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THE PRYSIOLOGY OF YOGAM
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fact, when the exhalation of carbonic acid by the lungs is interferred with, the skin passes it off.” (Forthergill: The Practitioner's Hand-book, 1887, p. 61). "Moreover it has been observed not unfrequently that the livid tint of the skin which supervenes in asphyxia, owing to the non-arterialization of the blood in the lungs, has given place after death to the fresh bue of health, owing to the reddening of the blood in the cutaneous capillaries by the action of the atmosphere upon them; and it does not seem improbable that, in cases of obstruction to the due action of the lungs, the exhalation of carbonic acid through the skia may undergo a considerable increase; for we find a similar disposition to vicarious action in other parts of the excreting apparatus. There is also evidence that the interchange of gases between the air and the blood through the skin has an important share in keeping up the temperature of the bady; and we find the temprature of the surface much elevated in many cases of pneumonia, phthisis, &c., in which the lungs seem to perform their function very insufficiente ly." (Carpenter: Human Physiology, Section 309.) Now it may be stated as a general law in physiology, that in cases where the different functions are highly specialized [that is, where every one has its special and distinct organ for its own purpose alone], the general structure retains, more or less, the primitive commu. nity of function which characterized it in the lowest grade of development. Thus, though the functions of
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