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The History Behind SweatingWater loss through skin (transepidermal water loss) was recognized by the ancient Greeks. But back then, the process was poorly, if at all, understood. In fact, eccrine sweat pores were observed by Empedocles (495-435 BCE) some 2000 years ago. Leeuwenhoek designed and built several hundred microscopes with similar design and function. The microscopes typically consisted of two flat and thin metal (usually brass) plates riveted together. Sandwiched between the plates was a small lens capable of magnifications ranging from 70x to over 250x. His devices were quite small compared to today's microscopes, measuring about 2 inches long by 1 inch across.
The process of sweating received more formal attention in the 17th century. A number of medical scientists identified sweat gland pores and their examination intensified dramatically. Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), an Italian physiologist was accredited as the first to identify the eccrine sweat pores in more modern times. The English microscopist Nehemiah Grew (1641-11712) described epidermal ridges and sweat pores of the hands and feet in 1684. The more famous Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), a Dutch microbiologist also wrote about sweating and the existence of sweat gland pores. But the process of sweating remained a mystery.
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The Discovery of Sweat Glands
It wasn't until 1833 that Czech physiologist Johannes Purkinje (1787-1869) discovered actual sweat glands. Purkinje is better known for his discovery of specialized heart cells or cardiac tissue that conducts electrical impulses, called Purkinje fibers. A decade later, the German anatomist Karl Krause (1797-1868) observed that sweat gland numbers (or sweat gland densities) varied based on different regions of the body. The French histologist Louis-Antoine Ranvier (1835-1922) discovered the different types of skin surface (epidermal) glands and began to classify them as holocrine (sebaceous and meibomian) and merocrine (sweat glands). Ranvier is also known for a more popular discovery, the nodes of Ranvier. About two to three decades later, the merocrine glands were subdivided into eccrine and apocrine glands. A group led by a scientist by the name of Sato eventually discovered 'a hybrid' gland and called it the apoeccrine gland.
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