remedies which promote perspiration. In health there is
constantly taking place an exhalation of watery vapour from the skin, by
which not only are many of the effete products of nutrition eliminated,
but the body is kept cool. Under exertion or in a heated atmosphere this
natural function of the skin is increased, sweating more or less profuse
follows, and, evaporation going on rapidly over the whole surface,
little or no rise in the temperature of the body takes place. In many
forms of disease, such as fevers and inflammatory affections, the
action of the skin is arrested, and the surface of the body feels harsh
and dry, while the temperature is greatly elevated. The occurrence of
perspiration not unfrequently marks a crisis in such diseases, and is in
general regarded as a favourable event. In some chronic diseases, such
as diabetes and some cases of Bright's disease, the absence of
perspiration is a marked feature; while, on the other hand, in many
wasting diseases, such as phthisis, the action of the skin is increased,
and copious exhausting sweating occurs. Many means can be used to induce
perspiration, among the best known being baths, either in the form of
hot vapour or hot water baths, or in that part of the process of the
Turkish bath which consists in exposing the body to a dry and hot
atmosphere. Such measures, particularly if followed by the drinking of
hot liquids and the wrapping of the body in warm clothing, seldom fail
to excite copious perspiration. Numerous medicinal substances have the
same effect.

DIAPHRAGM (Gr. [Greek: diaphragma], a partition). The diaphragm or
midriff (Anglo-Saxon, _mid_, middle, _hrif_, belly) in human anatomy is
a large fibro-muscular partition between the cavities of the thorax and
abdomen; it is convex toward the thorax, concave toward the abdomen, and
consists of a central tendon and a muscular margin. The _central tendon_
(q, fig. 1) is trefoil in shape, its leaflets being right, left and
anterior; of these the right is the largest and the left the smallest.
The fleshy fibres rise, in front from the back of the xiphoid cartilage
of the sternum (d), laterally by six serrations, from the inner surfaces
of the lower six ribs, interdigitating with the transversalis,
posteriorly from the arcuate ligaments, of which there are five, a pair
of external, a pair of internal, and a single median one. The _external
arcuate ligament_ (h) stretches from the tip of the twelfth rib