[9]. Punctæ mucosæ vultûs. Mucous spots on the face. These are owing to the inactivity of the excretory ducts of the mucous glands; the thinner part of this secretion exhales, and the remainder becomes inspissated, and lodges in the duct; the extremity of which becomes black by exposure to the air.
M. M. They may be pressed out by the finger-nails. Warm water. Ether frequently applied. Blister on the part?
[10]. Maculæ cutis fulvæ. Morphew or freckles. Tawny blotches on the skin of the face and arms of elderly people, and frequently on their legs after slight erysipelas. The freckles on the face of younger people, who have red hair, seem to be a similar production, and seem all to be caused by the coalescence of the minute arteries or capillaries of the part. In a scar after a wound the integument is only opake; but in these blotches, which are called morphew and freckles, the small vessels seem to have become inactive with some of the serum of the blood stagnating in them, from whence their colour. See Class [III. 1. 2. 12].
M. M. Warm bathing. A blister on the part?
[11]. Canities. Grey hair. In the injection of the vessels of animals for the purposes of anatomical preparations, the colour of the injected fluid will not pass into many very minute vessels; which nevertheless uncoloured water, or spirits, or quicksilver will permeate. The same occurs in the filtration of some coloured fluids through paper, or very fine sand, where the colouring matter is not perfectly dissolved, but only diffused through the liquid. This has led some to imagine, that the cause of the whiteness of the hair in elderly people may arise from the diminution, or greater tenuity, of the glandular vessels, which secrete the mucus, which hardens into hair; and that the same difference of the tenuity of the secerning vessels may possibly make the difference of colour of the silk from different silk-worms, which is of all shades from yellow to white.
But as the secreted fluids are not the consequence of mechanical filtration, but of animal selection; we must look out for another cause, which must be found in the decreasing activity of the glands, as we advance in life; and which affects many of our other secretions as well as that of the mucus, which forms the hair. Hence grey hairs are produced on the faces of horses by whatever injures the glands at their roots, as by corrosive blisters; and frequently on the human subject by external injuries on the head; and sometimes by fevers. And as the grey colour of hair consists in its want of transparency, like water converted into snow; there is reason to suppose, that a defect of secreted moisture simply may be the cause of this kind of opacity, as explained in Cataracta, Class [I. 2. 2. 13].
M. M. Whatever prevents the inirritability and insensibility of the system, that is, whatever prevents the approach of old age, will so far counteract the production of grey hairs, which is a symptom of it. For this purpose in people, who are not corpulent, and perhaps in those who are so, the warm bath twice or thrice a week is particularly serviceable. See Sect. XXXIX. 5. 1. on the colours of animals, and Class [I. 1. 2. 15].
[12]. Callus. The callous skin on the hands and feet of laborious people is owing to the extreme vessels coalescing from the perpetual pressure they are exposed to.
As we advance in life, the finer arteries lose their power of action, and their sides grow together; hence the paleness of the skins of elderly people, and the loss of that bloom, which is owing to the numerous fine arteries, and the transparency of the skin, that encloses them.
M. M. Warm bath. Paring the thick skin with a knife. Smoothing it with a pumice stone. Cover the part with oiled silk to prevent the evaporation of the perspirable matter, and thus to keep it moist.