What Is the Cause of Poor Skin Action?

Man is naturally an air animal.  He breathes with the pores of the skin as well as with the lungs.  However, the custom of hiding the body under dense, heavy clothing, thus excluding it from the life-giving influence of air and light, together with the habit of warm bathing, has weakened and enervated the skin of the average individual until it has lost its tonicity and is no longer capable of fulfilling its natural functions.

The compact, almost airtight layers of underwear and outer clothing made of cotton, wool, silk and leather prevent the ventilation of the skin and the escape of the morbid excretions of the body.  The skin is an organ of absorption as well as of excretion; consequently the systemic poisons which are eliminated from the organism, if not removed by proper ventilation and bathing, are reabsorbed into the system just like the poisonous exhalations from the lungs are reinhaled and reabsorbed by people congregating in closed rooms or sleeping in unventilated bedrooms.

Who would think of keeping plants or animals continuously covered up, away from the air and light?  We know they would wither and waste away, and die before long.

Nevertheless, civilized human beings have for ages hidden their bodies most carefully from sun and air, which are so necessary to their well-being.  Is it any wonder that the human cuticle has become withered, enervated and atrophied, that it has lost the power to perform freely and efficiently its functions of elimination and absorption?  Undoubtedly, this has much to do with the prevalence of disease.

In the iris of the eye the atrophied condition of the skin is indicated by a heavy, dark rim, the so-called scurf rim.  It signifies that the skin has become anemic, the surface circulation sluggish and defective, and that the elimination of morbid matter and systemic poisons through the skin is handicapped and retarded.  This, in turn, causes autointoxication and favors the development of all kinds of acute and chronic diseases.

The Importance of the Skin as an Organ of Elimination

Of late physiologists have claimed that the skin is not of great importance as an organ of elimination.  Common experience and the Diagnosis from the Eye teach us differently.  The black rim seen more or less distinctly in the outer rim of the iris in the eyes of the majority of people has been called the scurf rim, because it was found that this dark rim appears in the iris after the suppression of scurfy and other forms of skin eruptions and after the external or internal use of lotions, ointments and medicines containing mercury, zinc, iodine, arsenic or other poisons which suppress or destroy the life and activity of the skin.

Therefore, when we see in the iris of a person a heavy scurf rim, we can tell him at once:  “Your cuticle is in a sluggish, atrophied condition, the surface circulation and elimination through the skin are not good and as a result of this there is a strong tendency to autointoxication, you take cold easily, and suffer from chronic catarrhal conditions.”  Therefore, a heavy scurf rim frequently indicates what is ordinarily called “a scrofulous condition.”