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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75757 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+_Health Primers._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Health Primers.
+
+
+EDITORS.
+
+  J. LANGDON DOWN, M.D., F.R.C.P.
+  HENRY POWER, M.B., F.R.C.S.
+  J. MORTIMER-GRANVILLE, M.D.
+  JOHN TWEEDY, F.R.C.S.
+
+
+BATHS AND BATHING.
+
+CONTRIBUTORS TO THE SERIES:
+
+ _G. W. BALFOUR, M.D., St. And., F.R.C.P. Edin._
+
+ _J. CRICHTON-BROWNE, M.D. Edin., F.R.S. Edin._
+
+ _SIDNEY COUPLAND, M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P._
+
+ _JOHN CURNOW, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P._
+
+ _J. LANGDON DOWN, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P._
+
+ _TILBURY FOX, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P._
+
+ _J. MORTIMER-GRANVILLE, M.D. St. And., F.G.S., F.S.S._
+
+ _W. S. GREENFIELD, M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P._
+
+ _C. W. HEATON, F.C.S., F.I.C._
+
+ _HARRY LEACH, M.R.C.P._
+
+ _G. V. POORE, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P._
+
+ _HENRY POWER, M.B. Lond., F.R.C.S._
+
+ _W. L. PURVES, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.S._
+
+ _J. NETTEN RADCLIFFE, Ex-Pres. Epidl. Soc., &c._
+
+ _C. H. RALFE, M.A., M.D., Cantab., F.R.C.P._
+
+ _S. RINGER, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P._
+
+ _JOHN TWEEDY, F.R.C.S._
+
+ _JOHN WILLIAMS, M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P._
+
+
+  LONDON:
+  HARDWICKE AND BOGUE, 192, PICCADILLY.
+  1879.
+
+
+
+
+  LONDON:
+  PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET
+  AND CHARING CROSS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                 PAGE
+  THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF BATHS                 5
+
+  THE VARIETIES OF BATHS                           20
+
+  BATHING LOCALITIES                               45
+
+  THE USES OF BATHS                                68
+
+  A VISIT TO A BATH                                83
+
+
+
+
+BATHS AND BATHING.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF BATHS.
+
+
+Since the influence of baths is exerted primarily upon the skin, and
+through the medium of the skin, upon the deeper-lying tissues and
+organs of the body, it is an absolute necessity for the reader at the
+outset to be made aware of the structure of the skin and its functions,
+as well as the relations which it bears to deeper-lying organs.
+
+If the skin, say of the thumb, be looked at with a lens of moderate
+power, its surface is seen to be arranged in ridges and furrows, like a
+ploughed field; and at frequent intervals along the ridges are little
+depressions, which are known as the pores of the skin. These pores are
+the openings of the sweat ducts, and it is through these pores that
+the perspiration exudes. They are exceedingly numerous, and it has
+been calculated that there are as many as 2,800 to every square inch
+of surface, or about seven millions of them altogether. The ridges are
+seen to be divided into a series of minute hillocks, or _papillæ_,
+which are arranged in lines. These papillæ are the organs of touch, and
+are probably as numerous as the pores. They contain in their interior
+either loops of blood-vessels or nerve-endings.
+
+These nerve-endings in the papillæ are of three kinds, which are
+readily distinguishable, and are known as tactile corpuscles, pacinian
+bodies, or end bulbs, according to the form which they take. Between
+the superficial and deep layers of the skin, the so-called cuticle and
+cutis, is a layer which partakes somewhat of the character of both.
+This is called the rete mucosum, and it is here that the pigment, found
+in the skin of the negro and in certain parts of the skin of white
+races also, is located.
+
+Beneath the skin, in the subcutaneous tissue, are situated the
+sweat-glands, which are microscopical bundles of tubing, having one end
+running through the skin to terminate in the pores. These tubes are, or
+rather would be, if straightened out, about a quarter of an inch long;
+and it is estimated that the length of them in the entire body is about
+28 miles! They pass through the upper layer of the skin or cuticle
+spirally, so that, although it is an easy matter for fluid to pass
+_out_, the passage in the opposite direction is by no means so easy.
+Each sweat-gland is plentifully supplied with blood-vessels, and is
+surrounded by a thin muscular coat, which is presumably able to exert,
+by its contraction, a certain amount of pressure, and so drive the
+secretions of the gland onward towards the pore, or external aperture.
+
+The hair follicles, like the sweat-glands, are situated in the
+subcutaneous tissue. They are hollow receptacles, from the bottom of
+which the hairs grow. Alongside of each of these hair follicles is a
+pair of glands, called the sebaceous glands, which provide that small
+quantity of natural grease with which our hair is supplied. These
+glands resemble little bunches of grapes. The hair follicles are also
+furnished with a couple of small muscles, which, by their contraction,
+can cause a sensible erection of the hair. In certain parts of the
+skin there are glands which furnish a special odorous secretion.
+These are most plentiful in the arm-pits and between the toes. In the
+skin itself, and immediately beneath it, is a network of “lymphatic”
+vessels, whose function, it would seem, is mainly to drain the tissue
+of waste products. These vessels run towards the “lymphatic glands,”
+which, when enlarged, are often recognisable at the side of the neck,
+and which are very generally distributed throughout the body. In
+certain parts of the skin are special cells containing pigment.
+
+Thus we see that the skin, which to the casual observer is an almost
+structureless membrane, is in reality a most complex and elaborate
+organ, richly supplied with blood-vessels, lymphatic vessels, and
+nerves, having its millions of papillæ and pores, and its miles of
+sweat-ducts. The hair follicles, with their sebaceous glands and
+muscles, are also to be reckoned by the million, and its odoriferous
+glands and special pigment-bearing cells probably by the thousand.
+
+What are the various uses of this elaborate organ? In the first place,
+it serves as a protection to the softer parts beneath. Secondly, it
+serves to regulate the temperature of the body, by preventing, on
+the one hand, the too rapid radiation of the natural heat, and, on
+the other, by providing a very large surface for the evaporation of
+the constantly exuding perspiration, it prevents the overheating of
+the body. Thirdly, it is constantly removing from the body certain
+effete materials. These are the scales of the cuticle (which we remove
+whenever we wash and rub the surface), the perspiration, and the
+sebaceous, or greasy secretion. The amount of sweat varies immensely;
+it may be almost nil, or as much as a pint in an hour. The secretion
+of sweat is influenced by the temperature of the air, by exercise,
+by the drinking of fluids (especially warm fluids), and notably by
+the emotions. There can be no doubt that the secretion of a certain
+amount of sweat is necessary for perfect health; and it is the common
+experience of all that the checking of perspiration is very liable to
+be followed by dangerous internal congestion.
+
+It has been demonstrated on some of the lower animals that, if the skin
+be shaved and varnished, death speedily ensues. This has been spoken
+of as a sort of cutaneous suffocation, death taking place owing to the
+charging of the blood with matter which should have been removed by the
+skin. It has been asserted, however, that death is due to cold in these
+cases; and it has certainly been demonstrated that animals so treated
+live much longer provided they be kept warm by a layer of cotton wool.
+Sometimes the skin is superficially destroyed by accidental burning or
+scalding, and it is well recognised that a burn or scald is dangerous
+to life in proportion to its superficial extent, rather than to its
+depth or severity.
+
+The blood-vessels of the skin vary much in size under different
+circumstances, and the different degrees of pallor or redness of the
+skin are due to the condition of these superficial blood-vessels. The
+phenomenon of blushing is well known; and this should serve to remind
+us that the emotions can not only influence the amount of perspiration,
+but the size of the cutaneous blood-vessels. The intimate relations
+existing between the skin and the great nerve-centres should never be
+lost sight of.
+
+The cutaneous blood-vessels enlarge in certain fevers, as scarlet-fever
+and measles; they can be made to enlarge also by the application
+of warmth, or irritants, such as mustard, or the stroke of a whip.
+Contraction of the blood-vessels is most marked in conditions of fear,
+or as the result of the prolonged application of cold.
+
+Not only have the nerve-centres a great influence on the skin, but the
+skin is capable of exerting a great influence on the nerve-centres.
+This is not to be wondered at, when we bear in mind the myriads of
+nerve-bearing papillæ with which the skin is beset. When the soles
+of the feet are tickled, the legs are involuntarily moved; and when
+the arm-pits and sides of the chest are tickled, loud laughter is the
+result. These two phenomena are examples of what is known as _reflex
+action_, i.e., the tickling produces an effect upon the nerve-endings
+in the skin, and this effect travelling to the nerve-centres (the
+spinal cord or brain) is _reflected_ to the muscles, and produces
+movement of the leg or laughter. When the body is suddenly immersed in
+cold water, a not uncommon result is a shivering and a chattering of
+the teeth; and when cold water is sprinkled on the forehead or chest,
+deep inspiration and a catching of the breath is produced. These are
+examples of “reflex movements,” due to impressions made upon the nerves
+of the skin; and since many of the results of bathing are undoubtedly
+due to this kind of reflex action, it is very important to bear it
+constantly in mind. The connection between the nervous centres (the
+brain and spinal marrow) and the skin is shown also in the occurrence
+of what is known as goose skin, or _cutis anserina_, which is caused
+not only by the application of cold to the surface of the body, but
+even more readily by the mental states which make the “Hair of our
+flesh stand up.” The rationale of this phenomenon is the contraction
+and shortening of the little muscles which we have seen to be in
+intimate relationship with the hair follicles. There can be no doubt
+also that the pigment cells, which are scattered thinly throughout our
+skins, are subject to the control of the nervous centres, and it is
+well known that the tint of the complexion will sometimes vary with
+emotional states, as it certainly does with physical states. These
+considerations are sufficient to show that the skin plays a most
+important part in the animal economy, as a protective, a secreting, a
+vascular, and a nervous organ.
+
+An all-important point to be determined with regard to the skin is
+its power of _absorption_--that is, its power, if any, of allowing
+substances to pass through it, and so reach the interior of the body.
+It is well ascertained that, if the surface of the skin be broken,
+absorption takes place with great rapidity, and that even when the
+skin is not broken, it is comparatively easy to get absorption of
+certain matters, such as mercurial ointment or extract of belladonna,
+provided they be applied with a certain amount of friction. We saw that
+the ducts of the sweat-glands perforated the skin spirally, and the
+friction has the effect of opening the mouths of these little ducts,
+so that the greasy or sticky preparation gets lodged within them and
+absorbed.
+
+It has been proved with tolerable certainty that gases, such as
+carbonic acid and oxygen, are capable of penetrating and permeating the
+skin in small quantities, but it is extremely doubtful if water is ever
+absorbed through the skin. It has been attempted to settle the question
+by weighing the body before and after a prolonged immersion in the
+water, but such experiments are so beset with fallacies that they are
+almost worthless. The fact that shipwrecked sailors are in the habit of
+successfully lessening their thirst by immersion of the body in water,
+or by wetting their clothes, is well known, but this effect may be due
+to the arrest of the cutaneous evaporation, or by an effect upon the
+nerves.
+
+At all events it seems safest, in the present state of our knowledge,
+to assume that water is not absorbed through the skin; or if it be,
+that it is absorbed in such extremely small quantities that the effect
+of baths can in no sense be due to the absorption of the water in
+which the body is immersed. As to the absorption of the various salts
+contained in sea-water or mineral waters, there is no evidence whatever
+that these are ever absorbed even in the most minute quantities. If
+the salt dissolved in sea-water were absorbed through the skin, it is
+tolerably certain that sea-bathing, far from being the luxury which
+it is, would be regarded as a highly dangerous and most unpleasant
+practice.
+
+Baths of all kinds serve, or may be made to serve, as vehicles for
+temperature, and by their aid we are enabled to surround the body
+with a temperature which is different to its own. Before we can fully
+understand the effect of hot and cold baths on the economy, it is
+necessary to enter into some discussion of the nature and source of
+the natural heat, of the body. The natural heat of the human body
+is between 98° and 99° of Fahrenheit’s scale; and this temperature,
+roughly speaking, is uniformly maintained by the healthy body under all
+the varying circumstances to which it may be subjected. In the arctic
+regions, and in the tropics the temperature of the body rests at 98·6°;
+or, if variations occur, they are so slight in amount as to be hardly
+noticeable. In a cold atmosphere, therefore, the body has the power of
+maintaining its heat; and in a warm atmosphere it is equally able to
+maintain its coolness. This is a remarkable fact, and is due to the
+power possessed by the human body of adjusting the production and loss
+of heat. Heat is produced in the body by the combustion of food and
+tissues, exactly as heat is produced in a fireplace by the combustion
+of coal. The amount and rapidity of this combustion necessarily varies
+with the amount and nature of the food consumed and the activity of
+exercise and other vital processes. The most active tissue in the body
+is the blood; through its agency most of the combustion processes
+are carried on, and by its rapid circulation to all parts of the
+body the most distant points of the human frame are kept at the same
+temperature. The temperature of the blood is due to the amount of
+combustion taking place in the tissues, and the amount of combustion
+taking place in the tissues is due to the amount and energy of their
+blood supply, which last depends upon the force of the heart’s action
+and the size of the blood-vessels which have the power of contracting
+and dilating, and which are subordinated to the regulating influence of
+the nerve-centres. If that part of the nerve-centres (the upper part
+of the spinal cord) which controls the size of the vessels be injured
+or destroyed, the combustion processes going on in the body seem to
+get beyond control and the temperature may be dangerously increased or
+decreased, the exact reason of one or the other phenomenon not being
+known. The limits of body temperature which are compatible with life
+are not very wide; for if the temperature rise to 109° or sink to 76°
+death will inevitably result, and a rise or fall of 7° from the natural
+temperature is decidedly dangerous. Seeing how narrow are the limits of
+temperature within which life is possible, we cannot but be amazed at
+the marvellous arrangements for maintaining the normal level of animal
+heat. The body is cooled by the evaporation going on from the lungs; by
+the more important evaporation going on from the skin (every one who
+has covered a portion of the skin with spirit and has encouraged its
+evaporation by blowing upon it knows practically the cooling effect
+of evaporation), and by the radiation of heat from the surface of the
+body, and the conduction of heat from the body by things in contact
+with it.
+
+The _immediate_ effect of a cold bath is to chill the _surface_ of
+the body, the temperature of which, as tested by a thermometer, may
+fall several degrees. At the same time there is produced a pallor of
+the surface and goose-skin. While the surface is cooled, however,
+the blood itself undergoes an increase of temperature, due to an
+increase of the combustion processes going on in the body, of which
+we get additional evidence in the increase of the rate of the pulse
+and respiration, and an augmented discharge of carbonic acid from the
+lungs. There is a sudden sense of chilliness, and this impression, made
+upon the nerves of the skin, produces, by its action on the brain and
+spinal cord, some slight mental excitement and shivering of the limbs.
+After the bath has been continued some little time the temperature of
+the blood falls (sometimes as much as three or four degrees), the pulse
+and respiration get slow, the shivering gives place to lassitude, and
+the mental excitement to listlessness. On removal from the bath the
+phenomenon of “reaction” sets in. The vessels of the skin enlarge, the
+chilliness gives place to warmth, and the feeling of uneasiness is
+succeeded by a sense of comfort. This reaction follows most quickly
+when the bath is of short duration, and when its effects are suddenly
+induced. The shorter the bath the less is the ultimate depression of
+the temperature of the blood. The shorter the bath the greater is its
+power of _stimulating_ function; the longer it is continued the greater
+is the effect of _cooling_.
+
+The effect of a _warm_ bath is to raise slightly the temperature of the
+surface and the temperature of the blood. The pulse and respiration are
+both quickened, and the escape of carbonic acid from the lungs is also
+increased. The blood-vessels of the skin get dilated, and the surface
+is reddened in proportion to the heat of the water. Warm baths of a
+moderate temperature can be borne for a longer time than cold baths;
+but if the temperature be too high, and the bath too long-continued,
+faintness is liable to occur. On removal from the hot bath the skin
+is in a very delicate and susceptible state, and the vessels are
+liable to “re-act” in the direction of extreme contraction, in which
+case dangerous internal congestion may occur. If, however, the skin
+be protected, and the patient be placed in a warm room, or in bed,
+a violent perspiration will ensue. In the cold bath the muscles are
+liable to become stiff; but in the warm bath a stiff and fatigued
+muscle will resume its suppleness. After a hard day’s hunting a warm
+bath is a well-known and agreeable luxury.
+
+The phenomenon which is popularly known as “reaction,” and which occurs
+after both hot and cold baths, is a most remarkable one, and seems
+to show that our bodies resent any interference with their function.
+Thus experiments have shown that if the temperature of a healthy man
+be raised or depressed by any artificial means, such as hot or cold
+baths, the subsequent reaction in the direction of the depression or
+exaltation of the temperature is such that the mean temperature of
+health is accurately maintained. A German observer, Jurgensen, found
+by a series of accurate observations on a patient who submitted to
+a series of baths of a temperature of 50° Fahr., each bath lasting
+twenty-five minutes, that notwithstanding the rapid abstraction of
+heat, which gave rise to shivering, lasting for several hours, the
+diminution of bodily temperature which occurred during the bath was
+followed, after an interval of four or five hours, by an elevation
+which precisely compensated it, so that the mean normal temperature was
+maintained in spite of the interference of the physiologist.
+
+It will have been observed that the ultimate result of both hot and
+cold bathing, if conducted in moderation, is about the same, viz., an
+increased circulation of blood through the skin. In both cases also,
+the combustion going on within the body is increased, as evidenced by
+the escape of an increased quantity of carbonic acid from the lungs.
+In the case of the cold bath, this increased combustion is due to the
+stimulating effect of the cold water, while in the hot bath it is due
+to the artificial heat facilitating the natural combustion processes
+of the body. The effects of the hot and cold bath upon the combustion
+processes going on in the body may, not inaptly, be compared to the
+effect produced upon a furnace by the hot and cold blast, both of which
+encourage combustion and increase the heat given off by the furnace;
+but the hot blast so facilitates combustion that the same work is done
+by its aid, with an expenditure of 2-1/2 tons of coal, that is done
+by the cold blast with an expenditure of 8 tons of coal. If we want a
+fire to burn well, we have several courses open to us; the first is to
+poke it, which may be regarded as simple stimulation; the second is to
+supply it with a cold blast, in which case we supply large quantities
+of oxygen, but at the same time counteract the heating effect by
+the coldness of the blast. By employing a hot blast, the combustion
+is facilitated without any counteracting chilling. By each of these
+methods we hasten the ultimate extinguishing of the fire, unless
+fresh fuel be added. The employment of the hot blast entails the most
+economical use of the fuel.
+
+It has been said, with regard to the use of baths, that _cold
+stimulates, but heat facilitates function_. “Between the two
+therapeutic opposites,” says Braun, “a similar relation exists, as
+between winter and summer life, and between sea and mountain air.
+The physician who has, to a certain extent, acquired an insight into
+the diseased side of mankind, divides the chronically sick into two
+groups, the one consisting of individuals whose organism has sufficient
+capital to afford the strong reaction required, the other consisting of
+persons needing nice management, and whose own power cannot be exposed
+to any great demand. For the one there is the system of exercise,
+cold treatment, cold baths, sea baths, and sea air; for the second,
+indulgence, warm treatment, warm climate, warm baths, mountain air.”
+
+Seeing that both hot and cold baths increase the natural combustion
+of the body, it will be evident that persons undergoing a course of
+treatment by either method should be exceedingly careful that during
+the progress of their course of treatment the best fuel only is placed
+on the human furnace. They should eat the simplest and most nutritious
+food, and breathe nothing but the purest air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE VARIETIES OF BATHS.
+
+
+The _tepid_ bath has a temperature of from 85° to 92° Fahr., the _warm_
+bath a temperature between 92° and 98° Fahr., and the _hot_ bath a
+temperature of from 98° to 112° Fahr.
+
+The _cool_ bath has a temperature from 60° to 75° Fahr., and the _cold_
+bath is of a temperature below 60° Fahr., downwards to the freezing
+point of water.
+
+Hot or cold water may be used locally. We are familiar with the
+hip-bath and foot-bath, and occasionally we meet with baths of a
+special shape, made for the reception of the arms or hands, in cases
+where their local treatment has been deemed necessary.
+
+Various plans have been devised for increasing the stimulating effect
+of water. One method of attaining this object is by keeping the water
+constantly in motion, as is done in the so-called _wave bath_, common
+in some parts of the Continent. Another way is by so increasing the
+size of the bath that the patient is able to move freely in it. In a
+big bath, not only is the good effect of exercise able to be added to
+that of bathing, but the concussion of the water on the surface of the
+body, and the constant change of the stratum of water in contact with
+the body vastly increases the power of the bath in influencing the
+temperature and stimulating the skin.
+
+The best of all baths is the _swimming bath_, for in it the bather can
+indulge in a free exercise of his limbs, such as is hardly attainable
+under any other circumstances. Swimming is a very valuable exercise,
+because it employs the arms equally with the legs, and leads to a
+healthy development of the muscles of the chest. Nearly all good
+swimmers are big chested.
+
+The _douche_ is a name given to a stream of water, either hot or cold,
+which is made to fall heavily or with force upon a part. It acts partly
+by the force of mechanical impact, and partly by its temperature. It
+is a very exhausting method of treatment, and must on no account be
+used too long. A column of water 12 feet high, allowed to fall upon the
+head, is so painful that Esquirol, who submitted to it, described it
+as resembling the continued breaking of a column of ice on the head,
+followed by a feeling of stupefaction, which lasted an hour afterwards.
+The douche was formerly much used in lunatic asylums, and was regarded
+as a specific against delusions, the unhappy creature possessed by
+delusive ideas being held beneath the douche until he recanted; and
+such was the agony thus caused, that the mere threat of the douche was
+often sufficient to control the wildest of maniacs. Those who have
+undergone the process of “shampooing the head,” as practised by the
+hair-dressers of our time, will remember the effect of a stream of cold
+water allowed to flow upon the head for too long a time.
+
+The most powerfully stimulating action is obtained by the use of the
+_Scottish Douche_, which consists in the alternate use of streams of
+cold and hot water. By the hot stream the “reaction” after the cold
+stream is greatly encouraged. In most of the swimming baths to be found
+on the Continent, a pump is provided, in order that a patient may
+himself apply the douche to any joint requiring it, and at the same
+time encourage his reactive glow, by the exercise of pumping.
+
+In most great bathing establishments two douches at least are provided,
+one called the _descending douche_, which may be applied to the head,
+shoulders, trunk, or limbs; and the other called the _ascending
+douche_, which is designed for throwing a stream of water into the
+bowel, a method of treatment which is advocated for conditions which it
+is unnecessary to discuss in this place.
+
+_Hot and cold affusion_ are merely mild forms of the douche.
+
+The _shower bath_ differs from the douche only in the division of the
+stream of water by causing it to flow through a suitable colander. This
+method of treatment is severe and exhausting, and must be used with
+caution, especially with weakly people.
+
+The _needle bath_ is merely a general shower bath. The bather stands
+within a coil of pipes which are finely perforated, and the water
+impinges in finely divided streams simultaneously upon every part of
+the body. It is a powerful general stimulant.
+
+The _rain bath_ consists in the letting fall of large drops of water
+from a great height upon the part which it is wished to affect.
+
+_Packing with the wet sheet_ is a mode of applying water to the body
+which is the very reverse of some of the methods which we have been
+considering, since the stimulating action of the water is reduced to
+a minimum, and we get the refrigerating action only. It makes very
+little difference whether the sheet used be moistened with hot or cold
+water, since the temperature of the skin and the sheet very rapidly
+approximate in any case, and the more rapid evaporation of the hot
+water speedily induces a degree of cold quite equal to that of the
+cold sheet. The patient should be stripped naked and should lie upon a
+single blanket, the bed being protected by a mackintosh sheet placed
+between the blanket and the mattress. He is then enveloped in the wet
+sheet. If a maximum amount of refrigeration is desired he is left
+uncovered so that evaporation may be encouraged. If, on the other hand,
+we wish to encourage the action of the skin, several blankets are
+placed over the sheet.
+
+Having discussed the various methods of using water as such for the
+purposes of bathing, we may next turn our attention to the _vapour
+bath_, which is a favourite method of making use of warmth and
+moisture. Here and there throughout the world there are to be found
+natural vapour baths; but, as generally employed, the vapour bath is
+a very simple contrivance indeed, merely consisting of an apparatus
+for conducting the steam of a kettle into a confined space in which
+the patient sits. The head of the patient may be either placed in the
+bath or not, and the effects of the bath may be expected to differ
+according as the steam is inhaled into the lungs or not. The domestic
+vapour bath may consist of a flannel steam-proof cloak, which is worn
+by the patient, while beneath the chair on which he sits is placed a
+small portable kettle heated by spirits of wine for the formation of
+the steam. If the bather is unable to sit up, the steam may, with very
+great ease, be conducted beneath the blankets of a bed. The vapour bath
+can be borne much hotter than the water bath, the temperature varying
+between 120° Fahr. and 150° Fahr. The loading of the atmosphere with
+vapour, checks, or rather prevents, the natural evaporation of the
+perspiration, so that while the body is very strongly heated by the
+steam, the natural methods of cooling the body are arrested. From this
+it will be gathered that the power of the vapour bath to raise the body
+heat is very considerable, and indeed the temperature of the blood has
+been known to rise as much as 5° Fahr. during a bath. This power of
+raising the temperature of the body causes a very profuse perspiration,
+so that the vapour bath is recognised as one of the quickest and most
+effectual means of producing a copious action of the skin. The vapour
+bath can be locally applied in a very manageable way, and there is
+no difficulty in contriving an apparatus, by means of which the legs
+alone, or one arm, or one leg, may be subjected to the action of the
+vapour. If a quick reaction is desired a cold douche may be added to
+the steam, and the so-called _Russian vapour bath_ consists of a vapour
+bath of high temperature followed by a cold douche.
