Sweat

“ The sweat serves to keep the skin moist and in good condition, to remove outworn and poisonous or irritating matters, and to regulate the temperature. As a rule it evaporates upon reaching the surface, in which case it is known as invisible or insensible perspiration, but if conditions of the atmosphere are not favorable to prompt evaporation, as when the air is damp, the skin becomes damp and there is visible perspiration. ”

“ The sweat glands are carrying on their filtering activity most if not all of the time; we are not usually aware of it because the sweat comes out in exceedingly fine drops which evaporate as fast as they are formed; it is only when the sweat is poured out faster than it evaporates that we become aware of its presence. If the air is very full of moisture, sweat will stand on our bodies even though it is not being formed more abundantly than usual. ”

“ Then with my hands I crumbled the dirt chunks into powder and carefully sifted, smoothed off, rolled, tumbled, and otherwise adjusted the net product.
Sweat is the fluid excreted from the sudoriferous glands of the skin.
The sudoriferous glands of Yours Truly worked overtime. Yours Truly excreted, exuded, flooded. To be swimming around in your own atmosphere is a novel and sometimes [Pg 62] pleasurable experience. ”

“ As the feeling of heat, for example, is the last psychic antecedent of sweating, as the feeling of bright light is that of the pupil's contraction, as the sight or smell of carrion is that of the movements of disgust, as the remembrance of a blunder may be that of a blush, so the idea of a movement's sensible effects might be that of the movement itself. It is true that the idea of sweating will not commonly make us sweat, nor that of blushing make us blush. ”

“ But in very hot weather, or when we exercise violently, a saltish fluid passes through our pores in great drops, which we call sweat; and because we can see and feel it, it is called sensible perspiration. ”

“ Under pathological conditions, sugar urea and other substances are found. The secretion of sweat is constantly going on, the activity of the sweat-glands being under control of the central nervous system. ”

“ The sweat glands discharge on the average from one and one-half to two pounds of perspiration per day, more in hot weather and much less when it is cool. They are distributed over the whole external surface of the body. ”

“ Can any one explain how these partial sweats should relieve the difficulty of breathing in anasarca, but by supposing that the pulmonary branch of absorbents drank up the fluid in the cavity of the thorax, or in the cells of the lungs, and threw it on the skin, by the retrograde motions of the cutaneous branch? for, if we could suppose, that the increased action of the cutaneous glands or capillaries poured upon the skin this fluid, previously absorbed from the lungs; why is not the whole surface of the body covered with sweat? why is not the skin warm? ”

“ The liquid sweat, which in the ordinary state of the body is only given off in sufficient amount to prevent the skin from becoming over-dry, is secreted by the sudoriferous glands, whose ducts terminate in large numbers on the surface at every part. There is in the third place an oily material, formed for a similar purpose by the sebaceous glands, which are widely distributed, but fewer in number than the last. ”

“ Lastly, Take sweating medicines when you are in bed, covered warm, and in the time of your sweating drink posset-drink as hot as you can. If you sweat for a fever, boil sorrel and red sage in your posset-drink, sweat an hour or longer if your strength will permit, then (the chamber being kept very warm) shift yourself all but your head, about which (the cap which you sweat in being still kept on) wrap a napkin very hot, to repel the vapours back. ”

“ This warm blood circulates all through the body, tending to raise all parts of it to the temperature of the active regions, or, as it passes through the skin, to cool by loss of heat from the surface. When this warm blood enters the brain stem it arouses the sweat center and an increased secretion of sweat results. ”

“ The flow may be intermittent, appearing at intervals from a few hours to months. Sometimes the discharge is connected with skin diseases, but often the skin is unaffected. Examples have been found at every age and in both sexes, but this sweat is commoner in women. ”

“ And a cold sweat trills down o'er all my limbs, As if I were dissolving into water. ”

“ I call it very hot, when a man, with thin or little cloathing, sweats much though at rest. I call it excessive hot, when a man, in his shirt, at rest, sweats excessively, when all motion is painful, and the knees feel feeble as if after a fever. ”

“ Those sweats are the best in all acute diseases which occur on the critical days, and completely carry off the fever. Those are favorable, too, which taking place over the whole body, show that the man is bearing the disease better. ”

“ The worst are cold sweats, confined to the head, face, and neck; these in an acute fever prognosticate death, or in a milder one, a prolongation of the disease; and sweats which occur over the whole body, with the characters of those confined to the neck, are in like manner bad. Sweats attended with a miliary eruption, and taking place about the neck, are bad; sweats in the form of drops and of vapour are good. One ought to know the entire character of sweats, for some are connected with prostration of strength in the body, and some with intensity of the inflammation. ”

“ In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, Till thou return unto the ground; for thou Out of the ground wast taken, know thy birth, For dust thou art, and shalt to dust return. ”

