Insensible Weight Loss at High Skin Temperatures

¹ From the Aero Medical Laboratory, Wright Air Development Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio

Measurements of insensible weight loss were made under conditions which produced a range of skin temperatures from 32° to 39°C. Sweating was absent at all skin temperatures. At skin temperatures where sweating normally occurs, large doses of atropine, given parenterally, prevented detectable activity of the sweat glands. Additional procedural devices were used to insure that the observed weight loss would be only from the exchange of water vapor across the skin. The result was that cutaneous insensible weight loss increased as the skin temperature increased, for constant dry room conditions. The relationship appears to be roughly linear and appears to predict no net water transfer at a vapor pressure gradient of 23 mm Hg.