+
+_Air baths_ are baths from which we never escape except when we are
+taking a water bath, our bodies naturally being always surrounded by
+a layer of the atmosphere. _Cold-air baths_ are not much employed,
+although they have been recommended; and we have heard of persons who
+have sought to stimulate their skins and circulation by running naked
+in the open air. The _hot-air bath_ has always, at least since the
+days of ancient Rome, been a favourite luxury and means of treating
+disease; these baths, which are also called Russian or Turkish baths,
+consist really in a succession of processes, which, in the best
+establishments, are as follows: The bather is received at a barrier,
+where he is relieved of his boots and provided with check napkins in
+which to swathe himself while bathing. Passing the barrier he arrives
+at the tepidarium, a room of Eastern design, which attracts him by
+its coolness, quietness, and cleanliness. A marble basin, filled
+with water, into which a jet of water from a fountain falls with a
+soothing splash, occupies the centre, while all round are divans
+for reclining and conveniences for dressing and undressing. Through
+a Moorish arch at the end a glimpse is caught of the sudatorium,
+separated by a plate-glass partition from the tepidarium. Stripping
+himself naked and donning his checks, the bather passes into the
+sudatorium, an apartment with a domed roof, and having a marble floor
+and red-brick walls. The temperature of this room is about 120° or
+150°, and here the bather sits, reading or otherwise amusing himself
+until perspiration is fully advanced. If perspiration is not free it
+may be encouraged by a draught of cool water, which will be tendered
+him by an attendant. If perspiration is slow in its advance, the heat
+of the room causes discomfort. Some burning of the skin, quickness of
+the heart’s action, and occasionally a throbbing tensive headache. A
+drink of water generally has the effect of causing the whole surface to
+bead with moisture, and then a sense of comfort succeeds to discomfort.
+Perspiration being fairly started it may be still further encouraged
+by removing into a still hotter apartment (of which there are three)
+varying in temperature from about 150° Fahr. to 210° Fahr. In these hot
+rooms (where it is necessary to wear thick list slippers to prevent
+the feet being scorched by the hot marble) the perspiration, in some
+persons, streams off the body, and when sufficient perspiratory action
+has been allowed, the bather returns to the body of the sudatorium,
+and, reclining on a marble slab, he is shampooed by an attendant. Next
+the whole surface is thoroughly washed with hot soap and water and the
+skin rubbed with a horse-hair glove; lastly, the process is finished
+by the application of cold water, which is done in one of two ways,
+either by the application of the cold douche, or by diving beneath the
+glass screen which separates the sudatorium from the tepidarium into
+the marble basin which fills the centre of the latter apartment. This
+done the bather is rubbed dry, and then indulges for half an hour in
+the _dolce far niente_, while he reclines on a divan, reads the paper,
+sips a cup of coffee and smokes a cigarette. As to the value of the
+Turkish bath we will speak hereafter, and we will content ourselves
+in this place by warning the bather not to “overdo” it. He should be
+guided by his sensations, and should not be tempted to go into this
+room or that room, or submit to this or that process merely because a
+friend does so with benefit, or without harm. He must remember that
+constitutions differ, and if the bath is followed by headache, or a
+feeling of faintness or lassitude or a want of appetite, he should take
+this as a warning that the treatment has been too heroic. The strongest
+Turkish bath is that in which the bather spends his time in the hottest
+room and finishes with the douche (a process which few can stand);
+the milder bath is that in which the highest temperature submitted to
+is about 140°, and the dive into the basin is taken in lieu of the
+douche. Those who take a Turkish bath for the first time should limit
+themselves to its milder form.
+
+_Mineral Baths_ are baths composed of water in which a considerable
+quantity of mineral matter has been dissolved, either by natural or
+artificial processes. It must be remembered that ordinary water is very
+far from pure, and that even rain-water, the purest of all natural
+waters, contains a considerable number of saline ingredients dissolved
+in it. Spring-water or river-water is very largely impregnated with
+matter which it has dissolved. The water of London contains from
+18 to 20 grains of chalk in solution in each gallon, besides other
+ingredients. The chief of all “mineral waters” is sea-water, and it
+is necessary that we should examine its composition somewhat closely.
+The specific gravity of sea-water is 1027, and the quantity of salt
+dissolved in it ranges from 3·5 to 4 per cent., being least in the
+Black Sea and the Baltic, and most in the Mediterranean. The following
+is the composition of the water of the English Channel:--
+
+  Water                            963·8
+  Chloride of sodium (common salt)  28·0
+  Chloride of potassium              0·8
+  Chloride of magnesium              4·0
+  Sulphate of magnesia (Epsom salt)  2·0
+  Sulphate of lime                   1·4
+  Bromide of magnesia        }
+  Carbonate of lime          }
+  Iodines                    } Traces.
+  Ammonia                    }
+  Oxide of iron              }
+                                 -------
+                                 1,000·0
+                                 -------
+
+Sea-bathing is a very popular form of the natural bath, and it is
+preferable to bathing in river-water or spring-water, because the
+sea is seldom so cold as are the latter. A sea-bath has also another
+great advantage over all other forms of bath, and that is that it is
+taken in the purest air possible; and in considering the effects of
+sea-bathing it is impossible to separate the effects of sea-air from
+that of the sea-water. The sea-bather is also constantly inhaling the
+spray of the sea-water, and thus obtains whatever benefit is to be got
+in this way. If he can swim he enjoys all the benefit of exercise. The
+motion of the water and the buffeting he gets from the waves act as a
+powerful excitant to the skin, and lastly, the salt in the water adds
+considerably to the stimulating action. Reaction more readily occurs
+after a sea-bath than after a river-bath, and thus the liability to
+“catch cold” is less, although the popular belief that it is impossible
+to take cold from a wetting with salt water is far from being true.
+Besides the water of the sea, there are many other _natural salt
+waters_ which have a great reputation both for bathing and drinking.
+These salt waters, which may be got of all strengths, from a strong
+natural brine to a water in which the salt is scarcely recognisable,
+all owe their stimulating power, as does sea-water, to the chloride of
+sodium (common salt) and other chlorides which they contain. Salt-water
+baths, or sool baths as they have been called, act as powerful
+stimulants to the skin, and have a very great reputation in Germany and
+other places, where the only seaboard is the ungenial northern coast.
+
+There are many _natural mineral waters_ which contain ingredients other
+than common salt, and all of these are much used for bathing. We shall
+give some details of these when we come to speak of bathing resorts,
+and at present we shall content ourselves by giving merely a rough
+classification of them.
+
+1. Many waters issue from the ground at a temperature sufficiently
+hot, or even too hot (e.g. the geysers in Iceland) for bathing. Some
+of these natural hot waters contain very small quantities indeed of
+mineral matters, and these are known as _indifferent thermal springs._
+
+2. Mineral waters containing common salt have been already alluded to.
+They are known as _salt springs._
+
+3. The so-called _alkaline springs_ contain as their chief ingredient
+carbonate of soda. These waters are more used for drinking than for
+bathing. The alkali which they contain helps undoubtedly to soften
+the skin of the bather, and acts probably also as a stimulant to the
+surface.
+
+4. The waters containing bitter _purgative salts_, such as Epsom salt
+or Glauber’s salt, owe their reputation almost entirely to their power
+when taken internally. When used for bathing it is probable that these
+natural solutions of purgative salts are more stimulating to the skin
+than ordinary water.
+
+5. The natural _chalybeate waters_, or waters containing iron, are but
+little used for bathing, and it is exceedingly unlikely that the iron
+contained in the water has any effect upon the bather.
+
+Although we have classified the waters, and have used that
+classification which is generally adopted, it must be remembered that
+the ingredients of waters are always multiple, and we usually find
+that they contain alkaline salts, purging salts, iron salts, and brine
+salts mixed together, so that it is difficult sometimes to determine
+which is the predominating ingredient, and therefore to which class a
+mineral water properly belongs. All water contains gas of some kind
+dissolved in it, and it is well known that a glass of ordinary spring
+water may be seen to contain bubbles of gas which adhere to the sides
+of the glass, or come “winking at the brim.” The gases which waters
+principally contain are atmospheric air, nitrogen, carbonic acid, and
+sulphuretted hydrogen, and great stress has been laid upon the presence
+in bathing waters of the three last-named gases.
+
+The action of bubbles of gas contained in water is, in part at least,
+easy to understand. These bubbles give great mobility to the water, and
+thus the particles of water in contact with the skin are incessantly
+changing. Gas is soon driven out of water by the application of heat,
+and it is only the cooler of the thermal springs which remain charged
+with any considerable quantity of gas after the natural pressure, to
+which they have been subjected in the earth, has been removed.
+
+The bubbles of gas, contained in the various gaseous waters, resting
+upon the surface of the body, produce an agreeable sensation of mild
+stimulation not unlike that which we feel when the surface of the
+body is gently tickled. The gaseous baths belong necessarily to the
+category of cool baths, and it is important to remember that waters
+which have been boiled no longer retain any gas, which is all expelled
+during the process of ebullition. When a gaseous water issues from
+the earth at a temperature too low for bathing purposes, it is very
+important that the water should be heated only to the temperature
+required for bathing, which is generally between 60° Fahr. and 98°
+Fahr. This is effected usually by means of a coil of hot water or
+steam-pipes beneath the bottom of the bath, and, by turning a tap, the
+bath attendant can produce any temperature which may be desired in a
+very short time. Water which has been previously _boiled_ or _heated to
+a high temperature_, and has been allowed to cool to fit it for bathing
+purposes, contains very little or no gas, and cannot be regarded as
+constituting a gaseous bath. Intending bathers should inquire very
+carefully into the manner of heating baths at these establishments. If
+the natural gaseous water be collected in reservoirs, and be allowed to
+lie in these reservoirs for any length of time before being used for
+the baths, the greater part of the contained gas will escape, and there
+will be a great discrepancy between the actual condition of the water
+used and the published analysis of such water.
+
+It is exceedingly unlikely that either carbonic acid or nitrogen
+contained in water is absorbed by the skin. The effect of these gaseous
+baths is due to their physical condition only (at least we have no
+satisfactory evidence to the contrary), and in no way to the absorption
+of the contained gases. Carbonic acid is only absorbed by the skin
+under the influence of great pressure, and when thus absorbed it
+produces a poisonous effect.
+
+At some bathing establishments, so-called baths of pure carbonic acid
+are administered, the patient being made to sit in a reservoir of
+the pure gas, but, of course, with his head out. We have also seen
+arrangements for directing a jet of carbonic acid gas upon different
+regions of the body, but we should be sorry to hazard any opinion as to
+the _modus operandi_, or the results of such a practice.
+
+In an ordinary water-bath, strongly impregnated with carbonic acid,
+there is occasionally some danger of too much gas escaping, and being
+consequently inhaled in undue quantities by the occupant of the bath.
+
+_Sulphur baths_, or baths impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas,
+and having the well-known and offensive odour of rotten eggs, have
+been used as remedies in disease from time immemorial. It must be
+remembered that the so-called “sulphur waters” are of a very complex
+nature, and contain many saline ingredients, in addition to the
+sulphides of lime or soda, to the decomposition of which the presence
+of the characteristic gas is due. Most of these waters have also a
+high temperature, so that they must be considered as hot salt waters,
+with the addition of sulphuretted hydrogen, and it becomes a difficult
+matter to determine to which of their ingredients any good effect
+which they may produce is due. It must be borne in mind, also, that
+the amount of sulphuretted hydrogen contained even in the strongest of
+these waters, notwithstanding that it is amply sufficient to offend the
+sense of smell, is in reality very small, and there is no evidence that
+this gas is ever absorbed through the skin from the bath. People who
+visit sulphur baths generally drink the water, and while bathing they
+certainly inhale an atmosphere more or less charged with sulphuretted
+hydrogen. The general opinion at present is, that the effect of sulphur
+waters, when used for baths, is the same as that of other hot and
+saline springs, and that the sulphuretted hydrogen in the water is
+inoperative. At some of the sulphur baths the attendants point to a
+peculiar eruption on the skin, called La Poussée, as evidence of the
+peculiar effect of sulphur, but this eruption does not differ from that
+which so often results after a prolonged use of baths of any kind.
+
+There is no end to the varieties of baths which have been used at one
+time and another for the relief of sickness, and we shall content
+ourselves by a short allusion to some of the best known.
+
+_Mud baths, or moor baths_, are much used in some parts of Germany.
+They consist of water mixed with moor earth, or the mud deposited
+by some of the mineral springs. The resulting compound is thick
+and stodgy, and, like loosely-made farinaceous puddings. They cool
+unequally, and retain their heat for very long periods in the middle.
+Chemically they are composed of the various matters, soluble and
+insoluble, animal, vegetable, and mineral, of which mud or moor earth
+is formed. Much of their virtue has been ascribed to _formic acid_,
+a volatile body formed by ants, having a very pungent odour and
+considerable stimulating power. These baths are generally supposed to
+exert a very powerful action upon the skin.
+
+_Pine baths_ are in great repute in regions where pine-trees are
+plentiful, as in the Black Forest, the Harz Mountains, and elsewhere. A
+decoction is made of the fragrant tops of the pine-trees, and this is
+added to the baths in varying quantities. It is also largely exported
+in a concentrated form from the regions in which it is made. The smell
+of the pine extract is most delicious, and the resin which it contains
+has an undoubted stimulating action upon the skin.
+
+Blood, milk and whey, as well as various broths and decoctions of meat,
+have been used in the belief that they imparted strength to the bather.
+It is indeed a practice in some northern countries, even in the present
+day, to envelop a weak or dying patient in the skin of a freshly killed
+animal, the invalid thereby being supposed to imbibe some of the vital
+power of the recently slaughtered beast.
+
+On the banks of the Nile, _slime_ has been used as a bath, and in some
+places _sea-mud_ has been used for the same purpose. _Sand baths_, or
+arenation, belong to the remedies which are hallowed by antiquity. The
+patient is buried in the sand, and exposed to the full rays of the
+sun, and the combined effect of the heat and the surface irritation
+produces a copious perspiration. At some sea-bathing establishments
+_baths of sea-weed_ are given, under the name of ozone baths, from the
+belief, right or wrong, that sea-weed is impregnated with ozone. In
+some old works we find baths of _dung_ strongly recommended; and even
+at the present day it is the practice, among some of the half-civilised
+Eastern nations, to smear the body with dung for the cure of all
+varieties of ailments. Various refuse matters have been used as baths,
+among which we may mention the _husk of the grape_, in countries where
+the vine is largely cultivated, and the _refuse of the olive_ in
+oil-making countries.
+
+Medicated baths may be artificially prepared, and many such are in
+common use in medicine. Among these we may mention--
+
+1. The group of so-called _emollient_ baths, which have the following
+composition: To thirty gallons of water, there may be added from two
+to six pounds of _bran_; or a pound of _potato flour_; or a couple of
+pounds of _gelatine_; or a pound of _linseed meal_; or four pounds of
+_marsh mallow_, or other herbs.
+
+2. _Alkaline baths_ are made by adding to thirty gallons of water, from
+four to six ounces of carbonate of soda or potash, and occasionally an
+equal quantity of borax.
+
+3. _Acid baths_ contain an ounce or more of muriatic, nitric or
+nitro-muriatic acid, to each thirty gallons of water.
+
+4. Iodine or Bromine may be added to baths.
+
+The medicated vapour baths are of two kinds, _mercurial_ and _sulphur_,
+both being contrived by evaporating flour of sulphur or calomel in
+an iron pan. The sulphur bath thus administered emits the pungent
+and suffocating vapour of sulphurous acid, the effects of which must
+be exerted solely upon the body of the patient, since the inhalation
+of any quantity, if not fatal, would prove a very serious annoyance.
+We must not forget to mention the old domestic remedy of a bath of
+_mustard and water_, which is among the most powerful stimulants to the
+skin which we possess.
+
+The _Galvanic Bath_ has been much talked about of late years, and it
+becomes necessary that we should discuss its merits. It consists merely
+of a bath of water, through which a galvanic current is passed. It
+can be easily administered in the following way:--Place an ordinary
+bath upon a sheet of mackintosh, which, being a non-conductor of
+electricity, has the effect of insulating the bath, as it is termed.
+Then fill the bath with warm water to a convenient height, and to the
+water add a handful of salt or a wine-glassful of vinegar in order
+to increase its conducting power. Next get a galvanic battery, one
+having 30 or 40 Leclanché Elements is sufficient, and place it on a
+chair or on the floor beside the bath. To each of the poles of this
+battery, positive and negative, affix a suitable length (3 or 4 yards)
+of insulated telegraph wire, having its extremities freed from the
+gutta-percha or other insulating material. Place a length of stout
+broom-handle across the bath, resting on its two edges, and round the
+middle of this twine the bright metal end of the wire in connection
+with the positive pole of the battery, covering it with a piece of
+flannel, or wrapping it round with a sponge. The bather then gets into
+the bath, and takes hold of the centre of the broom-handle, previously
+moistened, so that his hands are out of the bath. The end of the
+negative wire is then placed in the bath itself, and as this is done
+the bather will feel the shock of the electric current. The current in
+this case travels from the positive pole of the battery through the
+wire to the broom-handle, down the patient’s arms, through his body to
+the water of the bath, and so to the negative pole. This form of bath
+is a very powerful stimulant to the skin, but beyond its action on the
+skin we know nothing. It is said that by its aid it is possible to
+extract metallic bodies, such as mercury or lead, which may be lurking
+in the body and causing harm. Of such a power there is no evidence
+whatever. We have heard it said that at some galvanic baths visitors
+have been shown discolorations on the side of the bath as evidence of
+deposits of mercury, &c., but this is merely a quackish imposition, and
+it is well that persons should be on their guard against it.
+
+The _electro-magnetic_ bath is given in the same way as the galvanic
+bath, an electro-magnetic battery being substituted for the galvanic
+battery.
+
+It will be well to close the chapter by offering a few hints to
+bathers, and by laying down a few rules for their guidance. Bathing, in
+all its forms, increases the internal work of the body; it increases
+the action of the heart, the rate of respiration, the rapidity of
+circulation, the rate of tissue change, and, in the case of hot baths,
+the rate of perspiration through the skin. This necessarily makes a
+call upon the vital forces, and causes a certain amount of exhaustion.
+From this it follows that baths are best not taken at a time when
+the body is much exhausted, and that exhausting exercise should not
+be indulged in after a bath until a considerable period of time has
+elapsed.
+
+Again, since bathing invariably affects the distribution of the
+blood, causing, as the case may be, either a degree of bloodlessness
+in internal organs, or, if the bath be cold, an undue congestion of
+them, it is important not to overtax those organs during the period of
+bathing. It is, therefore, never advisable to bathe directly before or
+directly after a meal, since in both cases a want of digestion of the
+material in the stomach is likely to result.
+
+Ancient writers are most explicit in their directions for bathers.
+Thus Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, writing some four centuries
+before the Christian era, says: “The person who takes the bath should
+be orderly and reserved in his manner, should do nothing for himself,
+but others should pour the water upon him and rub him; and plenty
+of water, of various temperatures, should be in readiness for the
+_douche_, and the affusions quickly made; and sponges should be used
+instead of the strigil, and the body should be anointed when not
+quite dry.... And a man should not be washed immediately after he has
+taken a draught of Ptisan, or a drink; neither should he take Ptisan
+as a drink immediately after the bath.” These directions are for the
+use of invalids, such as are acutely ill, and the writer seems fully
+to recognise that bathing in itself is an exhausting process. This
+allusion to Ptisan is interesting, as showing how some of our commonest
+domestic remedies come to us from a remote antiquity. The Greek word
+πτισάνη signifies peeled (or “pearl”) barley, and the drink
+made from it, the barley-water of to-day.
+
+As we have before mentioned incidentally, the proper ventilation of the
+bathroom is a matter of prime importance; for since the respiration is
+quickened by the act of bathing, it is evident that a foul atmosphere
+in the bathroom is very liable to produce an ill-effect upon the
+bather. Many of the swimming baths in London are very defective in this
+respect, and we have been forcibly struck, in more than one of them, by
+the ammoniacal odour proceeding from those sanitary offices which are a
+necessary adjunct to every bathing establishment. It is a very common
+custom in private houses to place the bath and the water-closet in the
+same apartment. That this is an undesirable arrangement is evident, for
+the water-closet is, of all places in a house, that in which a foul
+atmosphere is most likely to be encountered. Although a bathroom should
+be well ventilated, it should certainly not be draughty, for currents
+of cold air blowing upon the moist skin of the bather are likely to
+give “cold,” and produce internal congestions of various kinds. In
+summer there is no difficulty in providing a sufficiency of fresh air,
+but in winter it is not so easy. The best way, perhaps, to provide for
+a constant renewal of air is to admit air by means of vertical tubes,
+and to have in the room an open fireplace, in which a brisk fire should
+be burning while the bath is being administered.
+
+In order to ensure a proper reaction after a cold bath, and to prevent
+chill after a hot one, it is customary to provide the bather with a
+supply of hot linen. This is a great comfort and a luxury, and may even
+be looked upon as an absolute necessity for delicate persons. It is a
+very general custom on the Continent for the bather, after removing
+the greater part of the moisture from his body, to don a hot calico
+Peignoir, or bathing-gown, which protects from chill, and at the same
+time allows of the limbs being rubbed with towels. It is not necessary
+to say much about towels. They are to be got of all qualities, from
+those as soft as a cambric handkerchief to those which, in roughness,
+approach the qualities of a curricomb. The bather may please himself
+in this matter, and will choose a soft absorbent towel to remove the
+moisture, and a hard one to rub the surface and produce the necessary
+reaction. Horsehair gloves and various rubbers made of indiarubber,
+&c., are in use, and require only to be mentioned.
+
+Friction and shampooing are valuable accessories to bathing, and serve,
+as it were, to take the place of exercise in those diseases in which
+the patient is unable to exercise his body thoroughly for himself.
+Friction is applied to the skin merely to rub off the surface layers of
+epithelium, to encourage the dilatation of the superficial vessels, and
+the transudation of the sweat. Shampooing is a deeper and more forcible
+kind of friction, in which the rubber kneads the muscles and allows
+his fingers to press steadily upon and between them. This acts as a
+stimulant to the muscles themselves, much in the same way, but in a far
+milder degree, as an electric battery acts upon them. It must be borne
+in mind, however, that friction and shampooing are both exhausting,
+and must not be used to excess. While a patient is being shampooed, he
+involuntarily resists the pressure of the shampooer, and we have seen
+a patient reduced to a state of considerable exhaustion, after having
+been for twenty minutes in the hands of a professional rubber.
+
+It is not necessary to make any remarks on the subject of soaps. Their
+name is Legion, and the bather, guided by the light of common sense,
+may make his choice. The ancients were accustomed to anoint their
+bodies with a variety of smegmata, unguents and oils, both during and
+after bathing.
+
+As to the temperature of the bath and its duration, although these
+are both very important questions, it is impossible to lay down any
+exact rules, for they must be settled according to the condition of
+the bather. A physician, in ordering a course of baths for an invalid,
+should state, in writing (in the form of a prescription) the frequency,
+variety, temperature, and duration, as well as the time of day at which
+they are to be taken.
+
+After a hot bath it is sometimes necessary to arrange that a weakly
+patient shall go to bed for a couple of hours or more. To slake the
+thirst, both during and after a bath, there is nothing better than pure
+water.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+BATHING LOCALITIES.
+
+
+In considering the various bathing localities it is only natural that
+we should begin with London. We have no intention of speaking in detail
+of the various baths with which private enterprise has provided the
+inhabitants of London, for such a course would be quite foreign to the
+intentions of this little work, which is intended merely to furnish
+the reader with a few general principles which shall be of use to him
+in selecting a bath. There is no kind of bath which cannot be got in
+London, and between a dip in the Serpentine and the elaborate process
+of the Turkish bath the bather has a wide choice. In proportion to
+its size and the number of its inhabitants, however, the bathing
+accommodation is very bad. The Thames is still a foul stream, and few
+care to plunge into the sewage which flows down from Richmond and
+surges back again from Barking. It is true that we have one large
+swimming bath floating close to Hungerford Bridge, the water of which
+is filtered in an ingenious way; but it may safely be said that, were
+the water of the river cleaner, we should have fifty such baths instead
+of one. We have often thought that a bathing establishment on a really
+grand scale would be a success in London, and we hope some day to see
+baths in our great metropolis, which should remind one of the palatial
+establishment of Caracalla. A combination of a swimming bath, private
+baths, Turkish baths, &c., with a first-rate gymnasium, reading-room,
+lecture hall, and refreshment room, would surely meet with sufficient
+patronage to pay, and we even believe that the introduction of
+sea-water for such a purpose (an undertaking which has been started
+more than once) would be sufficiently appreciated to ensure a dividend
+to the promoters.
