their way is of dressing, or curing Sponges, I confess, I cannot
learn; but the way of dressing _Spunk_, is, by boiling it a good while in a
strong _Lixivium_, and then beating it very well; and the manner of
dressing Leather is sufficiently known.

It were indeed extremely desirable, if such a way could be found whereby
the _Parenchyma_ or flesh of the Muscles, and several other parts of the
body, might be wash'd, or wafted clean away, without vitiating the form of
the _fibrous_ parts or vessells of it, for hereby the texture of thole
parts, by the help of a good _Microscope_, might be most accurately found.

But to digress no further, we may, from this discovery of the _Microscope_,
plainly enough understand how the skin, though it looks so close as it
does, comes to give a passage to so vast a quantity of _excrementitious_
substances, as the diligent _Sanctorius_ has excellently observed it to do,
in his _medicina statica_; for it seems very probable, from the texture
after dressing, that there are an infinit of pores that every way pierce
it, and that those pores are onely fill'd with some kind of juice, or some
very pulpy soft substance, and thereby the steams may almost as easily find
a passage through such a fluid _vehicle_ as the vaporous bubbles which are
generated at the bottom of a Kettle of hot water do find a passage through
that fluid _medium_ into the ambient Air.

Nor is the skin of animals only thus pervious, but even those of vegetables
also seem to be the same; for otherwise I cannot conceive why, if two
sprigs of Rosemary (for Instance) be taken as exactly alike in all
particulars as can be, and the one be set with the bottom in a Glass of
water, and the other be set just without the Glass, but in the Air onely,
though you stop the lower end of that in the Air very carefully with Wax,
yet shall it presently almost wither, whereas the other that seems to have
a supply from the subjacent water by its small pipes, or _microscopical_
pores, preserves its greenness for many days, and sometimes weeks.

Now, this to me, seems not likely to proceed from any other cause then the
_avolation_ of the juice through the skin; for by the Wax, all those other
pores of the stem are very firmly and closely stop'd up. And from the more
or less porousness of the skins or rinds of Vegetables may, perhaps, be
somewhat of the reason given, why they keep longer green, or sooner wither;
for we may observe by the bladdering