Note 47 — Chapter IX · ON POISONS, MIASMS AND CONTAGIONS.

I am free to admit, with Liebig, that the lungs are the seat of the most rapid and powerful chemical action (p. 151), yet some distinguished physiologists think that the external integuments may become the seat of disease, and give origin to dangerous affections by mere stoppage of their secretions and excretions. Certain of these are held to be poisonous and highly irritating, and cholera itself has been ascribed to the sudden transfer of the tegumentary secretions into the general torrent of the blood. This seems to have been the opinion of the celebrated anatomist and physiologist, De Blainville.