+
+England is naturally very well supplied with sea-bathing resorts,
+and it is possible to get a sea-bath in our island combined with any
+variety of climate, from the cold and bracing to the mild and relaxing.
+Sea-air, the great value of which is well understood as a curative
+agent, has certain peculiarities. It is necessarily the purest air
+that can be got, and when the breeze is off the sea the air comes to
+the shore practically uncontaminated and free from the exhalations
+of animals or furnaces. It is said to be very rich in ozone, and
+it certainly contains fine saline particles supplied to it by the
+sea-spray, and possibly small quantities of iodine, which give to the
+sea-breeze that peculiar odour which it undoubtedly possesses. Sea-air
+is dense, and the barometer stands at its maximum at the sea-level.
+Sea-air is warmer than the air of inland places, and it is more
+equable in its temperature owing to the comparatively slight changes
+in temperature which the sea itself undergoes. The effect of sea-air
+is very stimulating, and sojourners by the sea have their appetites
+increased and their vital functions quickened. While speaking of
+sea-air we must remind the reader that the air of the seaside places
+is often far from good, owing to the defective sanitary arrangements.
+There are not a few towns on our coasts, the sewers of which are taken
+out on to the beach where visitors most do congregate, and the smell
+of sewage at low tide is often far from pleasant. In selecting a
+sea-bathing place it is of importance to attend, not only to the aspect
+and general situation of the town, but to inform oneself whether or
+not it be thoroughly drained, the sewers being carried either inland
+to a proper sewage farm or far out to sea well beyond low-water mark;
+whether the water supply for drinking purposes be good and abundant,
+and whether the general cleanliness of the town is properly attended
+to. Climate is a very local phenomenon, and it is of as much importance
+to see that the bedroom and sitting-room which an invalid has to
+occupy are well ventilated and have a good aspect, as to attend to the
+latitude and general aspect of the locality chosen. It is of little use
+to send a patient to the sea if he has to spend the greater part of
+his time in small rooms made unbearable by gaslights or the defective
+drainage of the house; and an invalid with delicate lungs will derive
+but little benefit from a sojourn in the south if his windows face the
+north and he is afraid to open them.
+
+As to the time of year at which sea-baths should be taken, that of
+course depends upon the locality visited. On the east coast, in
+situations which are exposed to winds from the north and east, bathing
+is only advisable during the three summer months of June, July, and
+August. On the west coast it is possible to begin a little earlier,
+and continue a little later; and in some situations in the south, the
+season may be said to extend from the middle of April to November. In
+these latter places, the temperature at midsummer is often unpleasantly
+high, and the bathing season falls into abeyance for a time. There
+are many considerations which influence people in their choice of a
+bathing station, such as the size of a town, or whether it be gay or
+quiet; its distance from London, its accessibility, the accommodation,
+the expense, &c. A more important point, perhaps, is the nature of the
+bottom, whether it be sandy or shingly. The great popularity of the
+bathing resorts on the north coast of France and the Belgian coast is
+due to the great expanse of fine sand of which the bottom is composed.
+
+In selecting a bathing place it is advisable, if reliable information
+is not forthcoming from those who know it well, to look at the Ordnance
+map of the town and district, and learn from an inspection of it,
+not only the direction in which the locality looks sea-ward, but the
+nature of the immediate surroundings of it; the position and height of
+cliffs and hills, and the amount of protection against cold or heat.
+The nature of the soil should also be ascertained, and the prevailing
+character of the vegetation, and, if possible, the amount of rainfall
+and the mean temperature of summer and winter.
+
+Many watering places possess, in a very restricted area, many climates.
+Let us look at such a watering place as Bournemouth, and we shall be
+able to explain what we mean. Bournemouth is a town of some six or
+seven thousand inhabitants, built on a sandy soil, surrounded by pine
+woods. It faces the south; the average rainfall is 30 inches per annum;
+the temperature is equable, and frosts are comparatively rare, the mean
+night temperature in the month of January being 35·6. The town is built
+upon two bold cliffs, with a dip between them, and the surface of the
+soil being very uneven, it is thus possible to get almost any climate.
+In the dip between the cliffs are situations exposed only to the south,
+and protected from all cold winds; and others facing only to the north.
+On the east cliff one may live in a pine-wood, with the advantages of
+moderate elevation, a southern aspect, and the protection of trees
+which have the double advantage of being evergreen, and possessing a
+foliage which does not rot and decompose in autumn. On the west cliff,
+again, one may live in a house exposed to every wind that blows, in a
+climate which may very justly be spoken of as bracing.
+
+It seems unnecessary to catalogue the various sea-bathing resorts
+in Great Britain. They are numberless, and intending visitors are
+influenced mainly by questions of accessibility and accommodation.
+Those on the east coast are mostly bracing, those on the west are
+more relaxing, while those on the southern coast are mostly warm and
+available during the winter months. We must refer our readers to the
+various guide-books and gazetteers for detailed information.
+
+We have next to consider the various mineral baths scattered about
+Europe, and it must be admitted that the arrangements for bathing at
+the various sources of mineral waters are much better carried out on
+the Continent than in this country. In any course of treatment bathing
+is generally only one element of the regimen to which an invalid is
+directed to submit. Diet, climate, rest, and exercise, and the internal
+administration of medicine or of mineral water, often are called into
+requisition to perform their share in the cure; and while a patient
+is bathing, and by bathing is stimulating or facilitating his animal
+functions, it is of the greatest importance that he should live the
+healthiest life imaginable. At most of the German baths a somewhat
+strict surveillance of the bathers is maintained, and at those which
+have the greatest reputation, it is almost impossible to get, in the
+shape of food, anything of which the local physicians would disapprove.
+It is too often the habit of the Englishman to go to a bath without
+taking any advice as to his general mode of life while bathing, or
+even whether he may expect benefit or harm from the treatment he is
+prescribing for himself. The foreigner, on the other hand, submits in
+all things to authority, and while “undergoing a cure” he is content to
+have his time of rising and going to bed, his meals, his exercise, his
+baths, and other treatment, all accurately regulated for him. It is on
+this account, no doubt, that the German and French baths have so great
+a reputation, for while visiting them the guests live by rule just as
+athletes do in this country when they wish to bring themselves to the
+highest pitch of health attainable in view of some muscular contest.
+When the Englishman is told to visit this or that continental spring,
+he may well ask, as did the captain of the host, “Are not Abana and
+Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May
+I not wash in them, and be clean?” He must remember, however, that, as
+in Naaman’s case, obedience to the directions of the prophet resulted
+in a cure, so he must seek out a spring where he will find a prophet;
+to whose dictation he must be willing for a time in all things to
+submit.
+
+When people visit a mineral spring they generally do so with the double
+object of drinking the water and of bathing in it; with the drinking of
+mineral water we have, in this volume, nothing to do, but merely with
+bathing, and the reader will have gathered from the previous chapters,
+that, when bathing only is concerned, the exact composition of the
+water is not a matter of very great importance; since all baths act in
+the same way, by stimulating the skin, and the water of the bath is
+probably _never absorbed_. It is important to insist upon this point,
+because we find in several bath-puffs the assertion that their effect
+is due to the absorption through the skin of the material dissolved in
+the water of the bath. Such an assertion is contrary to the teaching of
+our leading physiologists. At all sea-bathing places the climate is, in
+one respect, the amount of barometric pressure, similar. The advantage
+of mineral baths over sea-baths very greatly lies in the fact that we
+are not only able to choose our water but also to choose our climate,
+and to have either a mountain climate with low barometric pressure, or
+a sea-level climate with a high barometric pressure, or a climate where
+the barometric pressure is intermediate between these two extremes.
+
+We must, in order to bring the effects of mountain climates vividly
+before the mind of the reader, refer again to the comparison which we
+have made elsewhere between the burning of fuel in a furnace, and the
+combustion which is constantly going on in our bodies. Experiments made
+by Professors Tyndall and Frankland on the combustion of candles at
+different altitudes, seem to give the clue to the explanation of the
+effects of mountain air upon our bodies. These gentlemen burnt candles
+of equal weight, and under similar conditions at Chamouni, and also on
+the top of Mont Blanc, which is 12,000 feet higher. They found that
+the amount of candle consumed in equal periods of time was the same in
+both situations, but that on the top of the mountain the candle gave
+out considerably _less light_ than it did in the valley. The diminution
+of the light was attributed with justice to the _completeness_ of the
+combustion, for the light emitted by a flame is mainly due to the
+unconsumed particles of carbon in a state of incandescence. Mountain
+air, being much more rarified than the air of low-lying valleys,
+contains much less oxygen in proportion to volume, but its lesser
+density seems to enable the oxygen to assume, as it were, a greater
+activity.
+
+It has also been found that bodies lose heat less rapidly in rarified
+atmospheres, so that presumably there is less need for heat-production
+on the mountain than on the plain; so that in mountain climates the
+body is saved a certain proportion of the combustion necessary for the
+generation of heat.
+
+Mountain air is pure, and removed from miasmata and exhalations,
+whether from marshes or (being usually sparsely inhabited) men. It is
+usually still and seldom foggy. The variations of temperature are very
+great and very rapid, the visitor having often to undergo, within a
+few hours, a tropical and an arctic climate. These rapid variations
+serve probably to stimulate vital processes, and there can be little
+doubt that they are important factors in the general effect produced by
+mountain climates.
+
+The following notes made during a sojourn at Davos in Switzerland may
+serve to bring some of the above facts in a more concrete form before
+the reader. “The height above sea-level is between 5000 and 6000 feet,
+and the barometer stands at about an average of 620 millimètres,
+instead of 760, which is its average height at the sea-level, so that
+the weight of the atmosphere is only 620/760, or rather more than
+three-fourths of what to most of us is its normal weight. The result
+of this is that under the influence of the sun’s rays evaporation is
+marvellously rapid. The dew is gone in an instant, and the vapours of
+the early morning seem to vanish at the first touch of the solar heat.
+Thus it follows that although the rainfall is considerable, the dryness
+of the air is, during the main part of the day, nearly absolute. The
+range of temperature is apt to be very great, and the thermometer,
+even in the height of summer, is frequently below freezing point in
+the early morning and in the shade, while in the sunshine, towards
+midday, the heat is simply scorching. For the most part, however, the
+temperature is very pleasant in summer; and even invalids, if properly
+provided with wraps, may spend almost all the hours of daylight out
+of doors. The obvious results on a healthy person of living in such a
+climate are (1) a slight increase in the rate of pulse and respiration;
+(2) a craving for and an ease in performing muscular exercise; and
+(3) a marked increase of the appetite, with a general feeling of
+exhilaration. The air acts, in fact, as a powerful stimulant. Ladies,
+and those who are not able to take much exercise, often have a
+difficulty in sleeping, but this is never of long continuance. Owing,
+it is said, to the diminished atmospheric pressure, the cutaneous
+blood-vessels dilate, and the complexion becomes (with the help of the
+sun) exceedingly ruddy, a fact which is particularly noticeable in the
+inhabitants, whose red cheeks strike a stranger with astonishment.”
+
+There are of course many things to be considered in making selection
+of a bath besides the height above sea-level. Attention must be paid
+to the local configuration of the district, and the sanitary condition
+of the town or village in which the healing spring is situated. It is
+manifestly unadvisable for an invalid who has been sent to the Alps
+for the benefit of a mountain climate to settle down in some narrow
+gorge, exposed perhaps, only to one wind, into which the sun only peeps
+at midday, where the climate knows no medium between the two extremes
+of heat and cold, where the river perhaps has been converted into an
+open sewer by the inhabitants, and where the population is a mixture
+of the Goitrous and the Cretinous. Such localities are to be found,
+and it may well happen that the invalid may go to the bath to be cured
+of his gout, and return with typhoid or ague. Some few years back the
+writer was travelling in the Vosges mountains, and stopped a night at
+a well-known watering-place, taking up his abode in the Bad-haus. The
+situation of the town was extremely picturesque; the valley in which
+it lay was verdant, the hills were well clothed with foliage, and the
+mineral springs of the district were such as might well be recommended
+to many patients. The inhabitants, however, had seen fit to turn the
+lovely stream which meandered through the valley into a sewer. Into
+it abominations of every kind were thrown, and its pebbly bottom
+had become obscured by broken crockery, old tin pots, old boots and
+shoes, and other refuse. The swine were driven into it every morning
+as if on purpose to defile it, and what should have been one of the
+chief attractions of the district had become a pestilential nuisance,
+exhaling filthy odours, and fit only to be bridged over and hidden
+absolutely from the light. It is not sufficient in making choice of a
+bathing place to consider only those dry facts which are capable of
+being stated in figures, but the intending bather should seek reliable
+information as to the sanitary condition of the town, as well as of the
+hotel or lodging-house which he proposes to inhabit. This information
+is only to be got from disinterested patients who have made a sojourn
+in the locality. Guide books are seldom to be trusted, and special
+treatises on the virtues of this or that bath are to be regarded as
+the works of a fervid imagination in the absence of confirmatory
+evidence. The most potent cause in establishing the popularity of this
+or that bathing place has been the heat of the water, and there is
+perhaps no hot spring in Europe which was not used for bathing by the
+Romans, or which has not been used from times of remote antiquity by
+the inhabitants of the district. It is so convenient and so cheap to
+have hot water ready to hand without the necessity of huge furnaces,
+enormous chimneys, expensive boilers, and endless pipes, that it is not
+surprising that such a valuable natural gift should be appreciated.
+
+The best known hot bath in this country is the one at _Bath_, in
+Somersetshire, the water of which proved so attractive to the
+Romans that they founded the city of _Aquæ Solis_ here, in the 1st
+century of the Christian era. It is needless for us to dwell upon
+the popularity of Bath. There are four hot springs here which vary
+in temperature between 120° Fahr. and 104° Fahr. The supply of water
+is ample and abundant, and the accommodation for guests such as can
+hardly be surpassed. The corporation of the city have lately erected a
+magnificent suite of baths, and if they will but turn their attention
+to the condition of the river Avon, and rigidly enforce the provisions
+of the Pollution of Rivers Act, Bath may again become as popular as it
+was in the days of Beau Nash. The elevation of Bath above the sea-level
+is only about 100 feet. The constituents of the Bath water are chiefly
+sulphate of lime with a little carbonate of iron, together with some
+free carbonic acid and nitrogen. It has been called an earthy water,
+but perhaps it is better to regard it as a simple hot water, the chief
+virtue of which is its warmth.
+
+_Buxton_, in Derbyshire, is situated nearly 1000 feet above the
+sea-level in an open hollow surrounded by hills. There is good reason
+to believe that the water of Buxton was known to the Romans. The
+temperature of the Buxton water is 82° Fahr. The amount of saline
+ingredients is but small. The water is, however, impregnated with a
+large quantity both of carbonic acid and nitrogen gas. The town is
+amply provided with accommodation both for bathing and lodging.
+
+At _Clifton_, near Bristol, there are springs having a temperature
+of 74° Fahr., and at _Mallow_, in Ireland, is a spring having a
+temperature of about 70° Fahr., and containing, like the water of
+Buxton, a large quantity of free nitrogen gas. A great deal has been
+written about the virtues of free nitrogen in water, but without, as it
+seems to us, sufficient evidence.
+
+There are many hot springs in Europe which are very largely frequented
+by invalids. We can, however, do little more than tabulate the chief,
+indifferent, and earthy thermal springs, giving the chief facts
+concerning each.
+
+At _Leuk_, in Switzerland, situated at the foot of the Gemmi Pass,
+we find a water possessing a natural temperature of 102° Fahr. to
+120° Fahr., situated 4600 feet above the sea-level. The water is
+indifferent, and it is the custom here for bathers to remain many hours
+consecutively in the water. Ladies and gentlemen bathe in the same
+bath, and it is no uncommon thing for the bathers to be seen taking
+their luncheon or playing dominoes upon floating tables.
+
+At _Pfaffers_ and _Ragatz_, near the town of Coire, in Switzerland, are
+found indifferent springs, situated between 1500 and 2000 feet above
+the sea-level, and having a temperature of 100° Fahr.
+
+_Gastein_ is a much frequented and very fashionable bath in the
+Austrian Salzkammergut, some twelve or thirteen hours’ drive from
+Salzburg. The height above sea-level is 3300 feet, and the temperature
+of the water varies from 96° Fahr. to 114° Fahr.
+
+_Bormio_, at the foot of the Stelvio Pass, on the southern slope of the
+Alps, has an altitude of over 4000 feet, and water of a temperature of
+104° Fahr.
+
+_Wildbad_, in the Black Forest, has been for many years a favourite
+bath with the English. The elevation is 1300 feet, and the temperature
+of the water a little over 100° Fahr.
+
+_Wiesbaden_, the capital of Nassau, possesses both hot and cold
+springs. The former have a temperature of 160° Fahr., and contain a
+fair amount of chlorides. The town is beautifully situated among the
+Taunus Hills, and has an elevation of 300 feet above the sea-level.
+
+_Teplitz_, in Bohemia, is a fashionable bathing resort. The town
+is well ordered, and healthfully situated, being 600 feet above
+the sea-level, and supplied with natural thermal springs, having a
+temperature ranging from 78° Fahr. to 120° Fahr.
+
+_Schlangenbad_, among the Taunus Hills, is a quiet bathing-place, with
+a natural tepid water having a temperature ranging between 80° and 90°
+Fahr. The Schlangenbad water only contains 2-1/2 grains of solids to
+the pint, so that it may safely be regarded as an “indifferent” spring.
+Sir Francis Head, the author of the ‘Bubbles from the Brunnens of
+Nassau,’ visited Schlangenbad in 1836, and we feel constrained to make
+the following extract from his work, as typically illustrating the kind
+of belief which gathers round a natural spring:--
+
+“In the history of the little Duchy of Nassau, the discovery of this
+spring forms a story full of innocence and simplicity. Once upon a time
+there was a heifer, with which everything in nature seemed to disagree.
+The more she ate the thinner she grew; the more her mother licked her
+hide, the rougher and the more staring was her coat. Not a fly in
+the forest would bite her; never was she seen to chew the cud, but,
+hidebound and melancholy, her hips seemed actually to be protruding
+from her skin. What was the matter with her no one knew; what could
+cure her no one could divine. In short, deserted by her master and
+her species, she was, as the faculty would term it, ‘given over.’ In
+a few weeks, however, she suddenly reappeared among the herd, with
+ribs covered with flesh, eyes like a deer, and skin sleek as a mole’s;
+breath sweetly smelling of milk, saliva hanging in ringlets from her
+jaw! Every day seemed to re-establish her health, and the phenomenon
+was so striking that the herdsman, feeling induced to watch her,
+discovered that regularly every evening she wormed her way in secret
+into the forest, until she reached an unknown spring of water, from
+which, having refreshed herself, she quietly returned to the valley.
+This trifling circumstance, scarcely known, was almost forgotten by
+the peasant, when a young Nassau lady began to show exactly the same
+incomprehensible symptoms as the heifer. Mother, sisters, friends,
+father, all tried to cure her, but in vain, and the physician had
+actually
+
+  ‘Taken his leave with sighs and sorrow,
+  Despairing of his fee to-morrow,’
+
+when the herdsman, happening to hear of her case, prevailed upon her
+at last to try the heifer’s secret remedy. She did so, and in a very
+short time, to the utter astonishment of her friends, she became one of
+the stoutest and roundest young women in the duchy.” Sir Francis Head
+goes on to describe how he was conducted along subterranean passages to
+the source of the baths, and was astonished to find serpents swimming
+in the water, and still more astonished to hear his cicerone declare,
+“_C’est ce qui donne la qualité à ces eaux!_” Schlangen, or serpents,
+are very common in this part of the duchy of Nassau, and hence the name
+Schlangenbad.
+
+_Baden-Baden_ is at once one of the most frequented and most
+picturesque baths in Europe. The temperature of the water varies from
+115° Fahr. to 144° Fahr, and the elevation above the sea-level is 616
+feet. The waters contain only 22 grains of solid ingredients to the
+pint, the chief of which is common salt (16-1/2 grains).
+
+The celebrated hot purgative water of _Carlsbad_, although formerly
+used for bathing, is now chiefly employed for drinking.
+
+Bathing is carried on to a very large extent at _Vichy_ (in the
+Department of Allier, in France), although these waters are chiefly
+used as internal remedies.
+
+_Plombières_, among the Vosges Mountains, has an elevation of 1310
+feet. The water contains only 2 grains of solid ingredients to the
+pint, but the temperature is high, varying from 80° Fahr. to 160° Fahr.
+
+Some of the hot springs at _Ems_, such as the Fürstenbrunnen, with a
+temperature of 95° Fahr., and the Neuequelle, with a temperature of
+117° Fahr., are used for bathing.
+
+At _Aix-les-Bains_, in Savoy, 768 feet above the sea-level, will be
+found two hot springs, varying in temperature from 106° Fahr. to 116°
+Fahr. These waters contain less than 4 grains of solid ingredients
+to the pint, but one of them, containing an appreciable amount of
+sulphuretted hydrogen, is known as the sulphur spring. Aix was known
+to the Romans, and in the modern town will be found every bathing
+appliance which art can contrive.
+
+At _Mont Doré_ and at _Bourboule_, in the department of Puy de Dôme, in
+France, at an elevation of 3400 feet above the sea, are thermal springs
+having a temperature of 104° Fahr. to 114° Fahr.
+
+Having enumerated the chief warm baths in Europe, we will proceed to
+catalogue some of the best known of the salt baths.
+
+_Droitwich_, in Worcestershire, is perhaps the only place in England
+where concentrated salt baths can be obtained. The brine of Droitwich
+is said to contain as much as 2760 grains to the pint. The town is
+uninteresting.
+
+At _Ischl_, in the Salzkammergut, is a concentrated brine containing
+1900 grains to the pint. It is 2000 feet above the sea-level, and the
+country is charmingly picturesque.
+
+_Kreuznach_, not far from Bingen on the Rhine, has a strong salt
+spring, and is much resorted to by scrofulous patients. The mother-lye
+of Kreuznach is said to contain 2400 grains to the pint. These strong
+brines are only used after proper dilution.
+
+The water of _Soden_, in the Taunus hills, contains 160 grains to the
+pint; and at _Homburg_ are found several springs which have about 90
+grains to the pint.
+
+_Kissingen_ is a fashionable watering place in the north of Bavaria,
+with an elevation of about 800 feet above the sea-level. Here will be
+found all the accessories of bath life. The water contains about 60
+grains of solid ingredients to the pint.
+
+The _Wood Hall Spa_, near Lincoln, is a salt spring containing as much
+as 160 grains to the pint.
+
+_Rehme_, in Westphalia, is situated on the Cologne and Minden railway.
+The water has nearly 250 grains of salt to the pint, and is very highly
+charged with carbonic acid. The natural temperature of the water is 92°
+Fahr. There is every facility at Rehme for administering baths of all
+kinds and of all degrees of concentration.
+
+_Nauheim_ is not far from Homburg, among the Taunus hills, and
+possesses a water very similar to that of Rehme, having from 170 to 291
+grains to the pint, being highly charged with carbonic acid, and having
+a temperature of from 80° Fahr. to 94° Fahr. The elevation of Nauheim
+above the sea-level is 450 feet. The salt baths of Rehme and Nauheim
+enjoy a very wide reputation.
+
+Although sulphur waters are not so much used for bathing as formerly
+was the case, this little book would not be complete without some
+notice of the chief sulphur springs.
+
+_Harrogate_, in Yorkshire, has been well known for more than three
+centuries, and although the sulphuretted hydrogen, by its predominant
+smell, gives the chief character to the Harrogate springs, they
+have an equal claim to be called saline or chalybeate, for they are
+strongly impregnated with salt and with iron, so that the taste has
+been compared to a mixture of rotten eggs and the scourings of a gun.
+The old sulphur spring contains 137 grains of solid contents to the
+pint, and is strongly impregnated with carbonic acid and sulphuretted
+hydrogen. Harrogate is now a fashionable watering place, with every
+accommodation for visitors. The situation of the town is open and airy,
+and the climate is decidedly bracing.
+
+_Gilsland_, in Cumberland, has a sulphur spring of some repute.
+
+The Pyrenees is the district _par excellence_ of sulphur springs.
+_Baréges_ is the most famous of the Pyrenean baths, situated 4000 feet
+above the level of the sea. Its water, which has a natural temperature
+of 86° Fahr. to 111° Fahr., contains only 1·657 grains to the pint,
+of which ·360 grain is sodium sulphide. This becoming decomposed on
+exposure, forms the sulphuretted hydrogen which gives the character to
+the spring. These sulphur waters contain a peculiar gelatinous organic
+substance which has been called barégine, and which has been supposed
+by some authorities, but on insufficient grounds, to give the peculiar
+virtue to the water.
+
+_Cauterets_, in the Pyrenees, 3000 feet above sea-level, with a sulphur
+water having a natural temperature of 98° Fahr. to 130° Fahr.
+
+_Bagnères de Luchon_, 2000 feet above sea-level, with a natural hot
+sulphurous water.
+
+_Eaux Bonnes_ and _Eaux Chaudes_, 2000 feet above the sea.
