REGIONAL VARIATIONS IN WATER LOSS FROM THE SKIN OF DISEASED SUBJECTS LIVING IN A SUBTROPICAL CLIMATE 1

Abstract

A comparison of a group of patients with a variety of conditions affecting the sweating mechanism with a group of normal individuals indicates a much increased variation in the rate of sweating, both insensible and sensible. The conditions vary from those affecting the general controlling factors of the sweat mechanism to local diseases of the skin which appear to interfere mechanically with the process. Obviously, local factors in the sweat glands and skin, so often neglected, may be important in sweat responses. Variations from normal in nervous sweating and the reactions of these patients to heat-stimulation favor a non-nervous mechanism as the important factor in the thermal response. Vascular disturbances, such as those found in Buerger''s and Raynaud''s diseases, which might be expected to affect appreciably the sweating mechanism, had little influence in these reactions. Quantitative studies of sweat production have been found helpful in establishing objective evidence to account for otherwise inexplicable reactions to heat.