Yes, made of holes!
A gentleman once told me a story, as follows. We were travelling on the
Ohio River, on board of a steamer.
"You see that bank over opposite?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Well, thereby hangs a little story. I always laugh when I think of it,
or pass the spot, which is often. A fellow sat looking at that spot,
watching the thousands of swallows that were continually flitting to and
fro, in and out of their nests, and laughing immoderately to himself. I
approached, and ventured to inquire the cause of his mirth, that I might
partake of it.
"Well, you see that bank and all them nests? Well, one day I went down on
the boat and noticed them. When I came back, there had meantime been a
heavy rain storm which washed the bank away, and left the holes all
sticking out;" and the fellow continued to laugh as though he would split
himself, probably from the _idea_ of the holes "sticking out." I wondered
how he could see them if the bank around was washed away.
Still the man full of holes is a fact. According to Krause, quoted in
Gray's and Wilson's works on anatomy, there are twenty-eight hundred
(2800) pores in the skin of the human body to the square inch; and the
number of square inches to an average-sized man is twenty-five hundred
(2500). This would give some _seven million pores in the whole body_.
These pores, or tubes, are one fourth of an inch in length; hence, the
entire length of them all is _twenty-eight miles_.
That part of the skin is the healthiest which is the most exposed to the
air, as the face and hands. That part the most diseased from which the air
is most excluded, as the _feet_. Three fourths of all persons over
fourteen years of age have diseased feet; either corns, chilblains, or
diseased joints or nails.