tears
Alex Duncan (aduncan@mail.utexas.edu)
18 Oct 1995 00:26:38 GMT
In article <hubey.813865868@pegasus.montclair.edu> H. M. Hubey,
hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu writes:
>First sentence doesn't justify the second. If you can get rid
>of salt from your body, it's a salt excretion mechanism.
I know I promised to respond to Hubey anymore, but sometimes he begs for
it. I'm weak.
Tears proportionally contain the same amount of saline as the rest of the
body. When a tear is excreted, the body has lost that much mass, a small
proportion of which is salt. Since the proportion of salt in the tear is
the same as the proportion of salt in the body, the proportion of salt in
the body doesn't change. You may call something that doesn't change the
salt proportion of the body a "salt-excretion mechanism" if you wish. It
doesn't change the fact that tears are not an effective mechanism for
ridding the body of excess salt.
Alex Duncan
Dept. of Anthropology
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712-1086
512-471-4206
aduncan@mail.utexas.edu
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