Sweating system

“ It Removes Waste.—The sweat glands and ducts are constantly at work removing from the blood particles which have been worn out and can be of no further use. If we get very [Pg 86] warm, or if we run or work very hard, the skin becomes wet with sweat. In a little while, if we stop to rest, the sweat is all gone. What becomes of it? You say it dries up, which means that it has passed off into the air. Sweating is going on all the time, but we do not sweat so much when we are quiet and are not too warm, and so the sweat dries up as fast as it is produced, and we do not see it. ”

“ They have a system of sweat glands, but this is not so highly organized as it is in man, so that their physical heat regulation is brought about not only by evaporation of sweat, but also to a very great extent by water evaporated from the lungs and mouth through increased respiration. ”

“ Just lately a germ has been discovered which has the power of rendering the perspiration offensive in a very short time. Usually the sweat is perfectly inodorous when exuded, but in some families a condition known as bromhydrosis obtains, in which the perspiration is of an offensive odour. In some diseases, where excessive perspiration occurs, the sweat soon develops an offensive smell, doubtless due to the machinations of the germ mentioned above. The commonest diseases in which excessive sweating occurs are ague, phthisis, and rheumatic fever. ”

“ The distribution of blood through the skin in fever does not differ from that at other times when the body is warm; it is the usual thing in fevers for the skin to be much flushed. There is, on the other hand, a definite impairment of the sweat-secreting mechanism. It is one of the most familiar facts about fever that the skin is not only hot but very dry. It is also well known that by inducing sweating the temperature can often be brought down. ”

“ How the sweat keeps us cool.—When your hands or feet are wet, they are cold. On a hot summer's day, your body becomes wet with sweat. This cools the body as if water were poured over it. So sweating keeps you from getting too warm, and from being sunstruck. ”

“ The effects of external temperature first produce on the functions of the skin (which connects us with the exterior world) an augmentation or diminution of the natural discharges, by suddenly changing or disturbing the balance of the circulating fluids between the external and internal parts or surfaces, irrespective of the perspiratory process, commonly termed sweat, there being innumerable chemical agents more poisonous and of greater importance as to their elimination from the system in the shape of insensible 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. ”

“ In tropical parts of the world when the wet bulb not infrequently reaches 90°F. the circulation of air by punkahs or electric fans becomes a necessity. There is great variation in capacity for sweating which, according to Hearne, is the basis of heat stroke. He notes that sweating is suppressed from 1 to 48 hours before the attack. With sweating suppressed the body temperature rises until, when 108°F. or more is reached, unconsciousness and convulsions develop. ”

“ While the stomach and alimentary canal take in new materials, the skin forms one of the principal outlets by which particles that are useless to the system are thrown out of the body. Every one knows that the skin perspires, and that checked perspiration is a powerful cause of disease and death; but few have any just notion of the extent and influence of this exhalation. When the body is overheated by exercise, a copious sweat breaks out, which, by evaporation, carries off the excess of heat, and produces an agreeable feeling of coolness and refreshment. ”

“ Not certainly while they use little or no muscular exercise, by washing, once a day, their hands and faces merely, or, as some say, their fingers, their noses, and the tips of their chins. They may talk, on occasions, very boldly and flippantly, about sweating away a cold, as they term it; but do they vainly suppose that the sweat vessels or sweating machinery has nothing to do, from day to day, which might prevent the necessity of resorting to these sweating processes? ”

“ 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. ”

“ If dry woolen clothing is put on after exertion, the vapor from the surface of the body is condensed in the wool, and gives out again the large amount of heat which had become latent when the water was vaporized, and from this cause alone a woolen covering feels warm during sweating. In the case of tightly woven cotton and linen fabrics, the perspiration passes through them, and evaporates from the external surface without condensation ”

“ Bathe the feet in hot mustard water, a small handful of mustard to a pail half full of hot water. At the same time, drink hot teas, like hoarhound, ginger, lemonade, etc. Then put the patient to bed and place hot water fruit jars around him. This treatment will produce a good sweat. After the sweating has continued for some time and the patient feels uncomfortable because of the sweat, bathe him with a towel dipped in warm water, and dry the parts as you go along. ”

“ III. Sweating was introduced into practice at a time when morbific matter was supposed to be the proximate cause of fever. It acts, not by expelling any thing exclusively morbid from the blood, but [309] by abstracting a portion of its fluid parts, and thus reducing the action of the blood-vessels. This mode of curing fever is still fashionable in genteel life. It excites no fear, and offends no sense. The sweating remedies have been numerous, and fashion has reigned as much among them, as in other things. ”