+
+At _Aix-les-Bains_, in Savoy, one of the springs is strongly
+impregnated with sulphur.
+
+_Aix-la-Chapelle_, in Rhenish Prussia, is 450 feet above the sea. The
+water contains about 30 grains of solid contents to the pint, and is
+strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen.
+
+Any water may be used for bathing purposes, and it is almost always the
+custom for visitors who go to a spring for the purpose of _drinking_
+the water, to take some _baths_ as well, the baths often being composed
+of the same water as that used for drinking. It is not generally
+believed that there is any particular virtue in baths composed of
+alkaline waters, such as those to be found at Vichy, nor in purgative
+waters, like those at Carlsbad, nor in iron waters like those at
+Tunbridge Wells, Spa or Schwalbach. Hot bathing, however, may be
+expected to help the effect which it is sought to bring about by taking
+the water internally, and it has not unfrequently been the case that
+the effect of drinking has been attributed to the bathing.
+
+It is worthy of remark that, at some places where miracles are claimed
+to be wrought by the effect of water (as, for example, at Malvern),
+the water used is remarkable merely for its great purity and almost
+absolute freedom from mineral ingredients.
+
+It is not a little remarkable that some waters, which were formerly
+used almost exclusively for _bathing_, are now used almost as
+exclusively for drinking. Carlsbad affords an instance of this. The
+word _bad_, when used as an affix, generally indicates that the water
+is or has been used mainly for bathing. The word _brunn_, or _brunnen_,
+however, usually implies that the spring has been mainly employed for
+drinking purposes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE USES OF BATHS.
+
+
+We do not propose to enter at all fully into the question of the place
+which baths ought to occupy as remedies for disease; but we shall
+merely indicate some of the chief conditions for which bathing might
+reasonably be expected to be of service. It has been generally claimed
+for baths that they cure everything; and, in fact, the many unfounded
+assertions as to the remedial powers of hot and cold water, which have
+been made by professed hydropathists and others, have done much to
+bring these very useful agents into disrepute.
+
+It proved very puzzling to the acute mind of the author of the ‘Bubbles
+from the Brunnens,’ that the baths and waters which he encountered in
+his travels seemed capable of curing everything; and it was difficult
+to understand how patients whose conditions were in no way similar
+should apparently derive equal benefit from precisely the same
+treatment; and perhaps we shall not be wrong in assuming that the very
+healthy mode of life which is pursued by visitors to baths has much to
+do with the good results of treatment.
+
+The most common purpose for which baths are used is the cleansing
+of the skin, and the importance of this, of course, cannot be
+over-estimated. When we speak of a clean skin we mean a skin with clean
+pores as well as a clean surface. The indolent and luxurious man, whose
+skin is spotlessly clean, but whose sense of the proprieties is such
+that he never indulges in a good vulgar sweat, has not, in reality,
+so healthy and clean a skin as the navvy, whose myriad sweat-ducts
+are constantly being flushed by the hardness of his work; but whose
+skin surface, possibly, is soiled with the various grimy particles
+with which his labour has brought him in contact. A clean skin is an
+impossibility without perspiration; and if the necessary perspiration
+be not brought about by the ordinary business of life, it is advisable
+to encourage it by artificial means. Hence bathing is more necessary to
+the man of sedentary occupation than to one who knows the daily luxury
+of physical exertion. For the purposes of cleansing, the bath should
+be warm, the skin should be well soaped, and a subsequent thorough
+friction with a rough towel should be indulged in. This process has the
+effect of removing the outer layer of the cuticle, of softening the
+secretion lying in the mouths of the sweat-ducts, and by the action
+of the heat dilating the blood-vessels of the skin and encouraging
+perspiration. Its utility and its comfort are so well known that there
+is no necessity for making any formal remarks thereupon.
+
+Perhaps there is no better form of exercise than that to be found in a
+good swimming bath, always provided that an open river or the sea is
+not at hand. The swimmer exercises every muscle in his body; and, if
+swimming be vigorously kept up, there is nothing which more speedily
+induces fatigue. For an athlete in training a daily swim ought to be a
+part of his course of exercise. We wish there were more swimming baths
+in London than there are. Such as exist are all overcrowded in the
+summer, and in many of them the ventilation is not of the best. To take
+violent exercise in a close, badly-ventilated room must be wrong, and
+we would advise no one to patronise a bath which smells in the least
+degree stuffy. Swimming should be practised not more than once a day,
+and about midway between two meals. The bather, at the commencement of
+his course, should not remain more than five minutes in the water; and
+if his bath be not followed by a healthy glow, he will recognise that
+even that is too much for him. The time of the bath may be gradually
+extended.
+
+The cold bath in the morning is a luxury of which most of us know the
+value. It cleanses, stimulates, and braces; and, if used in moderation,
+conduces to health. A word of caution is necessary to those who use
+their “morning tub” too heroically. The best criterion as to the
+advisability of continuing its use is the readiness and completeness of
+the reaction; and, if there is any feeling of chilliness, languor, or
+want of appetite, with an inability to eat breakfast, it is as well to
+ask whether, possibly, the cold bath had better be moderated. Persons
+who suffer from rheumatic pains, or sciatica, or neuralgia, ought also
+to be careful about continuing a practice which may be too severe for
+them. It is always easy to add a small quantity of warm water to the
+bath. There can be no doubt that a daily bath is absolutely necessary
+for the health of children who are tender-skinned and too young to
+attend to their personal cleanliness.
+
+There are certain diseases in which cold bathing is of acknowledged
+service:--
+
+Foremost among these is _fever_, and it is not too much to say that
+many lives have been saved by the timely use of the cold bath. The use
+of it, however, requires great judgment and knowledge, and it is not
+applicable to every case, and is not without danger. In this country
+its use is restricted almost entirely to those cases in which the
+fever runs a very severe course, in which the bodily temperature rises
+above 105° Fahr., and the patient attains what is technically known
+as a condition of hyperpyrexia. The use of cold baths in fevers has
+been known from time immemorial, although it has only attracted the
+attention of modern physicians during the last ten or fifteen years.
+The usual method of employing this treatment is to immerse the patient
+in a bath of about 90° Fahr., or 95° Fahr., and by means of removal
+of hot water and its renewal by cold, gradually, in about 20 minutes,
+to reduce the temperature to 60° Fahr. In this way the temperature of
+the patient may be reduced as much as four or five degrees, and his
+sufferings are usually very much diminished. Cold bathing cannot be
+said to _cure_ the fever, but it prevents some of its worst results,
+and may enable the patient to pass through a trying ordeal unscathed.
+All forms of fever may, occasionally, be treated with cold baths; but
+this method of treatment in no case shortens the course of the fever.
+
+Cold bathing is of considerable use in some nervous affections, such
+as hysteria, St. Vitus’s dance, and spasmodic croup. These affections
+often, if not always, depend upon a depressed condition of health, and
+a cold bath of short duration (before a fire in winter), and followed
+by a brisk rubbing, is a very efficient means for their relief.
+
+Rickets is benefited by cold bathing; but for the relief of this and
+other conditions of weakness the greatest moderation must be observed.
+
+Cold water is sometimes of use when locally applied, and seems to act
+as a wholesome stimulant to parts which have become stiffened by want
+of use, such as strained and sprained joints. In some skin diseases
+benefit will be derived by the use of cold water. This is particularly
+the case in itching of the skin or _Prurigo_, and _Acne_.
+
+Warm baths are far more generally useful in diseases than cold baths.
+For the removal of the thickenings around joints, which have been
+caused by gout or rheumatism or “rheumatic gout,” bathing in tepid or
+hot water is justly considered as a powerful means of alleviation,
+and as a valuable accessory to treatment by diet and regimen. The hot
+water of Bath and the tepid water of Buxton have long enjoyed a great
+reputation for gout and rheumatic gout, and there are many baths on
+the Continent, which have a reputation, equally high, in the treatment
+of these affections, such as _Teplitz_, _Gastein_, _Wiesbaden_, and
+_Wildbad_. The treatment of gout by bathing is usually aided by the
+internal administration of mineral water, but into this question we are
+unable to enter, notwithstanding its great importance.
+
+For exudations round joints, which have arisen from causes other than
+gout and rheumatism, warm bathing is of very great service, as well as
+in relieving the stiffness and thickenings which sometimes occur as the
+result of severe wounds.
+
+For _paralysis_ warm bathing is often of great use, provided the cause
+of the paralysis be a removable one. Formerly, the principal method of
+treating cases of lead paralysis occurring in the cider counties of the
+West of England, was the sending of the patient to the warm springs at
+Bath, and the results were generally very good. There are many forms
+of paralysis which could not be benefited by treatment with hot water
+or anything else; but it is impossible, in an elementary treatise, to
+enter into a question requiring a high degree of medical knowledge for
+its proper appreciation.
+
+For neuralgia, sciatica, lumbago, and many forms of muscular
+rheumatism, hot bathing may be employed with advantage.
+
+For Bright’s disease of the kidneys, warm baths, vapour baths, and
+Turkish baths, are all employed with benefit.
+
+An occasional Turkish or hot bath is a very great aid to the well-being
+of dwellers in cities who get an insufficiency of air and exercise,
+since it produces an activity of the skin which can only be brought
+about by such means or by violent exertion.
+
+A common cold may sometimes be cured by means of a Turkish bath. To
+bring about this result, however, the treatment must be applied in
+the very earliest stages of the disease, when the slight tension in
+the head, or a trifling feeling of chilliness, is warning the patient
+of his coming trouble, and before the running of the eyes and nose
+has thoroughly set in. A Turkish bath in this very earliest stage of
+a cold will sometimes cut the disease short, but such a result is,
+unfortunately, by no means invariable.
+
+Warm baths, as aiding the action of the skin, have been regarded as
+of some value, when combined with proper diet and regimen, in the
+treatment of diabetes.
+
+In diseases of the skin warm bathing is occasionally of service. For
+_psoriasis_ a soaking in hot water has the effect of removing the
+scales from the body, but it has probably no real curative influence
+on the disease. In acne, chloasma, and diseases which are fostered by
+a want of attention to cleanliness, warm bathing is of great service,
+especially when aided by a liberal supply of soap and the rigorous use
+of the flesh-brush and rough towel.
+
+Although we are all ready, perhaps too ready, to recognise the great
+value of water applied externally, we are not always so quick at
+recognising the evil effects of an excessive use of baths.
+
+Professor Hebra, of Vienna, one of the greatest authorities living
+on the diseases of the skin, speaks in very decided tones of the
+occasional harmful action which water exerts upon the skin. “It is,” he
+says, “almost universally believed that the frequent use of vapour and
+shower baths, frequent bathing in warm or cold water, frequent washing
+and scrubbing, are healthful operations which can never do any harm.
+
+“Against this opinion I must enter my decided protest. On the one hand,
+we know that there are millions of human beings who have never bathed
+in warm or cold water all their lives long, who, at the utmost, give
+their hands and face a superficial rinse once a week, and nevertheless
+enjoy up to old age a state of health which may well be envied. On the
+other hand, none can prove by statistics that the frequent use of the
+various kinds of baths protect people from sickness, or that washing
+in cold water strengthens the body against catarrh and rheumatism and
+catching cold. So long as bathings are accompanied by a feeling of
+comfort, and are not followed by any eruptions on the skin, they may,
+no doubt, be allowed as a pastime, an amusement, an aquatic sport; but
+whenever the skin thus repeatedly irritated begins to react--as soon as
+itching, more or less severe, follows; as soon as persistent redness or
+wheals, or pimples or watery heads make their appearance--it is high
+time to leave off bathing and washing if we do not wish to produce
+diseases of the skin, which often take months and years before they
+disappear, and give the patient unspeakable misery.”
+
+Simple baths do not irritate the skin so much as when combined with
+shampooing and wet packing and shower-baths, or when a vapour bath is
+made more efficient by friction and by the various manipulations of the
+Turkish or Russian bath. The result of such attacks upon the skin are
+seldom long to wait for. Sooner or later a continual redness appears,
+followed by burning or itching; then come pimples, boils, and pustules;
+and though in past times these eruptions were regarded as critical and
+beneficial we must now look on them in their true light, as simply the
+injurious results of the action of water.
+
+Hebra has used the warm bath with success in alleviating the pain and
+misery arising from extensive burns of the skin, and he has also used
+it for some of the more troublesome of the scaly and itching diseases
+of the skin. Although he seems more alive than most authors to the
+evil effects produced by the irritation of water in cases which are
+unsuited for it, he has, on the other hand, surpassed every one in the
+extensive and continuous use of warm water. He says, “I began with two
+hours, then advanced to days, and at last extended the duration of the
+warm bath from one to nine months. I find that people can eat, drink,
+and sleep just as well in a continuous warm bath as out of it; that
+nutrition, respiration, and excretion go on as before.”
+
+Hebra asserts that in the external use of water it is a matter of small
+moment whether we apply the water hot or cold to the part; that the
+water soon approximates in temperature to that of the part to which it
+is applied; and that in this matter the wishes and inclinations of the
+patient need alone be consulted. With regard to _salt baths_, we may
+remind the reader that they may be used either cold or hot, and that
+they may thus be used in almost all those cases (some skin diseases
+excepted) in which baths of hot or cold water are found useful. When
+salt is added to the water, the stimulating effect upon the skin is
+increased, and the bath may be considered by so much the more powerful.
+Sea water, natural salt waters, and even crystals of sea-salt, or
+common salt added to ordinary water, have so firm a place among popular
+remedies that it is almost superfluous to make any formal remarks upon
+them.
+
+It is perhaps in the treatment of scrofulous affections that sea
+bathing and salt water have their greatest reputation. The sea-bathing
+infirmary at Margate is too well known, and its work too highly valued
+to need any words of approbation from the author of this Primer.
+It is probable that the inhalation of sea-air has more to do with
+the successful treatment of scrofula than the bathing in sea water,
+although we have no wish to cast a doubt upon the efficacy in the
+treatment of such diseases of a systematic stimulation of the skin.
+
+Dr. Jacob of Cudowa, in Silesia, has made a series of experiments on
+the power of stimulating the skin which is possessed by various kinds
+of baths. He has proved that mud and bran baths of the same consistence
+produce the same alterations in the circulation, which are to be
+regarded as the real expression of the amount of skin-stimulation. It
+has been ascertained also that mud baths retain the heat of the bather
+more effectually than simple water baths. A carbonic acid bath is said
+to have the greatest stimulating action on the skin; a saline bath the
+next greatest, and mud and pure water follow next. A carbonic acid bath
+is also said to have the greatest power of causing general stimulation
+and excitement. As to the cooling effect of these varieties of baths,
+Dr. Jacob has noted that a water bath of an hour’s duration, and of a
+temperature of 91·4°, lowers the bodily temperature of a healthy man
+about ·9°; the mud bath of same duration and temperature 1·5°; the salt
+bath 2°, and the carbonic acid bath about 2·6°.
+
+_Sulphur baths_ in former times enjoyed a very great reputation in
+the treatment of skin diseases, gout, rheumatism, and the effects of
+metallic poisons, especially lead and mercury. There is, however,
+probably nothing peculiarly beneficial in the sulphur, and the good
+effect of these baths is due more to the heat of the water than to
+anything else. Many of the sulphur springs may rightly be regarded as
+salt waters also, and they have a great power of skin-stimulation, a
+power which adds immensely to their therapeutic efficacy. The bather
+in sulphur water is constantly inhaling the vapour of sulphuretted
+hydrogen, and this fact may have not a little to do with the good
+effects of the water. A course of bathing at a sulphur spring is
+generally combined with the internal administration of the water, and
+it is consequently a very difficult problem to determine whether the
+internal or external administration of the water has the greater effect
+in producing the desired cure.
+
+Steel baths, or baths containing iron, have fallen almost entirely into
+disuse, and any effect which was formerly attributed to the chalybeate
+water is now with more probability ascribed to the water and its
+temperature. The change in this respect is scarcely greater than that
+which has taken place at Carlsbad, where purgative waters, formerly
+used chiefly for bathing, are now almost exclusively employed for
+drinking.
+
+The author of the ‘Bubbles from the Brunnens’ thus describes his
+feelings while taking a steel bath at Langen Schwalbach, some forty
+years ago:--
+
+“As soon as the patient was ready to enter his bath, the first thing
+which crossed his naked mind, as he stood shivering on the brink, was a
+disinclination to dip even his foot into a mixture which looked about
+as thick as a horse-pond, and about the colour of mulligatawny soup.
+However, having come as far as Langen Schwalbach, there was nothing to
+say but ‘_en avant_,’ and so, descending the steps, I got into stuff
+so deeply coloured with the red oxide of iron that the body, when a
+couple of inches below the surface, was invisible. The temperature
+of the water felt neither hot nor cold, but I was no sooner immersed
+in it than I felt that it was evidently of a strengthening, bracing
+nature, and I could almost have fancied myself with a set of hides in
+a tan-pit. The half-hour which every day I was sentenced to spend in
+this red decoction, was by far the longest in the twenty-four hours,
+and I was always very glad when my chronometer, which I regularly hung
+on a nail before my eyes, pointed permission to me to extricate myself
+from the mess. While the body was floating, hardly knowing whether to
+sink or swim, I found it was very difficult for the mind to enjoy any
+sort of recreation, or to reflect for two minutes on any one subject;
+and as, half shivering, I lay watching the minute-hand of my dial, it
+appeared the slowest traveller in existence.”
+
+In the delightful book from which the above quotation is taken, no
+mention is made of the disease, if any, for the relief of which the
+author underwent the unpleasant ordeal of the iron bath. The reader,
+however, will have no difficulty in surmising that the good he derived
+at Langen Schwalbach was due more to the change of air and scene
+and occupation than to the disagreeable bathing process to which he
+submitted daily. There is, or has been, a great deal of superstition
+in medicine, and the public have, or used to have, a surprising amount
+of faith in nasty medicines. In old dispensatories will be found the
+records of prescriptions into the composition of which there entered
+hideous and nameless abominations, and we are very much inclined to
+think that the lingering belief in steel baths, sulphur baths, and mud
+baths is but the remnant of a dying faith in nasty prescriptions, and
+the necessity of doing penance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A VISIT TO A BATH.
+
+
+When the doctor’s fiat goes forth that his patient is to visit this or
+that bath for the benefit of his health, far more is implied in the
+injunction than the mere use of water, whether mineral or indifferent,
+hot or cold. It means that the sufferer is to leave his usual place
+of abode, and the climate which may perhaps have been instrumental
+in working him ill; to forsake the numerous causes of mental worry
+and bodily fatigue which may be connected with his occupation or his
+family cares; to bid adieu for a while to the cook--good, bad, or
+indifferent--who perhaps has tickled his palate to the ruin of his
+stomach, and the cellar which has daily furnished those wines which,
+gravitating to the toes, have necessitated the big boot and the stout
+staff; to turn his back for a season on all that is implied in the
+words “good society,” and exchange all these for something else.
+Whether that exchange will be beneficial or otherwise will depend upon
+the knowledge of the patient possessed by the adviser--knowledge, not
+only of his constitution and his ailments, but of his pocket and his
+inclinations. The man of cultured mind, like Sir Francis Head, whose
+diary of life at Langen Schwalbach forms so charming a volume, who is
+able to find amusement in the contemplation of human nature, or of
+natural phenomena, who
+
+  “Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
+  Sermons in stones, and good in everything;”
+
+whose resources are within himself, will find his recreation
+everywhere, and provided the place to which he is sent be wholesome,
+he will get all the benefits which are derivable from change of scene
+and air. It would be cruel and useless, however, to send the votary
+of pleasure to a resort where art provides nothing for the amusement
+of the guests, and equally useless to condemn a man accustomed to a
+simple country life to mingle all day long in a fashionable crowd,
+intent on artificial joys. There is no doubt that on the Continent
+the arrangements for the comfort and amusement of guests visiting a
+bath are more perfect than they are in this country; and the invalid
+who crosses the “silver streak” which separates us from the rest of
+Europe will find a greater difficulty in continuing in that groove of
+existence which, mayhap, has been prejudicial to him. On the other
+hand it must not be forgotten that to many persons foreign travel
+is exceedingly distasteful. There are many who know no language but
+English, and whose prejudices are so in favour of English manners and
+customs that they cannot be induced to fall in with Continental habits.
+We remember seeing a gentleman at a fashionable bath abroad, whither
+he had been sent for the relief of his gout, who was evidently most
+grievously bored by the process of cure. He associated with none, dined
+alone, and day after day partook, in a solitary corner of a restaurant,
+of a fried sole, a mutton chop, stilton cheese, and a pint of dry
+sherry.
+
+A man who thus carries his own atmosphere with him, and who
+persistently goes against the stream, wrapping himself in insular
+prejudice, will find very little benefit in foreign travel or in change
+of scene.
+
+There are few bathing places, either in this country or on the
+continent, where the drinking of water does not hold a position in
+the “cure” which patients are prepared to undergo, at least equal to
+the bathing. Drinking of mineral water and bathing go everywhere hand
+in hand, although at different spas the one or the other method of
+treatment will be found to preponderate. With the drinking of water we
+have, as we have before said, nothing, at present, to do; but, although
+in theory it is easy enough to separate the effects of bathing from
+those of water drinking, it is found less easy to do so in practice.
+
+What Epidaurus was in the palmy days of Greece when thousands flocked
+to seek health and recreation at its renowned temple of Æsculapius;
+what Baiæ was to the luxurious Romans who came to its famous warm
+springs, impelled equally by fashion and disease; what Bath was when
+at the zenith of its popularity; such is the Badstadt of the present
+time. The throng in the town in the height of the season (July and
+August) is very great, and the crowd of visitors is as fashionable as
+it is cosmopolitan. Here are German petty potentates, Russian princes,
+English nobles, and wealthy Americans, by scores; and there can be
+no doubt that the charm of a fashionable watering-place like this is
+by many found in the fact that all men are, more or less, upon an
+equality where there is only one fountain from which they all must
+drink, and one source in which they all must bathe. The duke, whose
+pedigree reaches back to the Dark Ages, must equally wait his turn
+with the merchant whose wealth is of yesterday’s creation; and in
+waiting-rooms of bath-houses, at tables-d’hôte, and at the brink of
+healing fountains, blood which is of the bluest tint comes into very
+close contact with that which is of other shades.
+
+The town of Badstadt is most charmingly situated upon an elevated
+plateau, some 600 or 700 feet above sea-level, and in the midst of
+delightful scenery, which is to be found among the mountains which
+surround the town on every side but one. The mountains are clothed to
+their summits with pine, and these pine woods are amongst the most
+favoured places to which the “cure guests” of Badstadt resort. In the
+depths of the pine forest there is always, even in the hottest day, a
+refreshing coolness and an invigorating aroma, and to wander here with
+a book, or a companion and some luncheon, is a most pleasant method of
+killing the sultry hours of noon. One day is pretty much like another
+at Badstadt, although here is just sufficient variety to obviate any
+feeling of irksomeness. What will the fashionable Londoner think
+when, at six o’clock in the morning, he finds that he can no longer
+sleep because every one in the hotel is already stirring? There is
+nothing for it but to go with the stream, to get up and dress oneself
+(in the nattiest of lounging coats if of the male sex, in the most
+bewitching of light summer costumes if of the female), and away with
+the rest of the world to drink the water at the Betsinda Quelle, the
+most fashionable spring in all Europe. It is not seven o’clock, we are
+nearly four hours earlier from our beds than is our wont, the fresh
+morning air is bracing and delightful, the sun has not yet dissipated
+the dew, and yet the whole world of Badstadt is alive. Here beneath
+the trees of the Cur-garten are some 2000 or 3000 fashionables, all
+sauntering and talking, so that the hum of conversation is audible at
+a great distance, and forms a not inharmonious obbligato to the music
+of the orchestra in the Kiosk which is hard by. Few prettier sights
+than this can be seen or imagined. The avenue of limes offers in
+either direction, a most attractive vista; the sunlight comes glinting
+through the fret-work of leaves upon the gravel, creating little
+dancing shadows and lighting up the many and varied colours of the
+ladies’ costumes; the roses in the neighbouring flower-beds lend their
+bright colours to give the eye additional pleasure, while their aroma
+tickles yet another sense; and the ear is pleased by a performance, by
+an excellent band, of the best compositions of the best masters. The
+focus, as it were, of all this gaiety is the Betsinda Quelle, and most
+of the guests may be seen to advance to the edge of the health-giving
+fountain, which is enclosed in a sunken ornamental basin, and tender
+a glass for the prescribed dose of the water. The water contains a
+good deal of common salt and not much else, and is nearly as nasty as
+sea-water; but it is surprising to see how methodically and with how
+little fuss the _habitués_ get through their allotted portion. The
+physician probably said to this or that patient: “You are to drink two
+glasses of the Betsinda, and you are to walk for twenty minutes after
+each glass;” and one may see hundreds, who, watch in hand, carry out
+their directions to the letter. He who frequents the springs regularly
+will soon recognise that, morning after morning, the same people arrive
+at the same time, consume the ordained number of glasses and disappear.
