DR. WARE'S LECTURES ON GENERAL THERAPEUTICS. Lecture XI. Gentlemen,-The state of the skin, either taken by itself, or combined with that of the pulse, respiration and tongue, affords us much immediate information in respect to the condition of the general system as affected by disease, and yet very little comparatively as to the locality of the disease, or its precise character. Byr continued experience we learn to rely, almost instinctively, very much upon the state of the skin, as indicating

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... he extent to which the powers of recovery have been reduced by the exhaustive processes of disease, and the amount of those powers which remain. No doubt the expression of the countenance, and, we may add, of the hand also, contribute to this information, and the amount of it acquired by a very rapid survey is sometimes astonishingly great and accurate. Often a single glance, or a single touch, is sufficient to satisfy us that a patient is better or worse, is reviving or sinking, from the power wc have acquired by habit of appreciating the inference to be drawn from the color of the skin, its temperature, its transparency, its circulation, its degree of mellowness or elasticity. The state of the respiration, pulse and tongue, though valuable as affording symptoms suggesting treatment, are not often the points to which treatment is primarily directed, whilst that of the skin is not only suggestive of the treatment required, but is itself the organ through which it is made to influence the diseased condition which exists. Tho close connection between the state of the skin and the internal organs, their extensive sympathy and their intimate reciprocal influence, is one of the most universally recognized facts of disease, and has always been largely resorted to as a guide in practice. This is shown by the universal employment of applications to the skin in all systems of practice, in the form of baths of various kinds, of poultices, embrocations, rubefacients, &c. &c, as well as of means directly altering the texture of tho organ, as blisters, issues, setons, <fec. Such applications, whether general or local, whether they act upon the system as a whole, or upon the condition of some particular