“ From this it appears, that the sweats are not critical to the hot fit, any more than the hot fit can be called critical to the cold one; but simply, that they are the natural consequence of the decline of the hot fit, commencing with the decreased action of the absorbent system, and the decreased evaporation from the skin. And from hence it may be concluded, that a fever-fit is not in general an effort of nature to restore health, as Sydenham considered it, but a necessary consequence of the previous torpor ”

“ Sweating improves the functions of the kidneys in a much greater degree than those of the skin. By insensible perspiration water is eliminated, together with certain harmful solid products which otherwise would make their way through the kidneys; this occurs much more so when the perspiration is greatly increased by sweating processes. In such cases about a liter of water can pass through the skin daily, and in addition a considerable part of the nitrogenous end-products of metabolism and of common salt. ”

“ A certain amount of this water is being used up by our system, and leaves the body constantly, and every ounce that is used up must be replaced by another ounce if the body is to be kept in a normal condition.
The system is continuously excreting water through the pores of the skin, in the shape of sweat and perspiration. Sweat is the term applied to such excretion when it is thrown off so rapidly that it gathers and collects in drops. Perspiration is the term applied when the water is continuously and unconsciously evaporated from the skin. ”

“ One of the filles de chambre of Mademoiselle de Boulen was attacked on Tuesday by the sweating sickness. The king left in great haste, and went a dozen miles off: but it is denied that the lady Anne Boleyn was sent away as suspected, to her brother the Viscount, who is in Kent. This disease, which broke out here four days ago, is the easiest in the world to die of. You have a slight pain in the head, and at the heart; all at once you begin to sweat. There is no need for a physician ”

“ Though it is possible, that cold sweaty hands may also arise from the want of due absorption of the perspirable matter effused on them, and that the coldness may be owing to the greater evaporation in consequence.
The acid sweats described by Dr. Dobson, which he observed in a diabætic patient, and ascribes to the chyle effused on the skin, must be ascribed to the retrograde action of the cutaneous lymphatics. See Sect. XXIX. 6.
8. Sudor asthmaticus. The cold sweats in this disease only cover the head, arms, and breast, and are frequently exceedingly profuse. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sweats thus produced by heat in confined rooms are still more detrimental; as the air becomes then not only deprived of a part of its oxygene by frequent respiration, but is loaded with animal effluvia as well as with moisture, till it can receive no more; and in consequence, while the cutaneous secretion stands upon the skin in drops for want of exhalation, the lungs are exposed to an insalubrious atmosphere. ”

“ In order that the skin may perform its functions properly, it must be perfectly clean, the pores must be kept open, and the sweat glands free to throw off all the effete matter and prevent its accumulation within the system. While soap and water are necessary and helpful, free perspiration induced by vigorous bodily exercise or artificial heat will also enable the glands to cast off the more solid substances which accumulate at the bottom. ”

“ The sweat glands are under the control of certain nerve fibers originating in the spinal cord, and are not necessarily excited to action by an increased flow of blood through the skin. In other words, the sweat glands may be stimulated to increased action both by an increased flow of blood, and also by reflex action upon the vaso-dilator nerves of the parts. These two agencies, while working in harmony through the vaso-dilators, produce phenomena which are essentially independent of each other. Thus a strong emotion, like fear, may cause a profuse sweat to break out, with cold, pallid skin. ”

“ It is so true that it is not the suppression of the sweat which is dangerous, but the alteration of the vital forces of the skin which sweats, that many kinds, as the sweat of phthisis, are not so injurious when they cease for a time ”

“ The drawing and eliminating primary effect of hot applications, of sweat baths, etc., is at best only temporary, lasting only a few minutes and is always followed by a weakening reaction, while the drawing and eliminating action of the cold-water applications, being the secondary, lasting effect, exerts an enduring, invigorating and tonic influence upon the skin which enables it to throw off morbid matter not merely for ten or fifteen minutes, as in the sweat bath under the infiuence of excessive heat, but continually, by day and night. ”

“ It must be remembered, that a due quantity of some aqueous vehicle must be given to support this evacuation; otherwise a burning heat without much visible sweat must be the consequence. When the skin acquires a degree of heat much above 108, as appears by Dr. Alexander's experiments, no visible sweat is produced; which is owing to the great heat of the skin evaporating it as hastily, as it is secreted; and, where the sweat is secreted in abundance, its evaporation cannot carry off the exuberant heat, like the vapour of boiling water ”

“ 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. ”

“ Besides the insensible transpiration and the sweat, which are thrown out by the skin, this organ is constantly lubricated by an oily fluid, which occasions, when coming out of a bath, the water with which it does not unite, to collect in small drops upon the body, which greases the linen when it remains too long in contact with the skin, catches the dust that is floating in the air, makes, it remain upon the skin, and retains many foreign substances coming with the sweat from without or within. ”

“ 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. ”