+The majority of these, it must be confessed, do not appear to be very
+ill, although here and there may be seen some whose faces bear evidence
+of disease, whose limbs are crippled with gout or rheumatism, and who
+accomplish the morning promenade with the aid of sticks or crutches,
+or, in place of walking, perform a cruise upon wheels in an invalid
+chair. Badstadt is above all things a pleasant place, and everything
+has been done that money can accomplish to charm the senses and make
+life agreeable. The notables of society are its chief patrons, and
+there can be no doubt that the majority of the visitors come here
+for the season, strange as it may seem, that they may meet the same
+persons that they have been meeting earlier in the year in the “Row,”
+upon the lawn at Goodwood, or in the salons of Paris. “Good Society,”
+by which term we mean those wealthy and noble individuals who prefer
+an artificial to a natural existence, annually makes itself ill by
+attending too assiduously to its duties. Having risen from its bed some
+eight hours later than the sun; having dined largely every night on a
+mixture of all that is rich and unwholesome; and having freely partaken
+with its meals of all manner of liquids other than water; having danced
+night after night in rooms reeking of androsmia (which is polite Greek
+for the “smell of humanity”), and rendered stifling by wax lights or
+gas; having retired to bed just before sunrise, and, in short, having
+shown an unaccountable dislike for the light of heaven, and an equally
+unaccountable preference for those wretched and poisonous substitutes
+which our dark northern latitudes have rendered necessary, Society
+takes itself to Badstadt to try the experiment of undoing all the
+mischief which has been brought about by its own folly. The morning
+promenade is an integral and most important factor in the Badstadt
+cure; and the potations of salt water have not only a cleansing and
+“alterative” effect, but they damp the appetite a little, and help to
+prevent Society from taking too much food. The Badstadt breakfasts are
+very simple repasts; one cup of coffee and delicious bread, butter is
+not allowed except to a favoured few who can find some good excuse for
+being treated exceptionally; eggs are a luxury which the local doctors
+regard with manifest dislike; and as for the chops, devilled kidneys,
+fried bacon, bits of fish, cold grouse, dabs of marmalade, and other
+“necessaries,” which Society takes at home, they are not to be thought
+of.
+
+After the frugal repast of coffee and bread has been disposed of, a
+novel or the newspaper serves to wile away an hour or so, and then the
+all-important time for bathing is at hand. The baths are of all kinds
+here, and are made of mineral water or simple water, according to the
+fancy of the patient or the prescription of the “Bad-artzt” (as the
+local practitioners are called). Both before and after the bath the
+patient scrupulously observes the directions of Hippocrates, and is
+careful to keep both body and mind in a state of complete rest, so that
+sufficient power may be left to thoroughly digest the mid-day meal,
+which the English call luncheon and the Germans dinner. With those
+who are wise this meal is as simple as it can be made, and consists
+of a portion of braised or stewed meat, vegetable, and some simple
+farinaceous pudding. As for wine, half a bottle of weak Rhenish or
+Moselle is all that is allowed; visitors being especially warned to
+avoid even the stronger of the Rhenish wines, such as Rüdesheimer or
+Steinberger, vintages, towards which those English who have well-filled
+pockets are very apt to gravitate. In the middle of the day the Germans
+habitually take their heartiest meal, and towards one o’clock a stream
+sets in the direction of the ‘Adler’ or the ‘König Wilhelm,’ where
+possibly the same sixty or eighty persons meet day after day at the
+table d’hôte. These repasts are often regulated by the advice of the
+local physicians, and one great advantage of patronising them lies in
+the fact that it is impossible to get viands which are at all difficult
+of digestion, or which are likely to disagree with the waters. After
+dinner comes an open-air concert beneath the trees, in the garden of
+the Cur-haus, and the process of digestion is allowed to complete
+itself in the fresh air, while the ears are tickled by the sound of
+first-rate music.
+
+For those who wish to read, the salons of the Cur-haus are always open,
+and every journal of note which is published in San Francisco or St.
+Petersburg, or any of the intermediate cities, is freely placed at
+the disposal of the guests. When we say freely placed we mean freely
+to those who pay the “Cure tax,” a small sum which is levied from all
+who come to participate in the enjoyments which are provided by the
+Badstadters for their guests.
+
+The afternoon is devoted to a drive or a leisurely walk to the
+neighbouring forest; and at six o’clock the English return to dine;
+and at seven or half-past seven the Germans come home to supper. The
+_cuisine_ at the Cur-haus, being modelled on Parisian lines, attracts
+many of the guests who cannot submit to the Spartan _régime_ of
+Badstadt in its entirety; and there may be seen occupying the small
+tables on the terrace snug parties of three or four having just one
+of those very “little dinners” which have been the main cause of
+that indisposition which has made a “cure” necessary. The evenings
+are usually occupied by promenading in front of the Cur-haus, and
+occasionally a display of fireworks, or an illumination is provided.
+There is a theatre too, at which the best actors and singers appear
+during the season; but these after-dinner amusements are mostly of
+short duration, and, as a rule, Badstadt retires to bed not later than
+ten o’clock.
+
+Thus it will be seen that life at a bath is spent largely in the open
+air, that the amusements and the routine of each day are regulated
+mainly with a view to health, that the diet is restrained within the
+limits of prudence, and that “early to bed and early to rise” is a wise
+maxim, to which a rigid adherence is expected of all who come in quest
+of health to the baths and springs of Badstadt. It is not surprising
+that the Badstadt waters should be regarded as a panacea throughout the
+whole of Europe.
+
+
+LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING
+CROSS.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75757 ***
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75757 ***</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1><i>Health Primers.</i></h1>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp65" id="i_01" style="max-width: 41.4375em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_01.png" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Health_Primers">Health Primers.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c">
+  EDITORS.
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="row">
+  <div class="column">
+   <ul class="index">
+    <li><p class="left">J. LANGDON DOWN, <span class="allsmcap">M.D., F.R.C.P.</span></p> </li>
+    <li><p class="left">J. MORTIMER-GRANVILLE, <span class="allsmcap">M.D.</span></p></li>
+   </ul>
+  </div>
+  <div class="column">
+    <ul class="index">
+      <li> <p class="left">HENRY POWER, <span class="allsmcap">M.B., F.R.C.S.</span></p></li>
+      <li> <p class="left">JOHN TWEEDY, <span class="allsmcap">F.R.C.S.</span></p></li>
+    </ul>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<h2>BATHS AND BATHING.</h2>
+
+<p class="c">CONTRIBUTORS TO THE SERIES:</p>
+
+<div class="row">
+  <div class="column">
+   <ul class="index">
+    <li><p class="left"><i>G. W. BALFOUR, M.D., St. And., F.R.C.P. Edin.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>J. CRICHTON-BROWNE, M.D. Edin., F.R.S. Edin.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>SIDNEY COUPLAND, M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>JOHN CURNOW, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>J. LANGDON DOWN, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>TILBURY FOX, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>J. MORTIMER-GRANVILLE, M.D. St. And., F.G.S., F.S.S.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>W. S. GREENFIELD, M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P.</i></p></li>
+   </ul>
+  </div>
+  <div class="column">
+   <ul class="index">
+    <li><p class="left"><i>C. W. HEATON, F.C.S., F.I.C.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>HARRY LEACH, M.R.C.P.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>G. V. POORE, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>HENRY POWER, M.B. Lond., F.R.C.S.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>W. L. PURVES, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.S.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>J. NETTEN RADCLIFFE, Ex-Pres. Epidl. Soc., &amp;c.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>C. H. RALFE, M.A., M.D., Cantab., F.R.C.P.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>S. RINGER, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>JOHN TWEEDY, F.R.C.S.</i></p></li>
+    <li><p class="left"><i>JOHN WILLIAMS, M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P.</i></p></li>
+    </ul>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c">
+LONDON:<br>
+HARDWICKE AND BOGUE, 192, PICCADILLY.<br>
+1879.<br>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="c">
+LONDON:<br>
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET<br>
+AND CHARING CROSS.<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdr">PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><small>THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF BATHS</small></a><br></td>
+    <td class="tdr">5</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><small> THE VARIETIES OF BATHS</small></a><br></td>
+    <td class="tdr">20</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><small>BATHING LOCALITIES</small></a><br></td>
+    <td class="tdr">45</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><small>THE USES OF BATHS</small></a><br></td>
+    <td class="tdr">68</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><small> A VISIT TO A BATH</small></a><br></td>
+    <td class="tdr">83</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="BATHS_AND_BATHING">BATHS AND BATHING.</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.<br>
+<small>THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF BATHS.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Since the influence of baths is exerted primarily upon
+the skin, and through the medium of the skin, upon the
+deeper-lying tissues and organs of the body, it is an absolute
+necessity for the reader at the outset to be made
+aware of the structure of the skin and its functions, as well
+as the relations which it bears to deeper-lying organs.</p>
+
+<p>If the skin, say of the thumb, be looked at with a lens
+of moderate power, its surface is seen to be arranged in
+ridges and furrows, like a ploughed field; and at frequent
+intervals along the ridges are little depressions, which are
+known as the pores of the skin. These pores are the
+openings of the sweat ducts, and it is through these pores
+that the perspiration exudes. They are exceedingly
+numerous, and it has been calculated that there are
+as many as 2,800 to every square inch of surface, or
+about seven millions of them altogether. The ridges
+are seen to be divided into a series of minute hillocks,
+or <i>papillæ</i>, which are arranged in lines. These papillæ
+are the organs of touch, and are probably as numerous
+as the pores. They contain in their interior either loops
+of blood-vessels or nerve-endings.</p>
+
+<p>These nerve-endings in the papillæ are of three kinds,
+which are readily distinguishable, and are known as tactile
+corpuscles, pacinian bodies, or end bulbs, according to
+the form which they take. Between the superficial and
+deep layers of the skin, the so-called cuticle and cutis,
+is a layer which partakes somewhat of the character of
+both. This is called the rete mucosum, and it is here
+that the pigment, found in the skin of the negro and in
+certain parts of the skin of white races also, is located.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath the skin, in the subcutaneous tissue, are
+situated the sweat-glands, which are microscopical bundles
+of tubing, having one end running through the skin to
+terminate in the pores. These tubes are, or rather would
+be, if straightened out, about a quarter of an inch long;
+and it is estimated that the length of them in the entire
+body is about 28 miles! They pass through the upper
+layer of the skin or cuticle spirally, so that, although it
+is an easy matter for fluid to pass <i>out</i>, the passage in the
+opposite direction is by no means so easy. Each sweat-gland
+is plentifully supplied with blood-vessels, and is
+surrounded by a thin muscular coat, which is presumably
+able to exert, by its contraction, a certain amount of
+pressure, and so drive the secretions of the gland onward
+towards the pore, or external aperture.</p>
+
+<p>The hair follicles, like the sweat-glands, are situated in
+the subcutaneous tissue. They are hollow receptacles,
+from the bottom of which the hairs grow. Alongside of
+each of these hair follicles is a pair of glands, called the
+sebaceous glands, which provide that small quantity of
+natural grease with which our hair is supplied. These
+glands resemble little bunches of grapes. The hair follicles
+are also furnished with a couple of small muscles, which,
+by their contraction, can cause a sensible erection of the
+hair. In certain parts of the skin there are glands which
+furnish a special odorous secretion. These are most
+plentiful in the arm-pits and between the toes. In the
+skin itself, and immediately beneath it, is a network of
+“lymphatic” vessels, whose function, it would seem, is
+mainly to drain the tissue of waste products. These
+vessels run towards the “lymphatic glands,” which, when
+enlarged, are often recognisable at the side of the neck,
+and which are very generally distributed throughout
+the body. In certain parts of the skin are special cells
+containing pigment.</p>
+
+<p>Thus we see that the skin, which to the casual observer
+is an almost structureless membrane, is in reality a most
+complex and elaborate organ, richly supplied with blood-vessels,
+lymphatic vessels, and nerves, having its millions
+of papillæ and pores, and its miles of sweat-ducts. The
+hair follicles, with their sebaceous glands and muscles,
+are also to be reckoned by the million, and its odoriferous
+glands and special pigment-bearing cells probably by
+the thousand.</p>
+
+<p>What are the various uses of this elaborate organ?
+In the first place, it serves as a protection to the softer
+parts beneath. Secondly, it serves to regulate the temperature
+of the body, by preventing, on the one hand,
+the too rapid radiation of the natural heat, and, on the
+other, by providing a very large surface for the evaporation
+of the constantly exuding perspiration, it prevents
+the overheating of the body. Thirdly, it is constantly
+removing from the body certain effete materials. These
+are the scales of the cuticle (which we remove whenever
+we wash and rub the surface), the perspiration, and the
+sebaceous, or greasy secretion. The amount of sweat
+varies immensely; it may be almost nil, or as much as a
+pint in an hour. The secretion of sweat is influenced
+by the temperature of the air, by exercise, by the
+drinking of fluids (especially warm fluids), and notably by
+the emotions. There can be no doubt that the secretion
+of a certain amount of sweat is necessary for perfect
+health; and it is the common experience of all that the
+checking of perspiration is very liable to be followed by
+dangerous internal congestion.</p>
+
+<p>It has been demonstrated on some of the lower
+animals that, if the skin be shaved and varnished, death
+speedily ensues. This has been spoken of as a sort of
+cutaneous suffocation, death taking place owing to the
+charging of the blood with matter which should have
+been removed by the skin. It has been asserted, however,
+that death is due to cold in these cases; and it has
+certainly been demonstrated that animals so treated live
+much longer provided they be kept warm by a layer of
+cotton wool. Sometimes the skin is superficially destroyed
+by accidental burning or scalding, and it is well recognised
+that a burn or scald is dangerous to life in proportion to
+its superficial extent, rather than to its depth or severity.</p>
+
+<p>The blood-vessels of the skin vary much in size under
+different circumstances, and the different degrees of pallor
+or redness of the skin are due to the condition of these
+superficial blood-vessels. The phenomenon of blushing
+is well known; and this should serve to remind us that
+the emotions can not only influence the amount of perspiration,
+but the size of the cutaneous blood-vessels.
+The intimate relations existing between the skin and the
+great nerve-centres should never be lost sight of.</p>
+
+<p>The cutaneous blood-vessels enlarge in certain fevers,
+as scarlet-fever and measles; they can be made to enlarge
+also by the application of warmth, or irritants, such
+as mustard, or the stroke of a whip. Contraction of the
+blood-vessels is most marked in conditions of fear, or as
+the result of the prolonged application of cold.</p>
+
+<p>Not only have the nerve-centres a great influence on
+the skin, but the skin is capable of exerting a great influence
+on the nerve-centres. This is not to be wondered
+at, when we bear in mind the myriads of nerve-bearing
+papillæ with which the skin is beset. When the soles of
+the feet are tickled, the legs are involuntarily moved;
+and when the arm-pits and sides of the chest are tickled,
+loud laughter is the result. These two phenomena are
+examples of what is known as <i>reflex action</i>, i.e., the
+tickling produces an effect upon the nerve-endings in
+the skin, and this effect travelling to the nerve-centres
+(the spinal cord or brain) is <i>reflected</i> to the muscles, and
+produces movement of the leg or laughter. When the
+body is suddenly immersed in cold water, a not uncommon
+result is a shivering and a chattering of the
+teeth; and when cold water is sprinkled on the forehead
+or chest, deep inspiration and a catching of the breath
+is produced. These are examples of “reflex movements,”
+due to impressions made upon the nerves of the
+skin; and since many of the results of bathing are undoubtedly
+due to this kind of reflex action, it is very
+important to bear it constantly in mind. The connection
+between the nervous centres (the brain and spinal marrow)
+and the skin is shown also in the occurrence of what is
+known as goose skin, or <i>cutis anserina</i>, which is caused
+not only by the application of cold to the surface of the
+body, but even more readily by the mental states which
+make the “Hair of our flesh stand up.” The rationale
+of this phenomenon is the contraction and shortening
+of the little muscles which we have seen to be in intimate
+relationship with the hair follicles. There can be no doubt
+also that the pigment cells, which are scattered thinly
+throughout our skins, are subject to the control of the
+nervous centres, and it is well known that the tint of
+the complexion will sometimes vary with emotional
+states, as it certainly does with physical states. These
+considerations are sufficient to show that the skin plays
+a most important part in the animal economy, as a
+protective, a secreting, a vascular, and a nervous organ.</p>
+
+<p>An all-important point to be determined with regard
+to the skin is its power of <i>absorption</i>—that is, its power,
+if any, of allowing substances to pass through it, and so
+reach the interior of the body. It is well ascertained
+that, if the surface of the skin be broken, absorption
+takes place with great rapidity, and that even when the
+skin is not broken, it is comparatively easy to get absorption
+of certain matters, such as mercurial ointment
+or extract of belladonna, provided they be applied with
+a certain amount of friction. We saw that the ducts of
+the sweat-glands perforated the skin spirally, and the
+friction has the effect of opening the mouths of these
+little ducts, so that the greasy or sticky preparation gets
+lodged within them and absorbed.</p>
+
+<p>It has been proved with tolerable certainty that gases,
+such as carbonic acid and oxygen, are capable of penetrating
+and permeating the skin in small quantities, but
+it is extremely doubtful if water is ever absorbed through
+the skin. It has been attempted to settle the question
+by weighing the body before and after a prolonged immersion
+in the water, but such experiments are so beset
+with fallacies that they are almost worthless. The fact
+that shipwrecked sailors are in the habit of successfully
+lessening their thirst by immersion of the body in water,
+or by wetting their clothes, is well known, but this effect
+may be due to the arrest of the cutaneous evaporation,
+or by an effect upon the nerves.</p>
+
+<p>At all events it seems safest, in the present state of our
+knowledge, to assume that water is not absorbed through
+the skin; or if it be, that it is absorbed in such extremely
+small quantities that the effect of baths can in no sense
+be due to the absorption of the water in which the body
+is immersed. As to the absorption of the various salts
+contained in sea-water or mineral waters, there is no evidence
+whatever that these are ever absorbed even in the
+most minute quantities. If the salt dissolved in sea-water
+were absorbed through the skin, it is tolerably certain
+that sea-bathing, far from being the luxury which it is,
+would be regarded as a highly dangerous and most
+unpleasant practice.</p>
+
+<p>Baths of all kinds serve, or may be made to serve, as
+vehicles for temperature, and by their aid we are enabled
+to surround the body with a temperature which is different
+to its own. Before we can fully understand the effect
+of hot and cold baths on the economy, it is necessary to
+enter into some discussion of the nature and source of
+the natural heat, of the body. The natural heat of the
+human body is between 98° and 99° of Fahrenheit’s
+scale; and this temperature, roughly speaking, is uniformly
+maintained by the healthy body under all the varying
+circumstances to which it may be subjected. In the
+arctic regions, and in the tropics the temperature of the
+body rests at 98·6°; or, if variations occur, they are so
+slight in amount as to be hardly noticeable. In a cold
+atmosphere, therefore, the body has the power of maintaining
+its heat; and in a warm atmosphere it is equally
+able to maintain its coolness. This is a remarkable fact,
+and is due to the power possessed by the human body
+of adjusting the production and loss of heat. Heat
+is produced in the body by the combustion of food
+and tissues, exactly as heat is produced in a fireplace
+by the combustion of coal. The amount and rapidity of
+this combustion necessarily varies with the amount and
+nature of the food consumed and the activity of exercise
+and other vital processes. The most active tissue in the
+body is the blood; through its agency most of the combustion
+processes are carried on, and by its rapid circulation
+to all parts of the body the most distant points of
+the human frame are kept at the same temperature. The
+temperature of the blood is due to the amount of combustion
+taking place in the tissues, and the amount of
+combustion taking place in the tissues is due to the
+amount and energy of their blood supply, which last
+depends upon the force of the heart’s action and the
+size of the blood-vessels which have the power of contracting
+and dilating, and which are subordinated to the
+regulating influence of the nerve-centres. If that part
+of the nerve-centres (the upper part of the spinal cord)
+which controls the size of the vessels be injured or
+destroyed, the combustion processes going on in the
+body seem to get beyond control and the temperature
+may be dangerously increased or decreased, the exact
+reason of one or the other phenomenon not being known.
+The limits of body temperature which are compatible
+with life are not very wide; for if the temperature rise to
+109° or sink to 76° death will inevitably result, and a rise
+or fall of 7° from the natural temperature is decidedly
+dangerous. Seeing how narrow are the limits of temperature
+within which life is possible, we cannot but be
+amazed at the marvellous arrangements for maintaining
+the normal level of animal heat. The body is cooled by
+the evaporation going on from the lungs; by the more
+important evaporation going on from the skin (every one
+who has covered a portion of the skin with spirit and has
+encouraged its evaporation by blowing upon it knows
+practically the cooling effect of evaporation), and by the
+radiation of heat from the surface of the body, and the
+conduction of heat from the body by things in contact
+with it.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>immediate</i> effect of a cold bath is to chill the <i>surface</i>
+of the body, the temperature of which, as tested by
+a thermometer, may fall several degrees. At the same
+time there is produced a pallor of the surface and goose-skin.
+While the surface is cooled, however, the blood
+itself undergoes an increase of temperature, due to an
+increase of the combustion processes going on in the
+body, of which we get additional evidence in the increase
+of the rate of the pulse and respiration, and an augmented
+discharge of carbonic acid from the lungs. There is a
+sudden sense of chilliness, and this impression, made
+upon the nerves of the skin, produces, by its action on the
+brain and spinal cord, some slight mental excitement and
+shivering of the limbs. After the bath has been continued
+some little time the temperature of the blood falls (sometimes
+as much as three or four degrees), the pulse and
+respiration get slow, the shivering gives place to lassitude,
+and the mental excitement to listlessness. On removal
+from the bath the phenomenon of “reaction” sets in.
+The vessels of the skin enlarge, the chilliness gives place
+to warmth, and the feeling of uneasiness is succeeded by
+a sense of comfort. This reaction follows most quickly
+when the bath is of short duration, and when its effects
+are suddenly induced. The shorter the bath the less is
+the ultimate depression of the temperature of the blood.
+The shorter the bath the greater is its power of <i>stimulating</i>
+function; the longer it is continued the greater is
+the effect of <i>cooling</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of a <i>warm</i> bath is to raise slightly the temperature
+of the surface and the temperature of the blood.
+The pulse and respiration are both quickened, and the
+escape of carbonic acid from the lungs is also increased.
+The blood-vessels of the skin get dilated, and the surface
+is reddened in proportion to the heat of the water. Warm
+baths of a moderate temperature can be borne for a
+longer time than cold baths; but if the temperature be
+too high, and the bath too long-continued, faintness is
+liable to occur. On removal from the hot bath the skin
+is in a very delicate and susceptible state, and the vessels
+are liable to “re-act” in the direction of extreme contraction,
+in which case dangerous internal congestion may
+occur. If, however, the skin be protected, and the patient
+be placed in a warm room, or in bed, a violent perspiration
+will ensue. In the cold bath the muscles are liable
+to become stiff; but in the warm bath a stiff and fatigued
+muscle will resume its suppleness. After a hard day’s
+hunting a warm bath is a well-known and agreeable luxury.</p>
+
+<p>The phenomenon which is popularly known as “reaction,”
+and which occurs after both hot and cold baths,
+is a most remarkable one, and seems to show that our
+bodies resent any interference with their function. Thus
+experiments have shown that if the temperature of a
+healthy man be raised or depressed by any artificial
+means, such as hot or cold baths, the subsequent reaction
+in the direction of the depression or exaltation of the
+temperature is such that the mean temperature of health
+is accurately maintained. A German observer, Jurgensen,
+found by a series of accurate observations on a patient
+who submitted to a series of baths of a temperature of
+50° Fahr., each bath lasting twenty-five minutes, that notwithstanding
+the rapid abstraction of heat, which gave
+rise to shivering, lasting for several hours, the diminution
+of bodily temperature which occurred during the bath
+was followed, after an interval of four or five hours, by an
+elevation which precisely compensated it, so that the
+mean normal temperature was maintained in spite of the
+interference of the physiologist.</p>
+
+<p>It will have been observed that the ultimate result of
+both hot and cold bathing, if conducted in moderation,
+is about the same, viz., an increased circulation of blood
+through the skin. In both cases also, the combustion
+going on within the body is increased, as evidenced by
+the escape of an increased quantity of carbonic acid from
+the lungs. In the case of the cold bath, this increased
+combustion is due to the stimulating effect of the cold
+water, while in the hot bath it is due to the artificial heat
+facilitating the natural combustion processes of the body.
