cohol are the most powerful; and next to these
the spices, volatile alkali, and neutral salts, especially sea salt; that
much of the aqueous part of the blood is dissipated by the use of these
drugs, is evinced by the great thirst, which occurs a few hours after the
use of them. See Art. III. 2. 12. and Art. III. 2. 1.

We may from hence understand, that the increase of this secretion of
perspirable matter by artificial means, must be followed by debility and
emaciation. When this is done by taking much salt, or salted meat, the
sea-scurvy is produced; which consists in the inirritability of the
bibulous terminations of the veins arising from the capillaries; see Class
I. 2. 1. 14. The scrophula, or inirritability of the lymphatic glands,
seems also to be occasionally induced by an excess in eating salt added to
food of bad nourishment. See Class I. 2. 3. 21. If an excess of
perspiration is induced by warm or stimulant clothing, as by wearing
flannel in contact with the skin in the summer months, a perpetual
febricula is excited, both by the preventing the access of cool air to the
skin, and by perpetually goading it by the numerous and hard points of the
ends of the wool; which when applied to the tender skins of young children,
frequently produce the red gum, as it is called; and in grown people,
either an erysipelas, or a miliary eruption, attended with fever. See Class
II. 1. 3. 12.

Shirts made of cotton or calico stimulate the skin too much by the points
of the fibres, though less than flannel; whence cotton handkerchiefs make
the nose sore by frequent use. The fibres of cotton are, I suppose, ten
times shorter than those of flax, and the number of points in consequence
twenty times the number; and though the manufacturers singe their calicoes
on a red-hot iron cylinder, yet I have more than once seen an erysipelas
induced or increased by the stimulus of calico, as well as of flannel.

The increase of perspiration by heat either of clothes, or of fire,
contributes much to emaciate the body; as is well known to jockeys, who,
when they are a stone or two too heavy for riding, find the quickest way to
lessen their weight is by sweating themselves between blankets in a warm
room; but this likewise is a practice by no means to be recommended, as it
weakens the system by the excess of so general a stimulus, brings on a
premature old age, and shortens the span of life; as may be further deduced
from the quick maturity,