The skin in health and disease.

Date:
[1888?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The skin in health and disease. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    erect and bristling. The action of these muscles may- be well observed in man in what is called goose- skin, when, from exposure to cold, or sometimes from emotional causes, the skin may be observed to be thrown into numerous projections. This condi- tion may be readily observed on entering a warm bath : if the portion not immersed gets a little chilled, and if the surface be yet dry, the fine hair on the arm may be seen to rise and stand more or less erect, and, as the condition subsides, the mass of hairs sink to their former position all together. This may be re- peated several times, all rising and falling together, like a field of grain under the wind. It was to this action that Shakespeare referred in the utterance of the ghost to Hamlet, in the lines: I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood; Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres; Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porcupine. But these muscles have another action which is very important, and that is the emptying of the sebaceous glands. These latter structures have no muscular coat of their own, and their secretion, which is constant, oozes out upon the surface. Now, where there are large hairs, as upon the scalp and beard, these muscles more or less embrace the sebaceous glands, and by their contraction they empty them from time to time, and by this means prevent an accumulation or pre- vent the openings from becoming clogged. On the face, back, and chest, however, where we have acne developing, and where these glands are apt