their adapted fluids, when the ends of their excretory ducts are
stimulated.

The external skin consists of the excretory ducts of the capillaries, with
the mouths of the absorbents; when these are stimulated by the application
of cantharides, or by a slice of the fresh root of bryonia alba bound on
it, the capillary glands pour an increased quantity of fluid upon the skin
by their increased action; and the absorbent vessels imbibe a greater
quantity of the more fluid and saline part of it; whence a thick mucous or
serous fluid is deposited between the skin and cuticle.

14. _Perspiratio foetida._ Fetid perspiration. The uses of the perspirable
matter are to keep the skin soft and pliant, for the purposes of its easier
flexibility during the activity of our limbs in locomotion, and for the
preservation of the accuracy of the sense of touch, which is diffused under
the whole surface of it to guard us against the injuries of external
bodies; in the same manner as the secretion of tears is designed to
preserve the cornea of the eye moist, and in consequence transparent; yet
has this cutaneous mucus been believed by many to be an excrement; and I
know not how many fanciful theories have been built on its supposed
obstruction. Such as the origin of catarrhs, coughs, inflammations,
erysypelas, and herpes.

To all these it may be sufficient to answer, that the antient Grecians
oiled themselves all over; that some nations have painted themselves all
over, as the Picts of this island; that the Hottentots smear themselves all
over with grease. And lastly, that many of our own heads at this day are
covered with the flour of wheat and the fat of hogs, according to the
tyranny of a filthy and wasteful fashion, and all this without
inconvenience. To this must be added the strict analogy between the use of
the perspirable matter and the mucous fluids, which are poured for similar
purposes upon all the internal membranes of the body; and besides its being
in its natural state inodorous; which is not so with the other excretions
of feces, or of urine.

In some constitutions the perspirable matter of the lungs acquires a
disagreeable odour; in others the axilla, and in others the feet, emit
disgustful effluvia; like the secretions of those glands, which have been
called odoriferae; as those, which contain the castor in the beaver, and
those within the rectum of dogs, the mucus of which has been supposed to
guard them against the gre