ours during which such a state continues,
we must either have this amount of useless and hurtful matter
accumulating in the system, or some of the other organs of excretion
must be greatly overtasked, which obviously can not happen without
disturbing their regularity and well-being. It is generally known that
continued exposure in a cold day produces either a bowel complaint or
inflammation of some internal organ. Instead of expressing surprise at
this, if people generally understood the structure and uses of their own
bodies, they would rather wonder why one or the other of these effects
is not _always_ attendant upon so great a violation of the laws of
health, _which are the laws of God_.

The lungs also excrete a large proportion of waste matter from the
system. So far, then, their office is similar to that of the kidneys,
the liver, and the bowels. In consequence of this alliance with the
skin, these parts are more intimately connected with each other, in both
healthy and diseased action, than with other organs. Whenever an organ
is unusually delicate, it will be more easily affected by any cause of
disease than those which are sound. Thus, in one instance, checked
perspiration may produce a bowel complaint, and in another, inflammation
of the lungs, and so on. Hence the fitness, in prescribing remedies, of
adapting them not only to the _disease_ itself, but of taking into the
account the _cause_ of the disease. A bowel complaint, for example, may
arise either from overeating or from a check to perspiration. The thing
to be cured is the same in both cases, but the _means_ of cure ought
obviously to be different. In one instance, an emetic or laxative, to
carry off the offending cause, would be the most rational and
efficacious remedy; in the other, a diaphoretic should be administered,
to open the skin and restore it to a healthy action. Facts like these
expose the ignorance and impudence of the quack, who undertakes to cure
every form of disease by one remedy.

It has already been remarked that the skin is charged with the double
function of _excretion_ and _absorption_. We have a striking
illustration of the exercise of the latter function in the vaccination
of children and others, to protect them from small-pox. A small quantity
of cow-pox matter is inserted under the external layer of the skin,
where it is acted upon, and in a short time taken into the system by the
absorbent vessels. In like manner, when the p