The Art of Living in Australia: Together with Three Hundred Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. Wicken

which lead from the oil glands; and lastly, those which enclose each hair of the body. The first of these, which carry away the perspiration from the body, are very fine, the end away from the surface being coiled up in such a way as to form a ball or oval-shaped body, constituting the perspiration gland. The tube itself is also twisted like a corkscrew, and widens at its mouth. It is estimated that there are between 2,000 and 3,000 of these perspiration tubes in every square inch of the skin. Now, as we have already seen, the external skin of an ordinary adult is equal to an area of about twelve square feet, and in a tall person it may be as much as eighteen square feet. The number of these tubes, therefore, in the whole body will be many hundreds of thousands, so that it will readily be seen how exceedingly important it is that they should be kept in thorough working order by cleanliness. The two great purposes fulfilled by the perspiration are the removal by its means of worn-out or effete material which is injurious to the system, and the regulation of the heat of the body by its influence. When it is stopped by any reason, such as catarrh or disease, the skin fails in its work, and the noxious matters, instead of being expelled from the body, are thrown back into the system. Hence there is a good deal of truth in the belief that a freely acting skin is always a safeguard against disease. The second variety of tubes, those which furnish an oily-like fluid to the skin, resemble in--great part those which serve for the office of perspiration. At the extremity away from the surface of the body, each one has a gland, the oil gland, which secretes the oily material. The pores or outlets which open on the skin, however, are a good deal larger than the similar orifices of the perspiratory tubes, but they are not distributed so equally throughout the body. In certain parts of the skin they are