneath. ”

“ The skin consists of two layers, the derma, or true skin, and the epidermis, or cuticle. It is the principal seat of the sense of touch, and on the surface of the upper layer are the sensitive papillae, which receive and respond to impressions; and within, or imbedded beneath it, are organs with special functions, viz., the sweat glands, hair follicles and sebaceous glands. Its value as a means of depuration is incalculable, as by it, vast quantities of the aqueous and gaseous refuse matter is conveyed from the body. ”

“ The more the human body has been saturated with drugs, alcohols, and other foreign matters, the greater is the necessity for a free action of the pores and perspiration, because by these agents it seeks to relieve itself of diseased matter. When the skin is relaxed or incumbered by that oily exhalation which is constantly exuding from the pores, and too often suffered to remain on the surface, fluids collect beneath the skin and cause inflammation—this is called dropsy. ”

“ The dorsal pores are never developed upon the first one or two segments of the body, and the point where they commence is characteristic for the species. The dorsal pores were considered at one time to lead into sacs, the function of which was believed to be respiratory; it is now known that the pores are simply perforations of the integumental layers just at the anterior boundary of the segment to which they belong; there is no lining of epithelium, as has been erroneously stated to be the case; there is simply a discontinuity of the muscular and epidermic layers where the pores exist. ”

“ Do you know one way we can tell if all the organs are doing their work well? By watching for the sign language. If the blood is not carrying the skin sufficient nourishment, it will be very pale and dull looking. If the waste materials are not being carried off, they may accumulate in the skin and clog the pores. Then we will have pimples or blackheads. Each person's skin is a law unto itself, and what is beneficial to one may not be to another. ”