+The effects of the hot and cold bath upon the combustion
+processes going on in the body may, not inaptly, be
+compared to the effect produced upon a furnace by the
+hot and cold blast, both of which encourage combustion
+and increase the heat given off by the furnace; but the
+hot blast so facilitates combustion that the same work is
+done by its aid, with an expenditure of 2-1/2 tons of coal,
+that is done by the cold blast with an expenditure of
+8 tons of coal. If we want a fire to burn well, we have
+several courses open to us; the first is to poke it, which
+may be regarded as simple stimulation; the second is to
+supply it with a cold blast, in which case we supply large
+quantities of oxygen, but at the same time counteract
+the heating effect by the coldness of the blast. By
+employing a hot blast, the combustion is facilitated
+without any counteracting chilling. By each of these
+methods we hasten the ultimate extinguishing of the
+fire, unless fresh fuel be added. The employment of the
+hot blast entails the most economical use of the fuel.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said, with regard to the use of baths, that
+<i>cold stimulates, but heat facilitates function</i>. “Between
+the two therapeutic opposites,” says Braun, “a similar
+relation exists, as between winter and summer life, and
+between sea and mountain air. The physician who has,
+to a certain extent, acquired an insight into the diseased
+side of mankind, divides the chronically sick into two
+groups, the one consisting of individuals whose organism
+has sufficient capital to afford the strong reaction
+required, the other consisting of persons needing nice
+management, and whose own power cannot be exposed
+to any great demand. For the one there is the system
+of exercise, cold treatment, cold baths, sea baths, and sea
+air; for the second, indulgence, warm treatment, warm
+climate, warm baths, mountain air.”</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that both hot and cold baths increase the
+natural combustion of the body, it will be evident that
+persons undergoing a course of treatment by either
+method should be exceedingly careful that during the
+progress of their course of treatment the best fuel only is
+placed on the human furnace. They should eat the
+simplest and most nutritious food, and breathe nothing
+but the purest air.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.<br>
+<small>THE VARIETIES OF BATHS.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The <i>tepid</i> bath has a temperature of from 85° to 92° Fahr.,
+the <i>warm</i> bath a temperature between 92° and 98° Fahr.,
+and the <i>hot</i> bath a temperature of from 98° to 112° Fahr.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>cool</i> bath has a temperature from 60° to 75° Fahr.,
+and the <i>cold</i> bath is of a temperature below 60° Fahr.,
+downwards to the freezing point of water.</p>
+
+<p>Hot or cold water may be used locally. We are
+familiar with the hip-bath and foot-bath, and occasionally
+we meet with baths of a special shape, made for the reception
+of the arms or hands, in cases where their local
+treatment has been deemed necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Various plans have been devised for increasing the
+stimulating effect of water. One method of attaining
+this object is by keeping the water constantly in motion,
+as is done in the so-called <i>wave bath</i>, common in some
+parts of the Continent. Another way is by so increasing
+the size of the bath that the patient is able to move freely
+in it. In a big bath, not only is the good effect of exercise
+able to be added to that of bathing, but the concussion
+of the water on the surface of the body, and
+the constant change of the stratum of water in contact
+with the body vastly increases the power of the bath in
+influencing the temperature and stimulating the skin.</p>
+
+<p>The best of all baths is the <i>swimming bath</i>, for in it
+the bather can indulge in a free exercise of his limbs, such
+as is hardly attainable under any other circumstances.
+Swimming is a very valuable exercise, because it employs
+the arms equally with the legs, and leads to a healthy
+development of the muscles of the chest. Nearly all
+good swimmers are big chested.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>douche</i> is a name given to a stream of water, either
+hot or cold, which is made to fall heavily or with force
+upon a part. It acts partly by the force of mechanical
+impact, and partly by its temperature. It is a very
+exhausting method of treatment, and must on no account
+be used too long. A column of water 12 feet high,
+allowed to fall upon the head, is so painful that Esquirol,
+who submitted to it, described it as resembling the continued
+breaking of a column of ice on the head, followed
+by a feeling of stupefaction, which lasted an hour afterwards.
+The douche was formerly much used in lunatic
+asylums, and was regarded as a specific against delusions,
+the unhappy creature possessed by delusive ideas being
+held beneath the douche until he recanted; and such was
+the agony thus caused, that the mere threat of the douche
+was often sufficient to control the wildest of maniacs.
+Those who have undergone the process of “shampooing
+the head,” as practised by the hair-dressers of our time,
+will remember the effect of a stream of cold water allowed
+to flow upon the head for too long a time.</p>
+
+<p>The most powerfully stimulating action is obtained
+by the use of the <i>Scottish Douche</i>, which consists in
+the alternate use of streams of cold and hot water.
+By the hot stream the “reaction” after the cold stream
+is greatly encouraged. In most of the swimming baths
+to be found on the Continent, a pump is provided, in
+order that a patient may himself apply the douche to
+any joint requiring it, and at the same time encourage
+his reactive glow, by the exercise of pumping.</p>
+
+<p>In most great bathing establishments two douches at
+least are provided, one called the <i>descending douche</i>, which
+may be applied to the head, shoulders, trunk, or limbs; and
+the other called the <i>ascending douche</i>, which is designed
+for throwing a stream of water into the bowel, a method
+of treatment which is advocated for conditions which it
+is unnecessary to discuss in this place.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hot and cold affusion</i> are merely mild forms of the
+douche.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>shower bath</i> differs from the douche only in the
+division of the stream of water by causing it to flow
+through a suitable colander. This method of treatment
+is severe and exhausting, and must be used with caution,
+especially with weakly people.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>needle bath</i> is merely a general shower bath. The
+bather stands within a coil of pipes which are finely
+perforated, and the water impinges in finely divided
+streams simultaneously upon every part of the body.
+It is a powerful general stimulant.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>rain bath</i> consists in the letting fall of large drops
+of water from a great height upon the part which it is
+wished to affect.</p>
+
+<p><i>Packing with the wet sheet</i> is a mode of applying water
+to the body which is the very reverse of some of the
+methods which we have been considering, since the
+stimulating action of the water is reduced to a minimum,
+and we get the refrigerating action only. It makes very
+little difference whether the sheet used be moistened
+with hot or cold water, since the temperature of the skin
+and the sheet very rapidly approximate in any case,
+and the more rapid evaporation of the hot water speedily
+induces a degree of cold quite equal to that of the cold
+sheet. The patient should be stripped naked and should
+lie upon a single blanket, the bed being protected by a
+mackintosh sheet placed between the blanket and the
+mattress. He is then enveloped in the wet sheet. If
+a maximum amount of refrigeration is desired he is left
+uncovered so that evaporation may be encouraged. If,
+on the other hand, we wish to encourage the action of
+the skin, several blankets are placed over the sheet.</p>
+
+<p>Having discussed the various methods of using water
+as such for the purposes of bathing, we may next turn
+our attention to the <i>vapour bath</i>, which is a favourite
+method of making use of warmth and moisture. Here
+and there throughout the world there are to be found
+natural vapour baths; but, as generally employed, the
+vapour bath is a very simple contrivance indeed, merely
+consisting of an apparatus for conducting the steam of a
+kettle into a confined space in which the patient sits.
+The head of the patient may be either placed in the bath
+or not, and the effects of the bath may be expected to
+differ according as the steam is inhaled into the lungs or
+not. The domestic vapour bath may consist of a flannel
+steam-proof cloak, which is worn by the patient, while beneath
+the chair on which he sits is placed a small portable
+kettle heated by spirits of wine for the formation of the
+steam. If the bather is unable to sit up, the steam may,
+with very great ease, be conducted beneath the blankets
+of a bed. The vapour bath can be borne much hotter
+than the water bath, the temperature varying between
+120° Fahr. and 150° Fahr. The loading of the atmosphere
+with vapour, checks, or rather prevents, the natural
+evaporation of the perspiration, so that while the body is
+very strongly heated by the steam, the natural methods
+of cooling the body are arrested. From this it will be
+gathered that the power of the vapour bath to raise the
+body heat is very considerable, and indeed the temperature
+of the blood has been known to rise as much as
+5° Fahr. during a bath. This power of raising the temperature
+of the body causes a very profuse perspiration,
+so that the vapour bath is recognised as one of the
+quickest and most effectual means of producing a copious
+action of the skin. The vapour bath can be locally
+applied in a very manageable way, and there is no
+difficulty in contriving an apparatus, by means of which
+the legs alone, or one arm, or one leg, may be subjected
+to the action of the vapour. If a quick reaction is desired
+a cold douche may be added to the steam, and the so-called
+<i>Russian vapour bath</i> consists of a vapour bath of
+high temperature followed by a cold douche.</p>
+
+<p><i>Air baths</i> are baths from which we never escape except
+when we are taking a water bath, our bodies naturally
+being always surrounded by a layer of the atmosphere.
+<i>Cold-air baths</i> are not much employed, although they
+have been recommended; and we have heard of persons
+who have sought to stimulate their skins and circulation
+by running naked in the open air. The <i>hot-air bath</i> has
+always, at least since the days of ancient Rome, been a
+favourite luxury and means of treating disease; these
+baths, which are also called Russian or Turkish baths,
+consist really in a succession of processes, which, in the
+best establishments, are as follows: The bather is received
+at a barrier, where he is relieved of his boots and provided
+with check napkins in which to swathe himself
+while bathing. Passing the barrier he arrives at the tepidarium,
+a room of Eastern design, which attracts him by
+its coolness, quietness, and cleanliness. A marble basin,
+filled with water, into which a jet of water from a fountain
+falls with a soothing splash, occupies the centre, while all
+round are divans for reclining and conveniences for
+dressing and undressing. Through a Moorish arch at
+the end a glimpse is caught of the sudatorium, separated
+by a plate-glass partition from the tepidarium. Stripping
+himself naked and donning his checks, the bather
+passes into the sudatorium, an apartment with a domed
+roof, and having a marble floor and red-brick walls. The
+temperature of this room is about 120° or 150°, and here
+the bather sits, reading or otherwise amusing himself
+until perspiration is fully advanced. If perspiration is
+not free it may be encouraged by a draught of cool
+water, which will be tendered him by an attendant.
+If perspiration is slow in its advance, the heat of the
+room causes discomfort. Some burning of the skin,
+quickness of the heart’s action, and occasionally a throbbing
+tensive headache. A drink of water generally has
+the effect of causing the whole surface to bead with
+moisture, and then a sense of comfort succeeds to discomfort.
+Perspiration being fairly started it may be still
+further encouraged by removing into a still hotter apartment
+(of which there are three) varying in temperature
+from about 150° Fahr. to 210° Fahr. In these hot rooms
+(where it is necessary to wear thick list slippers to prevent
+the feet being scorched by the hot marble) the perspiration,
+in some persons, streams off the body, and when
+sufficient perspiratory action has been allowed, the bather
+returns to the body of the sudatorium, and, reclining
+on a marble slab, he is shampooed by an attendant.
+Next the whole surface is thoroughly washed with hot
+soap and water and the skin rubbed with a horse-hair
+glove; lastly, the process is finished by the application
+of cold water, which is done in one of two ways, either
+by the application of the cold douche, or by diving
+beneath the glass screen which separates the sudatorium
+from the tepidarium into the marble basin which fills
+the centre of the latter apartment. This done the bather
+is rubbed dry, and then indulges for half an hour in the
+<i>dolce far niente</i>, while he reclines on a divan, reads the
+paper, sips a cup of coffee and smokes a cigarette.
+As to the value of the Turkish bath we will speak
+hereafter, and we will content ourselves in this place
+by warning the bather not to “overdo” it. He
+should be guided by his sensations, and should not
+be tempted to go into this room or that room, or
+submit to this or that process merely because a friend
+does so with benefit, or without harm. He must remember
+that constitutions differ, and if the bath is
+followed by headache, or a feeling of faintness or lassitude
+or a want of appetite, he should take this as a
+warning that the treatment has been too heroic. The
+strongest Turkish bath is that in which the bather
+spends his time in the hottest room and finishes with
+the douche (a process which few can stand); the milder
+bath is that in which the highest temperature submitted
+to is about 140°, and the dive into the basin is
+taken in lieu of the douche. Those who take a Turkish
+bath for the first time should limit themselves to its
+milder form.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mineral Baths</i> are baths composed of water in which
+a considerable quantity of mineral matter has been dissolved,
+either by natural or artificial processes. It must
+be remembered that ordinary water is very far from pure,
+and that even rain-water, the purest of all natural waters,
+contains a considerable number of saline ingredients
+dissolved in it. Spring-water or river-water is very
+largely impregnated with matter which it has dissolved.
+The water of London contains from 18 to 20 grains of
+chalk in solution in each gallon, besides other ingredients.
+The chief of all “mineral waters” is sea-water, and it
+is necessary that we should examine its composition somewhat
+closely. The specific gravity of sea-water is 1027,
+and the quantity of salt dissolved in it ranges from 3·5
+to 4 per cent., being least in the Black Sea and the
+Baltic, and most in the Mediterranean. The following
+is the composition of the water of the English Channel:—</p>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Water</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdr">963·8</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Chloride of sodium (common salt)</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdr">28·0</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Chloride of potassium</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdr">0·8</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Chloride of magnesium</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdr">4·0</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Sulphate of magnesia (Epsom salt)</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdr">2·0</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Sulphate of lime</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdr">1·4</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Bromide of magnesia</td>
+    <td rowspan="5"> } Traces.</td>
+    <td rowspan="5"></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Carbonate of lime</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Iodines</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Ammonia</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Oxide of iron</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="btbright">1,000·0</td>
+  </tr>
+
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p>Sea-bathing is a very popular form of the natural bath,
+and it is preferable to bathing in river-water or spring-water,
+because the sea is seldom so cold as are the latter.
+A sea-bath has also another great advantage over all other
+forms of bath, and that is that it is taken in the purest
+air possible; and in considering the effects of sea-bathing
+it is impossible to separate the effects of sea-air from that
+of the sea-water. The sea-bather is also constantly inhaling
+the spray of the sea-water, and thus obtains whatever
+benefit is to be got in this way. If he can swim he
+enjoys all the benefit of exercise. The motion of the
+water and the buffeting he gets from the waves act as a
+powerful excitant to the skin, and lastly, the salt in the
+water adds considerably to the stimulating action. Reaction
+more readily occurs after a sea-bath than after a
+river-bath, and thus the liability to “catch cold” is less,
+although the popular belief that it is impossible to take
+cold from a wetting with salt water is far from being true.
+Besides the water of the sea, there are many other
+<i>natural salt waters</i> which have a great reputation both
+for bathing and drinking. These salt waters, which may
+be got of all strengths, from a strong natural brine to
+a water in which the salt is scarcely recognisable, all owe
+their stimulating power, as does sea-water, to the chloride
+of sodium (common salt) and other chlorides which they
+contain. Salt-water baths, or sool baths as they have
+been called, act as powerful stimulants to the skin, and
+have a very great reputation in Germany and other
+places, where the only seaboard is the ungenial northern
+coast.</p>
+
+<p>There are many <i>natural mineral waters</i> which contain
+ingredients other than common salt, and all of these are
+much used for bathing. We shall give some details of
+these when we come to speak of bathing resorts, and at
+present we shall content ourselves by giving merely a
+rough classification of them.</p>
+
+<p>1. Many waters issue from the ground at a temperature
+sufficiently hot, or even too hot (e.g. the geysers in
+Iceland) for bathing. Some of these natural hot waters
+contain very small quantities indeed of mineral matters,
+and these are known as <i>indifferent thermal springs.</i></p>
+
+<p>2. Mineral waters containing common salt have been
+already alluded to. They are known as <i>salt springs.</i></p>
+
+<p>3. The so-called <i>alkaline springs</i> contain as their chief
+ingredient carbonate of soda. These waters are more
+used for drinking than for bathing. The alkali which
+they contain helps undoubtedly to soften the skin
+of the bather, and acts probably also as a stimulant to
+the surface.</p>
+
+<p>4. The waters containing bitter <i>purgative salts</i>, such
+as Epsom salt or Glauber’s salt, owe their reputation
+almost entirely to their power when taken internally.
+When used for bathing it is probable that these natural
+solutions of purgative salts are more stimulating to the
+skin than ordinary water.</p>
+
+<p>5. The natural <i>chalybeate waters</i>, or waters containing
+iron, are but little used for bathing, and it is exceedingly
+unlikely that the iron contained in the water has any
+effect upon the bather.</p>
+
+<p>Although we have classified the waters, and have used
+that classification which is generally adopted, it must be
+remembered that the ingredients of waters are always
+multiple, and we usually find that they contain alkaline
+salts, purging salts, iron salts, and brine salts mixed
+together, so that it is difficult sometimes to determine
+which is the predominating ingredient, and therefore to
+which class a mineral water properly belongs. All
+water contains gas of some kind dissolved in it, and it is
+well known that a glass of ordinary spring water may be
+seen to contain bubbles of gas which adhere to the sides
+of the glass, or come “winking at the brim.” The gases
+which waters principally contain are atmospheric air,
+nitrogen, carbonic acid, and sulphuretted hydrogen, and
+great stress has been laid upon the presence in bathing
+waters of the three last-named gases.</p>
+
+<p>The action of bubbles of gas contained in water is, in
+part at least, easy to understand. These bubbles give
+great mobility to the water, and thus the particles of
+water in contact with the skin are incessantly changing.
+Gas is soon driven out of water by the application of
+heat, and it is only the cooler of the thermal springs
+which remain charged with any considerable quantity of
+gas after the natural pressure, to which they have been
+subjected in the earth, has been removed.</p>
+
+<p>The bubbles of gas, contained in the various gaseous
+waters, resting upon the surface of the body, produce an
+agreeable sensation of mild stimulation not unlike that
+which we feel when the surface of the body is gently
+tickled. The gaseous baths belong necessarily to the category
+of cool baths, and it is important to remember that
+waters which have been boiled no longer retain any gas,
+which is all expelled during the process of ebullition.
+When a gaseous water issues from the earth at a temperature
+too low for bathing purposes, it is very important that
+the water should be heated only to the temperature required
+for bathing, which is generally between 60° Fahr.
+and 98° Fahr. This is effected usually by means of a coil
+of hot water or steam-pipes beneath the bottom of the
+bath, and, by turning a tap, the bath attendant can
+produce any temperature which may be desired in a
+very short time. Water which has been previously
+<i>boiled</i> or <i>heated to a high temperature</i>, and has been
+allowed to cool to fit it for bathing purposes, contains
+very little or no gas, and cannot be regarded as constituting
+a gaseous bath. Intending bathers should inquire
+very carefully into the manner of heating baths at
+these establishments. If the natural gaseous water be
+collected in reservoirs, and be allowed to lie in these
+reservoirs for any length of time before being used for
+the baths, the greater part of the contained gas will
+escape, and there will be a great discrepancy between the
+actual condition of the water used and the published
+analysis of such water.</p>
+
+<p>It is exceedingly unlikely that either carbonic acid or
+nitrogen contained in water is absorbed by the skin. The
+effect of these gaseous baths is due to their physical condition
+only (at least we have no satisfactory evidence to
+the contrary), and in no way to the absorption of the
+contained gases. Carbonic acid is only absorbed by the
+skin under the influence of great pressure, and when thus
+absorbed it produces a poisonous effect.</p>
+
+<p>At some bathing establishments, so-called baths of pure
+carbonic acid are administered, the patient being made to
+sit in a reservoir of the pure gas, but, of course, with his
+head out. We have also seen arrangements for directing
+a jet of carbonic acid gas upon different regions of
+the body, but we should be sorry to hazard any opinion
+as to the <i>modus operandi</i>, or the results of such a practice.</p>
+
+<p>In an ordinary water-bath, strongly impregnated with
+carbonic acid, there is occasionally some danger of too
+much gas escaping, and being consequently inhaled in
+undue quantities by the occupant of the bath.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sulphur baths</i>, or baths impregnated with sulphuretted
+hydrogen gas, and having the well-known and offensive
+odour of rotten eggs, have been used as remedies in disease
+from time immemorial. It must be remembered
+that the so-called “sulphur waters” are of a very complex
+nature, and contain many saline ingredients, in addition
+to the sulphides of lime or soda, to the decomposition of
+which the presence of the characteristic gas is due. Most
+of these waters have also a high temperature, so that they
+must be considered as hot salt waters, with the addition
+of sulphuretted hydrogen, and it becomes a difficult
+matter to determine to which of their ingredients any
+good effect which they may produce is due. It must be
+borne in mind, also, that the amount of sulphuretted
+hydrogen contained even in the strongest of these waters,
+notwithstanding that it is amply sufficient to offend the
+sense of smell, is in reality very small, and there is no
+evidence that this gas is ever absorbed through the skin
+from the bath. People who visit sulphur baths generally
+drink the water, and while bathing they certainly inhale
+an atmosphere more or less charged with sulphuretted
+hydrogen. The general opinion at present is, that the
+effect of sulphur waters, when used for baths, is the same
+as that of other hot and saline springs, and that the sulphuretted
+hydrogen in the water is inoperative. At some
+of the sulphur baths the attendants point to a peculiar
+eruption on the skin, called La Poussée, as evidence of
+the peculiar effect of sulphur, but this eruption does not
+differ from that which so often results after a prolonged
+use of baths of any kind.</p>
+
+<p>There is no end to the varieties of baths which have
+been used at one time and another for the relief of sickness,
+and we shall content ourselves by a short allusion
+to some of the best known.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mud baths, or moor baths</i>, are much used in some parts
+of Germany. They consist of water mixed with moor
+earth, or the mud deposited by some of the mineral
+springs. The resulting compound is thick and stodgy,
+and, like loosely-made farinaceous puddings. They cool
+unequally, and retain their heat for very long periods in
+the middle. Chemically they are composed of the various
+matters, soluble and insoluble, animal, vegetable, and
+mineral, of which mud or moor earth is formed. Much
+of their virtue has been ascribed to <i>formic acid</i>, a volatile
+body formed by ants, having a very pungent odour and
+considerable stimulating power. These baths are generally
+supposed to exert a very powerful action upon the skin.</p>
+
+<p><i>Pine baths</i> are in great repute in regions where pine-trees
+are plentiful, as in the Black Forest, the Harz
+Mountains, and elsewhere. A decoction is made of the
+fragrant tops of the pine-trees, and this is added to the
+baths in varying quantities. It is also largely exported
+in a concentrated form from the regions in which it is
+made. The smell of the pine extract is most delicious,
+and the resin which it contains has an undoubted
+stimulating action upon the skin.</p>
+
+<p>Blood, milk and whey, as well as various broths and
+decoctions of meat, have been used in the belief that they
+imparted strength to the bather. It is indeed a practice
+in some northern countries, even in the present day, to
+envelop a weak or dying patient in the skin of a freshly
+killed animal, the invalid thereby being supposed to imbibe
+some of the vital power of the recently slaughtered beast.</p>
+
+<p>On the banks of the Nile, <i>slime</i> has been used as a
+bath, and in some places <i>sea-mud</i> has been used for the
+same purpose. <i>Sand baths</i>, or arenation, belong to the
+remedies which are hallowed by antiquity. The patient
+is buried in the sand, and exposed to the full rays of the
+sun, and the combined effect of the heat and the surface
+irritation produces a copious perspiration. At some sea-bathing
+establishments <i>baths of sea-weed</i> are given, under
+the name of ozone baths, from the belief, right or wrong,
+that sea-weed is impregnated with ozone. In some old
+works we find baths of <i>dung</i> strongly recommended; and
+even at the present day it is the practice, among some
+of the half-civilised Eastern nations, to smear the body
+with dung for the cure of all varieties of ailments.
+Various refuse matters have been used as baths, among
+which we may mention the <i>husk of the grape</i>, in countries
+where the vine is largely cultivated, and the <i>refuse of the
+olive</i> in oil-making countries.</p>
+
+<p>Medicated baths may be artificially prepared, and
+many such are in common use in medicine. Among
+these we may mention—</p>
+
+<p>1. The group of so-called <i>emollient</i> baths, which have
+the following composition: To thirty gallons of water,
+there may be added from two to six pounds of <i>bran</i>; or a
+pound of <i>potato flour</i>; or a couple of pounds of <i>gelatine</i>;
+or a pound of <i>linseed meal</i>; or four pounds of <i>marsh
+mallow</i>, or other herbs.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>Alkaline baths</i> are made by adding to thirty gallons
+of water, from four to six ounces of carbonate of soda
+or potash, and occasionally an equal quantity of borax.</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>Acid baths</i> contain an ounce or more of muriatic,
+nitric or nitro-muriatic acid, to each thirty gallons of
+water.</p>
+
+<p>4. Iodine or Bromine may be added to baths.</p>
+
+<p>The medicated vapour baths are of two kinds, <i>mercurial</i>
+and <i>sulphur</i>, both being contrived by evaporating
+flour of sulphur or calomel in an iron pan. The sulphur
+bath thus administered emits the pungent and
+suffocating vapour of sulphurous acid, the effects of
+which must be exerted solely upon the body of the
+patient, since the inhalation of any quantity, if not
+fatal, would prove a very serious annoyance. We must
+not forget to mention the old domestic remedy of a bath
+of <i>mustard and water</i>, which is among the most powerful
+stimulants to the skin which we possess.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Galvanic Bath</i> has been much talked about of
+late years, and it becomes necessary that we should discuss
+its merits. It consists merely of a bath of water,
+through which a galvanic current is passed. It can be
+easily administered in the following way:—Place an
+ordinary bath upon a sheet of mackintosh, which, being
+a non-conductor of electricity, has the effect of insulating
+the bath, as it is termed. Then fill the bath with
+warm water to a convenient height, and to the water
+add a handful of salt or a wine-glassful of vinegar in
+order to increase its conducting power. Next get a
+galvanic battery, one having 30 or 40 Leclanché Elements
+is sufficient, and place it on a chair or on the
+floor beside the bath. To each of the poles of this
+battery, positive and negative, affix a suitable length
+(3 or 4 yards) of insulated telegraph wire, having its
+extremities freed from the gutta-percha or other insulating
+material. Place a length of stout broom-handle across
+the bath, resting on its two edges, and round the middle
+of this twine the bright metal end of the wire in connection
+with the positive pole of the battery, covering it
+with a piece of flannel, or wrapping it round with a
+sponge. The bather then gets into the bath, and takes
+hold of the centre of the broom-handle, previously
+moistened, so that his hands are out of the bath. The
+end of the negative wire is then placed in the bath itself,
+and as this is done the bather will feel the shock of the
+electric current. The current in this case travels from
+the positive pole of the battery through the wire to the
+broom-handle, down the patient’s arms, through his body
+to the water of the bath, and so to the negative pole.
