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CHAPTER VI.
As the color of the skin depends upon the secretions of the rete mucuosum, or skin, which lies immediately beneath the epidermis, or scarf skin, and as diet is capable of greatly influencing the nature of these secretions, a few words respecting it may not be here entirely misplaced.
All that is likely to produce acrid humours, and an inflamatory or impoverished state of the blood, engenders vicious secretions, which nature struggles to free herself from by the natural outlet of the skin, for this organ is fitted equally, to excrete and secrete. Fermented and spirituous liquors, strong tea and coffee should