“ The sweats which occur in the decline of a fever are to be treated like the critical. Sudorific remedies are sufficiently treated of in the 48th section of the First Book. But when the sweats exceed in quantity, they must be wiped off, and the covering of clothes lightened, so as to cool the patient. For, by exceeding, they occasion lassitude, and often bring on syncope. Let, therefore, the covering be light and moistened; let the air be cooled; and let ventilation be used during sleep. Let the black myrtle, pounded, be sprinkled on the body, and gall, and the bark of the pine, in like manner. ”

“ These vessels of verse, O Great Goddess, are filled with invisible tears,
With the sobs and sweat of my spirit and her desolate brooding for years;
See, I lay them — not on thine altar, for they are unpolished and plain,
Not rounded enough by the potter, too much burnt in the furnace of pain;
But here in the dust, in the shadow, with a sudden wild leap of the heart
I kneel to tenderly kiss them, then in silence arise to depart.
I linger awhile at the portal with the light of the crimsoning sun
On my wreathless brow bearing the badges of battles I've fought in not won. ”

“ For sodenly a dedly and burnyng sweate inuaded their bodyes and vexed their bloud with a most ardent heat, infested the stomack and the head greuously: by the tormentyng and vexacion of which sicknes, men were so sore handled and so painfully pangued that if they were layed in their bed, beyng not hable to suffre the importunate heat, they cast away the shetes and all the clothes liyng on the bed. ”

“ Profuse sweating is resorted to as an expedient for removing the superfluities of flesh and fat. Three or four sweats are generally requisite, and they may be considered the severest part of the process. ”

“ And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky. ”

“ One of them, I thought, expressed her sentiments upon this occasion in a very coarse manner, when she observed, that by the living jingo, she was all of a muck of sweat. ”

“ What physicians call the perspirable matter, is that vapour which passes off from our bodies, from the lungs, and through the pores of the skin. The quantity of this is said to be five-eighths of what we eat. ”

“ The heat in fevers arises from the increase of some secretion, either of the natural fluids, as in irritative fevers; or of new fluids, as in infectious fevers; or of new vessels, as in inflammatory fevers. The pain of heat is a consequence of the increased extension or contraction of the fibres exposed to so great a stimulus. ”

“ I saw four manner of dryings: the first was bloodlessness; the second was pain following after; the third, hanging up in the air, as men hang a cloth to dry; the fourth, that the bodily Kind asked liquid and there was no manner of comfort ministered to Him in all His woe and distress. Ah! hard and grievous was his pain, but much more hard and grievous it was when the moisture failed and began to dry thus, shrivelling.
These were the pains that shewed in the blessed head: the first wrought to the dying, while it had moisture; and that other, slow, with shrinking drying, [and] ”

“ She would tell you herself that she has a very dreadful cold in her head at present; but I have not much compassion for colds in the head without fever or sore throat. ”

“ Your cold blood cannot be worked into a fever—your veins are full of ice-water—but mine are boiling, and the sight of such chillness makes them dance." ”

“ for thirst is harder to bear than hunger, heat, or cold. ”

“ He could eat anything, no matter how loathsome or indigestible; and, once eaten, the juices of his stomach extracted the last least particle of nutriment; and his blood carried it to the farthest reaches of his body, building it into the toughest and stoutest of tissues. ”

“ And what if you should happen to cough or to sneeze?"
"A man who is making his escape does not cough or sneeze." ”

“ It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want—oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ”

“ It was high time, for I now began to be tortured with thirst. The glow of the sun from above, its thousandfold reflection from the waves, the sea-water that fell and dried upon me, caking my very lips with salt, combined to make my throat burn and my brain ache. ”

“ This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. ”

“ To livid paleness turns the glowing red.
His blood, scarce liquid, creeps within his veins,
Like water which the freezing wind constrains. ”

“ Scientifically speaking, the flesh was melted off the world. His body was macerated until only the nerve fibres were left. It was spread like a veil upon a rock. ”

“ I define a nose, as follows,—intreating only beforehand, and beseeching my readers, both male and female, of what age, complexion, and condition soever, for the love of God and their own souls, to guard against the temptations and suggestions of the devil, and suffer him by no art or wile to put any other ideas into their minds, than what I put into my definition.—For by the word Nose, throughout all this long chapter of noses, and in every other part of my work, where the word Nose occurs,—I declare, by that word I mean a Nose, and nothing more, or less. ”

“ At the gray tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor. ”

“ Some springs are acid, as at Lyncestus and in Italy in the Velian country, at Teano in Campania, and in many other places. These when used as drinks have the power of breaking up stones in the bladder, which form in the human body. ”

“ I clasp thy waist, I feel thy bosom's beat—
O kiss me into faintness sweet and dim! ”

“ Masculine exhalations are as a rule stronger, more vivid, more widely differentiated than those of women. In [89] the odour of young men there is something elemental, as of fire, storm, and salt sea. It pulsates with buoyancy and desire. It suggests all things strong and beautiful and joyous, and gives me a sense of physical happiness. ”

“ And all the while the burning lime Eats flesh and bone away, It eats the brittle bone by night, And the soft flesh by the day, It eats the flesh and bones by turns, But it eats the heart alway. ”