+This form of bath is a very powerful stimulant to the
+skin, but beyond its action on the skin we know nothing.
+It is said that by its aid it is possible to extract metallic
+bodies, such as mercury or lead, which may be lurking
+in the body and causing harm. Of such a power there
+is no evidence whatever. We have heard it said that at
+some galvanic baths visitors have been shown discolorations
+on the side of the bath as evidence of deposits of
+mercury, &amp;c., but this is merely a quackish imposition,
+and it is well that persons should be on their guard
+against it.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>electro-magnetic</i> bath is given in the same way as
+the galvanic bath, an electro-magnetic battery being
+substituted for the galvanic battery.</p>
+
+<p>It will be well to close the chapter by offering a few
+hints to bathers, and by laying down a few rules for
+their guidance. Bathing, in all its forms, increases the
+internal work of the body; it increases the action of the
+heart, the rate of respiration, the rapidity of circulation,
+the rate of tissue change, and, in the case of hot
+baths, the rate of perspiration through the skin. This
+necessarily makes a call upon the vital forces, and causes
+a certain amount of exhaustion. From this it follows
+that baths are best not taken at a time when the body
+is much exhausted, and that exhausting exercise should
+not be indulged in after a bath until a considerable
+period of time has elapsed.</p>
+
+<p>Again, since bathing invariably affects the distribution
+of the blood, causing, as the case may be, either a degree
+of bloodlessness in internal organs, or, if the bath be
+cold, an undue congestion of them, it is important not to
+overtax those organs during the period of bathing. It is,
+therefore, never advisable to bathe directly before or
+directly after a meal, since in both cases a want of digestion
+of the material in the stomach is likely to result.</p>
+
+<p>Ancient writers are most explicit in their directions for
+bathers. Thus Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine,
+writing some four centuries before the Christian era, says:
+“The person who takes the bath should be orderly and
+reserved in his manner, should do nothing for himself,
+but others should pour the water upon him and rub him;
+and plenty of water, of various temperatures, should be
+in readiness for the <i>douche</i>, and the affusions quickly
+made; and sponges should be used instead of the strigil,
+and the body should be anointed when not quite dry....
+And a man should not be washed immediately after
+he has taken a draught of Ptisan, or a drink; neither
+should he take Ptisan as a drink immediately after the
+bath.” These directions are for the use of invalids, such
+as are acutely ill, and the writer seems fully to recognise
+that bathing in itself is an exhausting process. This
+allusion to Ptisan is interesting, as showing how some of
+our commonest domestic remedies come to us from a
+remote antiquity. The Greek word πτισάνη signifies
+peeled (or “pearl”) barley, and the drink made from it,
+the barley-water of to-day.</p>
+
+<p>As we have before mentioned incidentally, the proper
+ventilation of the bathroom is a matter of prime importance;
+for since the respiration is quickened by the act of
+bathing, it is evident that a foul atmosphere in the bathroom
+is very liable to produce an ill-effect upon the bather.
+Many of the swimming baths in London are very defective
+in this respect, and we have been forcibly struck, in more
+than one of them, by the ammoniacal odour proceeding
+from those sanitary offices which are a necessary adjunct
+to every bathing establishment. It is a very common
+custom in private houses to place the bath and the
+water-closet in the same apartment. That this is an
+undesirable arrangement is evident, for the water-closet
+is, of all places in a house, that in which a foul atmosphere
+is most likely to be encountered. Although a
+bathroom should be well ventilated, it should certainly
+not be draughty, for currents of cold air blowing upon
+the moist skin of the bather are likely to give “cold,”
+and produce internal congestions of various kinds. In
+summer there is no difficulty in providing a sufficiency of
+fresh air, but in winter it is not so easy. The best way,
+perhaps, to provide for a constant renewal of air is to
+admit air by means of vertical tubes, and to have in the
+room an open fireplace, in which a brisk fire should be
+burning while the bath is being administered.</p>
+
+<p>In order to ensure a proper reaction after a cold bath,
+and to prevent chill after a hot one, it is customary to
+provide the bather with a supply of hot linen. This is
+a great comfort and a luxury, and may even be looked
+upon as an absolute necessity for delicate persons. It is
+a very general custom on the Continent for the bather,
+after removing the greater part of the moisture from his
+body, to don a hot calico Peignoir, or bathing-gown,
+which protects from chill, and at the same time allows of
+the limbs being rubbed with towels. It is not necessary
+to say much about towels. They are to be got of all
+qualities, from those as soft as a cambric handkerchief
+to those which, in roughness, approach the qualities of a
+curricomb. The bather may please himself in this
+matter, and will choose a soft absorbent towel to remove
+the moisture, and a hard one to rub the surface and
+produce the necessary reaction. Horsehair gloves and
+various rubbers made of indiarubber, &amp;c., are in use,
+and require only to be mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>Friction and shampooing are valuable accessories to
+bathing, and serve, as it were, to take the place of exercise
+in those diseases in which the patient is unable to
+exercise his body thoroughly for himself. Friction is
+applied to the skin merely to rub off the surface layers
+of epithelium, to encourage the dilatation of the superficial
+vessels, and the transudation of the sweat. Shampooing
+is a deeper and more forcible kind of friction,
+in which the rubber kneads the muscles and allows his
+fingers to press steadily upon and between them. This
+acts as a stimulant to the muscles themselves, much in
+the same way, but in a far milder degree, as an electric
+battery acts upon them. It must be borne in mind,
+however, that friction and shampooing are both exhausting,
+and must not be used to excess. While a patient
+is being shampooed, he involuntarily resists the pressure
+of the shampooer, and we have seen a patient reduced
+to a state of considerable exhaustion, after having been
+for twenty minutes in the hands of a professional rubber.</p>
+
+<p>It is not necessary to make any remarks on the subject
+of soaps. Their name is Legion, and the bather,
+guided by the light of common sense, may make his
+choice. The ancients were accustomed to anoint their
+bodies with a variety of smegmata, unguents and oils,
+both during and after bathing.</p>
+
+<p>As to the temperature of the bath and its duration,
+although these are both very important questions, it is
+impossible to lay down any exact rules, for they must be
+settled according to the condition of the bather. A
+physician, in ordering a course of baths for an invalid,
+should state, in writing (in the form of a prescription)
+the frequency, variety, temperature, and duration, as well
+as the time of day at which they are to be taken.</p>
+
+<p>After a hot bath it is sometimes necessary to arrange
+that a weakly patient shall go to bed for a couple of
+hours or more. To slake the thirst, both during and
+after a bath, there is nothing better than pure water.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.<br>
+<small>BATHING LOCALITIES.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>In considering the various bathing localities it is only
+natural that we should begin with London. We have
+no intention of speaking in detail of the various baths
+with which private enterprise has provided the inhabitants
+of London, for such a course would be quite
+foreign to the intentions of this little work, which is intended
+merely to furnish the reader with a few general
+principles which shall be of use to him in selecting a
+bath. There is no kind of bath which cannot be got in
+London, and between a dip in the Serpentine and the
+elaborate process of the Turkish bath the bather has
+a wide choice. In proportion to its size and the number
+of its inhabitants, however, the bathing accommodation is
+very bad. The Thames is still a foul stream, and few
+care to plunge into the sewage which flows down from
+Richmond and surges back again from Barking. It is
+true that we have one large swimming bath floating close
+to Hungerford Bridge, the water of which is filtered in an
+ingenious way; but it may safely be said that, were the
+water of the river cleaner, we should have fifty such baths
+instead of one. We have often thought that a bathing
+establishment on a really grand scale would be a success
+in London, and we hope some day to see baths in our
+great metropolis, which should remind one of the palatial
+establishment of Caracalla. A combination of a swimming
+bath, private baths, Turkish baths, &amp;c., with a first-rate
+gymnasium, reading-room, lecture hall, and refreshment
+room, would surely meet with sufficient patronage
+to pay, and we even believe that the introduction of
+sea-water for such a purpose (an undertaking which
+has been started more than once) would be sufficiently
+appreciated to ensure a dividend to the promoters.</p>
+
+<p>England is naturally very well supplied with sea-bathing
+resorts, and it is possible to get a sea-bath in our island
+combined with any variety of climate, from the cold and
+bracing to the mild and relaxing. Sea-air, the great value
+of which is well understood as a curative agent, has
+certain peculiarities. It is necessarily the purest air that
+can be got, and when the breeze is off the sea the air
+comes to the shore practically uncontaminated and free
+from the exhalations of animals or furnaces. It is said to
+be very rich in ozone, and it certainly contains fine saline
+particles supplied to it by the sea-spray, and possibly
+small quantities of iodine, which give to the sea-breeze
+that peculiar odour which it undoubtedly possesses. Sea-air
+is dense, and the barometer stands at its maximum
+at the sea-level. Sea-air is warmer than the air of inland
+places, and it is more equable in its temperature owing
+to the comparatively slight changes in temperature which
+the sea itself undergoes. The effect of sea-air is very
+stimulating, and sojourners by the sea have their appetites
+increased and their vital functions quickened. While
+speaking of sea-air we must remind the reader that the
+air of the seaside places is often far from good, owing
+to the defective sanitary arrangements. There are not a
+few towns on our coasts, the sewers of which are taken
+out on to the beach where visitors most do congregate,
+and the smell of sewage at low tide is often far from
+pleasant. In selecting a sea-bathing place it is of importance
+to attend, not only to the aspect and general situation
+of the town, but to inform oneself whether or not
+it be thoroughly drained, the sewers being carried either
+inland to a proper sewage farm or far out to sea well
+beyond low-water mark; whether the water supply for
+drinking purposes be good and abundant, and whether
+the general cleanliness of the town is properly attended to.
+Climate is a very local phenomenon, and it is of as much
+importance to see that the bedroom and sitting-room
+which an invalid has to occupy are well ventilated and have
+a good aspect, as to attend to the latitude and general
+aspect of the locality chosen. It is of little use to send
+a patient to the sea if he has to spend the greater part
+of his time in small rooms made unbearable by gaslights
+or the defective drainage of the house; and an invalid
+with delicate lungs will derive but little benefit from a
+sojourn in the south if his windows face the north and
+he is afraid to open them.</p>
+
+<p>As to the time of year at which sea-baths should be
+taken, that of course depends upon the locality visited.
+On the east coast, in situations which are exposed to
+winds from the north and east, bathing is only advisable
+during the three summer months of June, July, and
+August. On the west coast it is possible to begin a little
+earlier, and continue a little later; and in some situations
+in the south, the season may be said to extend from the
+middle of April to November. In these latter places, the
+temperature at midsummer is often unpleasantly high,
+and the bathing season falls into abeyance for a time.
+There are many considerations which influence people in
+their choice of a bathing station, such as the size of a
+town, or whether it be gay or quiet; its distance from
+London, its accessibility, the accommodation, the expense,
+&amp;c. A more important point, perhaps, is the nature of
+the bottom, whether it be sandy or shingly. The great
+popularity of the bathing resorts on the north coast of
+France and the Belgian coast is due to the great expanse
+of fine sand of which the bottom is composed.</p>
+
+<p>In selecting a bathing place it is advisable, if reliable
+information is not forthcoming from those who know it
+well, to look at the Ordnance map of the town and
+district, and learn from an inspection of it, not only the
+direction in which the locality looks sea-ward, but the
+nature of the immediate surroundings of it; the position
+and height of cliffs and hills, and the amount of protection
+against cold or heat. The nature of the soil should
+also be ascertained, and the prevailing character of the
+vegetation, and, if possible, the amount of rainfall and
+the mean temperature of summer and winter.</p>
+
+<p>Many watering places possess, in a very restricted area,
+many climates. Let us look at such a watering place as
+Bournemouth, and we shall be able to explain what we
+mean. Bournemouth is a town of some six or seven
+thousand inhabitants, built on a sandy soil, surrounded
+by pine woods. It faces the south; the average rainfall
+is 30 inches per annum; the temperature is equable, and
+frosts are comparatively rare, the mean night temperature
+in the month of January being 35·6. The town is
+built upon two bold cliffs, with a dip between them, and
+the surface of the soil being very uneven, it is thus possible
+to get almost any climate. In the dip between the cliffs
+are situations exposed only to the south, and protected
+from all cold winds; and others facing only to the north.
+On the east cliff one may live in a pine-wood, with the
+advantages of moderate elevation, a southern aspect, and
+the protection of trees which have the double advantage
+of being evergreen, and possessing a foliage which does
+not rot and decompose in autumn. On the west cliff,
+again, one may live in a house exposed to every wind
+that blows, in a climate which may very justly be spoken
+of as bracing.</p>
+
+<p>It seems unnecessary to catalogue the various sea-bathing
+resorts in Great Britain. They are numberless,
+and intending visitors are influenced mainly by questions
+of accessibility and accommodation. Those on the east
+coast are mostly bracing, those on the west are more
+relaxing, while those on the southern coast are mostly
+warm and available during the winter months. We must
+refer our readers to the various guide-books and gazetteers
+for detailed information.</p>
+
+<p>We have next to consider the various mineral baths
+scattered about Europe, and it must be admitted that the
+arrangements for bathing at the various sources of mineral
+waters are much better carried out on the Continent than
+in this country. In any course of treatment bathing is generally
+only one element of the regimen to which an invalid
+is directed to submit. Diet, climate, rest, and exercise,
+and the internal administration of medicine or of mineral
+water, often are called into requisition to perform their
+share in the cure; and while a patient is bathing, and by
+bathing is stimulating or facilitating his animal functions,
+it is of the greatest importance that he should live the
+healthiest life imaginable. At most of the German baths
+a somewhat strict surveillance of the bathers is maintained,
+and at those which have the greatest reputation,
+it is almost impossible to get, in the shape of food, anything
+of which the local physicians would disapprove.
+It is too often the habit of the Englishman to go to a
+bath without taking any advice as to his general mode of
+life while bathing, or even whether he may expect
+benefit or harm from the treatment he is prescribing
+for himself. The foreigner, on the other hand, submits
+in all things to authority, and while “undergoing a cure”
+he is content to have his time of rising and going to bed,
+his meals, his exercise, his baths, and other treatment,
+all accurately regulated for him. It is on this account,
+no doubt, that the German and French baths have so
+great a reputation, for while visiting them the guests live
+by rule just as athletes do in this country when they
+wish to bring themselves to the highest pitch of health
+attainable in view of some muscular contest. When the
+Englishman is told to visit this or that continental spring,
+he may well ask, as did the captain of the host, “Are not
+Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all
+the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them, and be
+clean?” He must remember, however, that, as in
+Naaman’s case, obedience to the directions of the
+prophet resulted in a cure, so he must seek out a
+spring where he will find a prophet; to whose dictation
+he must be willing for a time in all things to submit.</p>
+
+<p>When people visit a mineral spring they generally do
+so with the double object of drinking the water and of
+bathing in it; with the drinking of mineral water we have,
+in this volume, nothing to do, but merely with bathing,
+and the reader will have gathered from the previous
+chapters, that, when bathing only is concerned, the
+exact composition of the water is not a matter of very
+great importance; since all baths act in the same way,
+by stimulating the skin, and the water of the bath is
+probably <i>never absorbed</i>. It is important to insist upon
+this point, because we find in several bath-puffs the
+assertion that their effect is due to the absorption through
+the skin of the material dissolved in the water of the
+bath. Such an assertion is contrary to the teaching of
+our leading physiologists. At all sea-bathing places the
+climate is, in one respect, the amount of barometric
+pressure, similar. The advantage of mineral baths over
+sea-baths very greatly lies in the fact that we are not
+only able to choose our water but also to choose our
+climate, and to have either a mountain climate with low
+barometric pressure, or a sea-level climate with a high
+barometric pressure, or a climate where the barometric
+pressure is intermediate between these two extremes.</p>
+
+<p>We must, in order to bring the effects of mountain
+climates vividly before the mind of the reader, refer again
+to the comparison which we have made elsewhere between
+the burning of fuel in a furnace, and the combustion which
+is constantly going on in our bodies. Experiments made
+by Professors Tyndall and Frankland on the combustion
+of candles at different altitudes, seem to give the clue to
+the explanation of the effects of mountain air upon our
+bodies. These gentlemen burnt candles of equal weight,
+and under similar conditions at Chamouni, and also on
+the top of Mont Blanc, which is 12,000 feet higher.
+They found that the amount of candle consumed in equal
+periods of time was the same in both situations, but that
+on the top of the mountain the candle gave out considerably
+<i>less light</i> than it did in the valley. The diminution
+of the light was attributed with justice to the <i>completeness</i>
+of the combustion, for the light emitted by a flame is
+mainly due to the unconsumed particles of carbon in a
+state of incandescence. Mountain air, being much more
+rarified than the air of low-lying valleys, contains much
+less oxygen in proportion to volume, but its lesser density
+seems to enable the oxygen to assume, as it were, a
+greater activity.</p>
+
+<p>It has also been found that bodies lose heat less
+rapidly in rarified atmospheres, so that presumably there
+is less need for heat-production on the mountain than on
+the plain; so that in mountain climates the body is saved
+a certain proportion of the combustion necessary for the
+generation of heat.</p>
+
+<p>Mountain air is pure, and removed from miasmata and
+exhalations, whether from marshes or (being usually
+sparsely inhabited) men. It is usually still and seldom
+foggy. The variations of temperature are very great and
+very rapid, the visitor having often to undergo, within a
+few hours, a tropical and an arctic climate. These rapid
+variations serve probably to stimulate vital processes, and
+there can be little doubt that they are important factors
+in the general effect produced by mountain climates.</p>
+
+<p>The following notes made during a sojourn at Davos
+in Switzerland may serve to bring some of the above
+facts in a more concrete form before the reader. “The
+height above sea-level is between 5000 and 6000 feet,
+and the barometer stands at about an average of 620
+millimètres, instead of 760, which is its average height
+at the sea-level, so that the weight of the atmosphere
+is only 620/760, or rather more than three-fourths of what
+to most of us is its normal weight. The result of this
+is that under the influence of the sun’s rays evaporation
+is marvellously rapid. The dew is gone in an
+instant, and the vapours of the early morning seem to
+vanish at the first touch of the solar heat. Thus it
+follows that although the rainfall is considerable, the
+dryness of the air is, during the main part of the day,
+nearly absolute. The range of temperature is apt to be
+very great, and the thermometer, even in the height of
+summer, is frequently below freezing point in the early
+morning and in the shade, while in the sunshine, towards
+midday, the heat is simply scorching. For the most
+part, however, the temperature is very pleasant in
+summer; and even invalids, if properly provided with
+wraps, may spend almost all the hours of daylight out of
+doors. The obvious results on a healthy person of living
+in such a climate are (1) a slight increase in the rate of
+pulse and respiration; (2) a craving for and an ease in
+performing muscular exercise; and (3) a marked increase
+of the appetite, with a general feeling of exhilaration.
+The air acts, in fact, as a powerful stimulant. Ladies,
+and those who are not able to take much exercise, often
+have a difficulty in sleeping, but this is never of long
+continuance. Owing, it is said, to the diminished atmospheric
+pressure, the cutaneous blood-vessels dilate, and
+the complexion becomes (with the help of the sun) exceedingly
+ruddy, a fact which is particularly noticeable
+in the inhabitants, whose red cheeks strike a stranger
+with astonishment.”</p>
+
+<p>There are of course many things to be considered
+in making selection of a bath besides the height
+above sea-level. Attention must be paid to the local
+configuration of the district, and the sanitary condition
+of the town or village in which the healing spring is
+situated. It is manifestly unadvisable for an invalid who
+has been sent to the Alps for the benefit of a mountain
+climate to settle down in some narrow gorge, exposed
+perhaps, only to one wind, into which the sun only peeps
+at midday, where the climate knows no medium between
+the two extremes of heat and cold, where the river
+perhaps has been converted into an open sewer by the
+inhabitants, and where the population is a mixture of the
+Goitrous and the Cretinous. Such localities are to be
+found, and it may well happen that the invalid may go
+to the bath to be cured of his gout, and return with
+typhoid or ague. Some few years back the writer was
+travelling in the Vosges mountains, and stopped a night at
+a well-known watering-place, taking up his abode in the
+Bad-haus. The situation of the town was extremely picturesque;
+the valley in which it lay was verdant, the hills
+were well clothed with foliage, and the mineral springs
+of the district were such as might well be recommended
+to many patients. The inhabitants, however, had seen
+fit to turn the lovely stream which meandered through
+the valley into a sewer. Into it abominations of every
+kind were thrown, and its pebbly bottom had become
+obscured by broken crockery, old tin pots, old boots and
+shoes, and other refuse. The swine were driven into it
+every morning as if on purpose to defile it, and what
+should have been one of the chief attractions of the
+district had become a pestilential nuisance, exhaling
+filthy odours, and fit only to be bridged over and hidden
+absolutely from the light. It is not sufficient in making
+choice of a bathing place to consider only those dry facts
+which are capable of being stated in figures, but the
+intending bather should seek reliable information as to
+the sanitary condition of the town, as well as of the hotel
+or lodging-house which he proposes to inhabit. This
+information is only to be got from disinterested patients
+who have made a sojourn in the locality. Guide books
+are seldom to be trusted, and special treatises on the
+virtues of this or that bath are to be regarded as the
+works of a fervid imagination in the absence of confirmatory
+evidence. The most potent cause in establishing
+the popularity of this or that bathing place has been
+the heat of the water, and there is perhaps no hot spring
+in Europe which was not used for bathing by the Romans,
+or which has not been used from times of remote
+antiquity by the inhabitants of the district. It is so
+convenient and so cheap to have hot water ready to
+hand without the necessity of huge furnaces, enormous
+chimneys, expensive boilers, and endless pipes, that it is
+not surprising that such a valuable natural gift should be
+appreciated.</p>
+
+<p>The best known hot bath in this country is the one
+at <i>Bath</i>, in Somersetshire, the water of which proved so
+attractive to the Romans that they founded the city of
+<i>Aquæ Solis</i> here, in the 1st century of the Christian era.
+It is needless for us to dwell upon the popularity of
+Bath. There are four hot springs here which vary in
+temperature between 120° Fahr. and 104° Fahr. The
+supply of water is ample and abundant, and the accommodation
+for guests such as can hardly be surpassed.
+The corporation of the city have lately erected a magnificent
+suite of baths, and if they will but turn their
+attention to the condition of the river Avon, and rigidly
+enforce the provisions of the Pollution of Rivers Act,
+Bath may again become as popular as it was in the days
+of Beau Nash. The elevation of Bath above the sea-level
+is only about 100 feet. The constituents of the
+Bath water are chiefly sulphate of lime with a little
+carbonate of iron, together with some free carbonic acid
+and nitrogen. It has been called an earthy water, but
+perhaps it is better to regard it as a simple hot water,
+the chief virtue of which is its warmth.</p>
+
+<p><i>Buxton</i>, in Derbyshire, is situated nearly 1000 feet
+above the sea-level in an open hollow surrounded by
+hills. There is good reason to believe that the water of
+Buxton was known to the Romans. The temperature of
+the Buxton water is 82° Fahr. The amount of saline
+ingredients is but small. The water is, however, impregnated
+with a large quantity both of carbonic acid and
+nitrogen gas. The town is amply provided with accommodation
+both for bathing and lodging.</p>
+
+<p>At <i>Clifton</i>, near Bristol, there are springs having a
+temperature of 74° Fahr., and at <i>Mallow</i>, in Ireland,
+is a spring having a temperature of about 70° Fahr., and
+containing, like the water of Buxton, a large quantity of free
+nitrogen gas. A great deal has been written about the
+virtues of free nitrogen in water, but without, as it seems to
+us, sufficient evidence.</p>
+
+<p>There are many hot springs in Europe which are
+very largely frequented by invalids. We can, however,
+do little more than tabulate the chief, indifferent, and
+earthy thermal springs, giving the chief facts concerning
+each.</p>
+
+<p>At <i>Leuk</i>, in Switzerland, situated at the foot of the
+Gemmi Pass, we find a water possessing a natural temperature
+of 102° Fahr. to 120° Fahr., situated 4600 feet
+above the sea-level. The water is indifferent, and it is
+the custom here for bathers to remain many hours consecutively
+in the water. Ladies and gentlemen bathe in
+the same bath, and it is no uncommon thing for the
+bathers to be seen taking their luncheon or playing
+dominoes upon floating tables.</p>
+
+<p>At <i>Pfaffers</i> and <i>Ragatz</i>, near the town of Coire, in
+Switzerland, are found indifferent springs, situated between
+1500 and 2000 feet above the sea-level, and having a
+temperature of 100° Fahr.</p>
+
+<p><i>Gastein</i> is a much frequented and very fashionable
+bath in the Austrian Salzkammergut, some twelve or
+thirteen hours’ drive from Salzburg. The height above
+sea-level is 3300 feet, and the temperature of the water
+varies from 96° Fahr. to 114° Fahr.</p>
+
+<p><i>Bormio</i>, at the foot of the Stelvio Pass, on the southern
+slope of the Alps, has an altitude of over 4000 feet, and
+water of a temperature of 104° Fahr.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wildbad</i>, in the Black Forest, has been for many
+years a favourite bath with the English. The elevation
+is 1300 feet, and the temperature of the water a little
+over 100° Fahr.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wiesbaden</i>, the capital of Nassau, possesses both hot
+and cold springs. The former have a temperature of
+160° Fahr., and contain a fair amount of chlorides. The
+town is beautifully situated among the Taunus Hills, and
+has an elevation of 300 feet above the sea-level.</p>
+
+<p><i>Teplitz</i>, in Bohemia, is a fashionable bathing resort.
