If, on the other hand, the bowels are weak, a chill of the skin sends
the blood into all the blood-vessels of the intestines, and produces
inflammation there, or else an excessive secretion of the mucous
substance, which is called a _diarrhea._ Or if the kidneys are
weak, there is an increased secretion and discharge from them, to an
unhealthy and injurious extent.
This connection between the skin and internal organs is shown, not
only by the internal effects of a chill on the skin; but by the
sympathetic effect on the skin when these internal organs suffer. For
example, there are some kinds of food that will irritate and influence
the stomach or the bowels; and this, by sympathy, will produce an
immediate eruption on the skin. Some persons, on eating strawberries,
will immediately be affected with a nettle-rash. Others can not eat
certain shell-fish without being affected in this way. Many humors on
the face are caused by a diseased state of the internal organs with
which the skin sympathizes.
This short account of the construction of the skin, and of its intimate
connection with the internal organs, shows the philosophy of those
modes of medical treatment that are addressed to this portion of the
body.
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