In this way, long-continued blisters on the skin will
introduce the blistering matter into the blood through the absorbents,
and then the kidneys will take it up from the blood passing through them
to carry it out of the body, and thus become irritated and inflamed by
it.
[Illustration: Fig. 60]
There are also oil-tubes, imbedded in the skin, that draw off oil from
the blood. This issues on the surface and spreads over the cuticle to
keep it soft and moist. But the most curious part of the skin is the
system of innumerable minute perspiration-tubes. Fig. 60 is a drawing
of one very greatly magnified. These tubes open on the cuticle, and
the openings are called pores of the skin. They descend into the true
skin, and there form a coil, as is seen in the drawing. These tubes
are hollow, like a pipe-stem, and their inner surface consists of
wonderfully minute capillaries filled with the impure venous blood.
And in these small tubes the same process is going on as takes places
when the carbonic acid and water of the blood are exhaled from the
lungs. The capillaries of these tubes through the whole skin of the
body are thus constantly exhaling the noxious and decayed particles
of the body, just as the lungs pour them out through the mouth and
nose.
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