The Science and Fine Art of Natural Hygiene by Herbert M. Shelton

Author:Herbert M. Shelton [Shelton, Herbert M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

XV. Care of the Skin

Man lives, moves and has his being between his investing membrane, known as the skin and the mucous membrane. I have called them one investing membrane because they are continuous one with the other and are alike in structure. Commonly we refer to the outer covering of the body as the skin and speak of the inner skin, the mucous membrane, as though it is another membrane. Yet the membrane of the mucous system, so-called because of its secretion of mucus by which it is lubricated and kept moist, is not only directly continuous with the skin at every orifice of the body—the mouth, nose, anus, vagina, urethra, ears and eyes—but it also resembles the latter closely in structure, in that it consists of an investing membrane, epithelium, analogous to the epidermis externally, and of a reticulated tissue of blood vessels, nerves and follicles bound up in areolar tissue, and resting on deeper tissue of the same nature as the areolar, which takes the place of the corium of the skin.

This mucous membrane lines the internal cavities of the body that communicate either directly or indirectly with the outside world. Thus, one division, after lining the mouth, passes down through the throat and lines the esophagus, stomach, intestines and colon, giving off prolongations in its course, which line the ducts of the pancreas and those of the liver, including the gall bladder. Another division passes from the nose and back part of the throat into the windpipe, and thence into the cavities of the lungs which it lines even down to their minutest divisions. Another, but smaller division of the mucous membrane, or “inner skin,” lines the urinary and genital organs, while still smaller divisions line the eye lids and invest the eyes and another lines the ear. All of these divisions of the mucous membrane are continuous with the skin which they “meet” at the orifices of the body.

Anything that has not passed through this investing membrane —the skin on the outer surface of the body and the mucous membrane on the inner surfaces of the body—into the fluids and tissues below (or between) these two outer walls of the citadel of life, is not in the body. This means that food in the digestive tract and, air in the lungs, are not in the body, while urine in the bladder or bile in the gall bladder are already outside the body. Feces in the colon is outside the body. The digestion of food takes place outside the body. Food is actually taken into the body only after it has been properly refined, standardized and reduced to usable substances. In this chapter we are concerned with man’s outer skin.

The human skin, which is the largest organ of the body, the entire skin weighing twice as much as the liver, its surface averaging about 3,100 square inches, is a very complex structure and its importance is in proportion to its size, as it performs a variety of functions, each of which is of vital importance to life.

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