+The town is well ordered, and healthfully situated, being
+600 feet above the sea-level, and supplied with natural
+thermal springs, having a temperature ranging from
+78° Fahr. to 120° Fahr.</p>
+
+<p><i>Schlangenbad</i>, among the Taunus Hills, is a quiet
+bathing-place, with a natural tepid water having a temperature
+ranging between 80° and 90° Fahr. The Schlangenbad
+water only contains 2-1/2 grains of solids to the
+pint, so that it may safely be regarded as an “indifferent”
+spring. Sir Francis Head, the author of the ‘Bubbles
+from the Brunnens of Nassau,’ visited Schlangenbad in
+1836, and we feel constrained to make the following
+extract from his work, as typically illustrating the kind of
+belief which gathers round a natural spring:—</p>
+
+<p>“In the history of the little Duchy of Nassau, the discovery
+of this spring forms a story full of innocence and
+simplicity. Once upon a time there was a heifer, with
+which everything in nature seemed to disagree. The
+more she ate the thinner she grew; the more her mother
+licked her hide, the rougher and the more staring was
+her coat. Not a fly in the forest would bite her; never
+was she seen to chew the cud, but, hidebound and melancholy,
+her hips seemed actually to be protruding from
+her skin. What was the matter with her no one knew;
+what could cure her no one could divine. In short,
+deserted by her master and her species, she was, as the
+faculty would term it, ‘given over.’ In a few weeks,
+however, she suddenly reappeared among the herd, with
+ribs covered with flesh, eyes like a deer, and skin sleek
+as a mole’s; breath sweetly smelling of milk, saliva hanging
+in ringlets from her jaw! Every day seemed to
+re-establish her health, and the phenomenon was so
+striking that the herdsman, feeling induced to watch her,
+discovered that regularly every evening she wormed her
+way in secret into the forest, until she reached an unknown
+spring of water, from which, having refreshed
+herself, she quietly returned to the valley. This trifling
+circumstance, scarcely known, was almost forgotten by
+the peasant, when a young Nassau lady began to show
+exactly the same incomprehensible symptoms as the
+heifer. Mother, sisters, friends, father, all tried to cure
+her, but in vain, and the physician had actually</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">‘Taken his leave with sighs and sorrow,<br></div>
+    <div class="verse indent1">Despairing of his fee to-morrow,’<br></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>when the herdsman, happening to hear of her case, prevailed
+upon her at last to try the heifer’s secret remedy.
+She did so, and in a very short time, to the utter astonishment
+of her friends, she became one of the stoutest and
+roundest young women in the duchy.” Sir Francis
+Head goes on to describe how he was conducted along
+subterranean passages to the source of the baths, and was
+astonished to find serpents swimming in the water, and
+still more astonished to hear his cicerone declare, “<i>C’est 
+ce qui donne la qualité à ces eaux!</i>” Schlangen, or
+serpents, are very common in this part of the duchy of
+Nassau, and hence the name Schlangenbad.</p>
+
+<p><i>Baden-Baden</i> is at once one of the most frequented
+and most picturesque baths in Europe. The temperature
+of the water varies from 115° Fahr. to 144° Fahr, and
+the elevation above the sea-level is 616 feet. The waters
+contain only 22 grains of solid ingredients to the pint,
+the chief of which is common salt (16-1/2 grains).</p>
+
+<p>The celebrated hot purgative water of <i>Carlsbad</i>,
+although formerly used for bathing, is now chiefly employed
+for drinking.</p>
+
+<p>Bathing is carried on to a very large extent at <i>Vichy</i>
+(in the Department of Allier, in France), although these
+waters are chiefly used as internal remedies.</p>
+
+<p><i>Plombières</i>, among the Vosges Mountains, has an
+elevation of 1310 feet. The water contains only 2 grains
+of solid ingredients to the pint, but the temperature is
+high, varying from 80° Fahr. to 160° Fahr.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the hot springs at <i>Ems</i>, such as the Fürstenbrunnen,
+with a temperature of 95° Fahr., and the
+Neuequelle, with a temperature of 117° Fahr., are used
+for bathing.</p>
+
+<p>At <i>Aix-les-Bains</i>, in Savoy, 768 feet above the sea-level,
+will be found two hot springs, varying in temperature
+from 106° Fahr. to 116° Fahr. These waters contain
+less than 4 grains of solid ingredients to the pint, but
+one of them, containing an appreciable amount of sulphuretted
+hydrogen, is known as the sulphur spring. Aix
+was known to the Romans, and in the modern town will
+be found every bathing appliance which art can contrive.</p>
+
+<p>At <i>Mont Doré</i> and at <i>Bourboule</i>, in the department of
+Puy de Dôme, in France, at an elevation of 3400 feet
+above the sea, are thermal springs having a temperature
+of 104° Fahr. to 114° Fahr.</p>
+
+<p>Having enumerated the chief warm baths in Europe,
+we will proceed to catalogue some of the best known of
+the salt baths.</p>
+
+<p><i>Droitwich</i>, in Worcestershire, is perhaps the only place
+in England where concentrated salt baths can be obtained.
+The brine of Droitwich is said to contain as much as
+2760 grains to the pint. The town is uninteresting.</p>
+
+<p>At <i>Ischl</i>, in the Salzkammergut, is a concentrated brine
+containing 1900 grains to the pint. It is 2000 feet above
+the sea-level, and the country is charmingly picturesque.</p>
+
+<p><i>Kreuznach</i>, not far from Bingen on the Rhine, has a
+strong salt spring, and is much resorted to by scrofulous
+patients. The mother-lye of Kreuznach is said to contain
+2400 grains to the pint. These strong brines are
+only used after proper dilution.</p>
+
+<p>The water of <i>Soden</i>, in the Taunus hills, contains 160
+grains to the pint; and at <i>Homburg</i> are found several
+springs which have about 90 grains to the pint.</p>
+
+<p><i>Kissingen</i> is a fashionable watering place in the north
+of Bavaria, with an elevation of about 800 feet above the
+sea-level. Here will be found all the accessories of bath
+life. The water contains about 60 grains of solid ingredients
+to the pint.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Wood Hall Spa</i>, near Lincoln, is a salt spring
+containing as much as 160 grains to the pint.</p>
+
+<p><i>Rehme</i>, in Westphalia, is situated on the Cologne and
+Minden railway. The water has nearly 250 grains of salt
+to the pint, and is very highly charged with carbonic acid.
+The natural temperature of the water is 92° Fahr. There
+is every facility at Rehme for administering baths of all
+kinds and of all degrees of concentration.</p>
+
+<p><i>Nauheim</i> is not far from Homburg, among the Taunus
+hills, and possesses a water very similar to that of Rehme,
+having from 170 to 291 grains to the pint, being highly
+charged with carbonic acid, and having a temperature of
+from 80° Fahr. to 94° Fahr. The elevation of Nauheim
+above the sea-level is 450 feet. The salt baths of Rehme
+and Nauheim enjoy a very wide reputation.</p>
+
+<p>Although sulphur waters are not so much used for
+bathing as formerly was the case, this little book would
+not be complete without some notice of the chief sulphur
+springs.</p>
+
+<p><i>Harrogate</i>, in Yorkshire, has been well known for
+more than three centuries, and although the sulphuretted
+hydrogen, by its predominant smell, gives the chief
+character to the Harrogate springs, they have an equal
+claim to be called saline or chalybeate, for they are
+strongly impregnated with salt and with iron, so that the
+taste has been compared to a mixture of rotten eggs and
+the scourings of a gun. The old sulphur spring contains
+137 grains of solid contents to the pint, and is
+strongly impregnated with carbonic acid and sulphuretted
+hydrogen. Harrogate is now a fashionable watering
+place, with every accommodation for visitors. The situation
+of the town is open and airy, and the climate is
+decidedly bracing.</p>
+
+<p><i>Gilsland</i>, in Cumberland, has a sulphur spring of some
+repute.</p>
+
+<p>The Pyrenees is the district <i>par excellence</i> of sulphur
+springs. <i>Baréges</i> is the most famous of the Pyrenean
+baths, situated 4000 feet above the level of the sea. Its
+water, which has a natural temperature of 86° Fahr. to
+111° Fahr., contains only 1·657 grains to the pint, of
+which ·360 grain is sodium sulphide. This becoming
+decomposed on exposure, forms the sulphuretted hydrogen
+which gives the character to the spring. These sulphur
+waters contain a peculiar gelatinous organic substance
+which has been called barégine, and which has been supposed
+by some authorities, but on insufficient grounds, to
+give the peculiar virtue to the water.</p>
+
+<p><i>Cauterets</i>, in the Pyrenees, 3000 feet above sea-level,
+with a sulphur water having a natural temperature of
+98° Fahr. to 130° Fahr.</p>
+
+<p><i>Bagnères de Luchon</i>, 2000 feet above sea-level, with a
+natural hot sulphurous water.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eaux Bonnes</i> and <i>Eaux Chaudes</i>, 2000 feet above the
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>At <i>Aix-les-Bains</i>, in Savoy, one of the springs is
+strongly impregnated with sulphur.</p>
+
+<p><i>Aix-la-Chapelle</i>, in Rhenish Prussia, is 450 feet above
+the sea. The water contains about 30 grains of solid
+contents to the pint, and is strongly impregnated with
+sulphuretted hydrogen.</p>
+
+<p>Any water may be used for bathing purposes, and it is
+almost always the custom for visitors who go to a spring
+for the purpose of <i>drinking</i> the water, to take some <i>baths</i>
+as well, the baths often being composed of the same water
+as that used for drinking. It is not generally believed
+that there is any particular virtue in baths composed of
+alkaline waters, such as those to be found at Vichy, nor
+in purgative waters, like those at Carlsbad, nor in iron
+waters like those at Tunbridge Wells, Spa or Schwalbach.
+Hot bathing, however, may be expected to help the effect
+which it is sought to bring about by taking the water
+internally, and it has not unfrequently been the case that
+the effect of drinking has been attributed to the bathing.</p>
+
+<p>It is worthy of remark that, at some places where
+miracles are claimed to be wrought by the effect of water
+(as, for example, at Malvern), the water used is remarkable
+merely for its great purity and almost absolute
+freedom from mineral ingredients.</p>
+
+<p>It is not a little remarkable that some waters, which
+were formerly used almost exclusively for <i>bathing</i>, are
+now used almost as exclusively for drinking. Carlsbad
+affords an instance of this. The word <i>bad</i>, when used as
+an affix, generally indicates that the water is or has been
+used mainly for bathing. The word <i>brunn</i>, or <i>brunnen</i>,
+however, usually implies that the spring has been mainly
+employed for drinking purposes.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.<br>
+<small>THE USES OF BATHS.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>We do not propose to enter at all fully into the question
+of the place which baths ought to occupy as remedies for
+disease; but we shall merely indicate some of the chief
+conditions for which bathing might reasonably be expected
+to be of service. It has been generally claimed
+for baths that they cure everything; and, in fact, the
+many unfounded assertions as to the remedial powers of
+hot and cold water, which have been made by professed
+hydropathists and others, have done much to bring these
+very useful agents into disrepute.</p>
+
+<p>It proved very puzzling to the acute mind of the author
+of the ‘Bubbles from the Brunnens,’ that the baths
+and waters which he encountered in his travels seemed
+capable of curing everything; and it was difficult to
+understand how patients whose conditions were in no
+way similar should apparently derive equal benefit from
+precisely the same treatment; and perhaps we shall not
+be wrong in assuming that the very healthy mode of life
+which is pursued by visitors to baths has much to do
+with the good results of treatment.</p>
+
+<p>The most common purpose for which baths are used
+is the cleansing of the skin, and the importance of this,
+of course, cannot be over-estimated. When we speak of
+a clean skin we mean a skin with clean pores as well as
+a clean surface. The indolent and luxurious man, whose
+skin is spotlessly clean, but whose sense of the proprieties
+is such that he never indulges in a good vulgar sweat,
+has not, in reality, so healthy and clean a skin as the
+navvy, whose myriad sweat-ducts are constantly being
+flushed by the hardness of his work; but whose skin
+surface, possibly, is soiled with the various grimy particles
+with which his labour has brought him in contact. A
+clean skin is an impossibility without perspiration; and
+if the necessary perspiration be not brought about by the
+ordinary business of life, it is advisable to encourage it
+by artificial means. Hence bathing is more necessary to
+the man of sedentary occupation than to one who knows
+the daily luxury of physical exertion. For the purposes
+of cleansing, the bath should be warm, the skin should be
+well soaped, and a subsequent thorough friction with a
+rough towel should be indulged in. This process has
+the effect of removing the outer layer of the cuticle, of
+softening the secretion lying in the mouths of the sweat-ducts,
+and by the action of the heat dilating the blood-vessels
+of the skin and encouraging perspiration. Its
+utility and its comfort are so well known that there is no
+necessity for making any formal remarks thereupon.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there is no better form of exercise than that
+to be found in a good swimming bath, always provided
+that an open river or the sea is not at hand. The
+swimmer exercises every muscle in his body; and, if
+swimming be vigorously kept up, there is nothing which
+more speedily induces fatigue. For an athlete in training
+a daily swim ought to be a part of his course of exercise.
+We wish there were more swimming baths in London
+than there are. Such as exist are all overcrowded in the
+summer, and in many of them the ventilation is not
+of the best. To take violent exercise in a close, badly-ventilated
+room must be wrong, and we would advise
+no one to patronise a bath which smells in the least
+degree stuffy. Swimming should be practised not more
+than once a day, and about midway between two meals.
+The bather, at the commencement of his course, should
+not remain more than five minutes in the water; and if
+his bath be not followed by a healthy glow, he will
+recognise that even that is too much for him. The time
+of the bath may be gradually extended.</p>
+
+<p>The cold bath in the morning is a luxury of which
+most of us know the value. It cleanses, stimulates, and
+braces; and, if used in moderation, conduces to health.
+A word of caution is necessary to those who use their
+“morning tub” too heroically. The best criterion as to
+the advisability of continuing its use is the readiness and
+completeness of the reaction; and, if there is any feeling
+of chilliness, languor, or want of appetite, with an inability
+to eat breakfast, it is as well to ask whether,
+possibly, the cold bath had better be moderated. Persons
+who suffer from rheumatic pains, or sciatica, or neuralgia,
+ought also to be careful about continuing a practice
+which may be too severe for them. It is always easy to
+add a small quantity of warm water to the bath. There
+can be no doubt that a daily bath is absolutely necessary
+for the health of children who are tender-skinned and
+too young to attend to their personal cleanliness.</p>
+
+<p>There are certain diseases in which cold bathing is of
+acknowledged service:—</p>
+
+<p>Foremost among these is <i>fever</i>, and it is not too much
+to say that many lives have been saved by the timely
+use of the cold bath. The use of it, however, requires
+great judgment and knowledge, and it is not applicable
+to every case, and is not without danger. In this country
+its use is restricted almost entirely to those cases in
+which the fever runs a very severe course, in which the
+bodily temperature rises above 105° Fahr., and the patient
+attains what is technically known as a condition of hyperpyrexia.
+The use of cold baths in fevers has been known
+from time immemorial, although it has only attracted the
+attention of modern physicians during the last ten or fifteen
+years. The usual method of employing this treatment
+is to immerse the patient in a bath of about 90° Fahr.,
+or 95° Fahr., and by means of removal of hot water and
+its renewal by cold, gradually, in about 20 minutes, to
+reduce the temperature to 60° Fahr. In this way the
+temperature of the patient may be reduced as much as
+four or five degrees, and his sufferings are usually very
+much diminished. Cold bathing cannot be said to <i>cure</i>
+the fever, but it prevents some of its worst results, and may
+enable the patient to pass through a trying ordeal unscathed.
+All forms of fever may, occasionally, be treated
+with cold baths; but this method of treatment in no case
+shortens the course of the fever.</p>
+
+<p>Cold bathing is of considerable use in some nervous
+affections, such as hysteria, St. Vitus’s dance, and spasmodic
+croup. These affections often, if not always,
+depend upon a depressed condition of health, and a
+cold bath of short duration (before a fire in winter), and
+followed by a brisk rubbing, is a very efficient means for
+their relief.</p>
+
+<p>Rickets is benefited by cold bathing; but for the relief
+of this and other conditions of weakness the greatest
+moderation must be observed.</p>
+
+<p>Cold water is sometimes of use when locally applied,
+and seems to act as a wholesome stimulant to parts which
+have become stiffened by want of use, such as strained
+and sprained joints. In some skin diseases benefit will
+be derived by the use of cold water. This is particularly
+the case in itching of the skin or <i>Prurigo</i>, and <i>Acne</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Warm baths are far more generally useful in diseases
+than cold baths. For the removal of the thickenings
+around joints, which have been caused by gout or rheumatism
+or “rheumatic gout,” bathing in tepid or hot water
+is justly considered as a powerful means of alleviation,
+and as a valuable accessory to treatment by diet and
+regimen. The hot water of Bath and the tepid water
+of Buxton have long enjoyed a great reputation for gout
+and rheumatic gout, and there are many baths on the
+Continent, which have a reputation, equally high, in the
+treatment of these affections, such as <i>Teplitz</i>, <i>Gastein</i>,
+<i>Wiesbaden</i>, and <i>Wildbad</i>. The treatment of gout by
+bathing is usually aided by the internal administration of
+mineral water, but into this question we are unable to
+enter, notwithstanding its great importance.</p>
+
+<p>For exudations round joints, which have arisen from
+causes other than gout and rheumatism, warm bathing
+is of very great service, as well as in relieving the stiffness
+and thickenings which sometimes occur as the result of
+severe wounds.</p>
+
+<p>For <i>paralysis</i> warm bathing is often of great use, provided
+the cause of the paralysis be a removable one.
+Formerly, the principal method of treating cases of lead
+paralysis occurring in the cider counties of the West of
+England, was the sending of the patient to the warm
+springs at Bath, and the results were generally very good.
+There are many forms of paralysis which could not be
+benefited by treatment with hot water or anything else;
+but it is impossible, in an elementary treatise, to enter
+into a question requiring a high degree of medical
+knowledge for its proper appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>For neuralgia, sciatica, lumbago, and many forms of
+muscular rheumatism, hot bathing may be employed
+with advantage.</p>
+
+<p>For Bright’s disease of the kidneys, warm baths, vapour
+baths, and Turkish baths, are all employed with benefit.</p>
+
+<p>An occasional Turkish or hot bath is a very great aid to
+the well-being of dwellers in cities who get an insufficiency
+of air and exercise, since it produces an activity of the
+skin which can only be brought about by such means or
+by violent exertion.</p>
+
+<p>A common cold may sometimes be cured by means of
+a Turkish bath. To bring about this result, however, the
+treatment must be applied in the very earliest stages of
+the disease, when the slight tension in the head, or a
+trifling feeling of chilliness, is warning the patient of his
+coming trouble, and before the running of the eyes and
+nose has thoroughly set in. A Turkish bath in this very
+earliest stage of a cold will sometimes cut the disease
+short, but such a result is, unfortunately, by no means
+invariable.</p>
+
+<p>Warm baths, as aiding the action of the skin, have been
+regarded as of some value, when combined with proper
+diet and regimen, in the treatment of diabetes.</p>
+
+<p>In diseases of the skin warm bathing is occasionally
+of service. For <i>psoriasis</i> a soaking in hot water has the
+effect of removing the scales from the body, but it has
+probably no real curative influence on the disease. In
+acne, chloasma, and diseases which are fostered by a
+want of attention to cleanliness, warm bathing is of great
+service, especially when aided by a liberal supply of
+soap and the rigorous use of the flesh-brush and rough
+towel.</p>
+
+<p>Although we are all ready, perhaps too ready, to
+recognise the great value of water applied externally, we
+are not always so quick at recognising the evil effects of
+an excessive use of baths.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Hebra, of Vienna, one of the greatest authorities
+living on the diseases of the skin, speaks in very
+decided tones of the occasional harmful action which
+water exerts upon the skin. “It is,” he says, “almost
+universally believed that the frequent use of vapour and
+shower baths, frequent bathing in warm or cold water,
+frequent washing and scrubbing, are healthful operations
+which can never do any harm.</p>
+
+<p>“Against this opinion I must enter my decided protest.
+On the one hand, we know that there are millions of
+human beings who have never bathed in warm or cold
+water all their lives long, who, at the utmost, give their
+hands and face a superficial rinse once a week, and
+nevertheless enjoy up to old age a state of health which
+may well be envied. On the other hand, none can prove
+by statistics that the frequent use of the various kinds of
+baths protect people from sickness, or that washing in
+cold water strengthens the body against catarrh and
+rheumatism and catching cold. So long as bathings are
+accompanied by a feeling of comfort, and are not followed
+by any eruptions on the skin, they may, no doubt, be
+allowed as a pastime, an amusement, an aquatic sport;
+but whenever the skin thus repeatedly irritated begins to
+react—as soon as itching, more or less severe, follows; as
+soon as persistent redness or wheals, or pimples or
+watery heads make their appearance—it is high time to
+leave off bathing and washing if we do not wish to produce
+diseases of the skin, which often take months and years
+before they disappear, and give the patient unspeakable
+misery.”</p>
+
+<p>Simple baths do not irritate the skin so much as when
+combined with shampooing and wet packing and shower-baths,
+or when a vapour bath is made more efficient by
+friction and by the various manipulations of the Turkish
+or Russian bath. The result of such attacks upon the
+skin are seldom long to wait for. Sooner or later a
+continual redness appears, followed by burning or itching;
+then come pimples, boils, and pustules; and though
+in past times these eruptions were regarded as critical
+and beneficial we must now look on them in their true
+light, as simply the injurious results of the action of water.</p>
+
+<p>Hebra has used the warm bath with success in alleviating
+the pain and misery arising from extensive burns
+of the skin, and he has also used it for some of the more
+troublesome of the scaly and itching diseases of the skin.
+Although he seems more alive than most authors to the
+evil effects produced by the irritation of water in cases
+which are unsuited for it, he has, on the other hand,
+surpassed every one in the extensive and continuous use
+of warm water. He says, “I began with two hours, then
+advanced to days, and at last extended the duration of
+the warm bath from one to nine months. I find that
+people can eat, drink, and sleep just as well in a continuous
+warm bath as out of it; that nutrition, respiration,
+and excretion go on as before.”</p>
+
+<p>Hebra asserts that in the external use of water it is a
+matter of small moment whether we apply the water hot
+or cold to the part; that the water soon approximates in
+temperature to that of the part to which it is applied;
+and that in this matter the wishes and inclinations of the
+patient need alone be consulted. With regard to <i>salt baths</i>,
+we may remind the reader that they may be used either
+cold or hot, and that they may thus be used in almost all
+those cases (some skin diseases excepted) in which baths
+of hot or cold water are found useful. When salt is
+added to the water, the stimulating effect upon the skin
+is increased, and the bath may be considered by so much
+the more powerful. Sea water, natural salt waters, and
+even crystals of sea-salt, or common salt added to ordinary
+water, have so firm a place among popular remedies
+that it is almost superfluous to make any formal remarks
+upon them.</p>
+
+<p>It is perhaps in the treatment of scrofulous affections
+that sea bathing and salt water have their greatest reputation.
+The sea-bathing infirmary at Margate is too well
+known, and its work too highly valued to need any words
+of approbation from the author of this Primer. It is
+probable that the inhalation of sea-air has more to do
+with the successful treatment of scrofula than the bathing
+in sea water, although we have no wish to cast a doubt
+upon the efficacy in the treatment of such diseases of a
+systematic stimulation of the skin.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Jacob of Cudowa, in Silesia, has made a series of
+experiments on the power of stimulating the skin which
+is possessed by various kinds of baths. He has proved
+that mud and bran baths of the same consistence produce
+the same alterations in the circulation, which are to be
+regarded as the real expression of the amount of skin-stimulation.
+It has been ascertained also that mud baths
+retain the heat of the bather more effectually than simple
+water baths. A carbonic acid bath is said to have the
+greatest stimulating action on the skin; a saline bath the
+next greatest, and mud and pure water follow next. A
+carbonic acid bath is also said to have the greatest power
+of causing general stimulation and excitement. As to
+the cooling effect of these varieties of baths, Dr. Jacob
+has noted that a water bath of an hour’s duration, and of
+a temperature of 91·4°, lowers the bodily temperature of
+a healthy man about ·9°; the mud bath of same duration
+and temperature 1·5°; the salt bath 2°, and the carbonic
+acid bath about 2·6°.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sulphur baths</i> in former times enjoyed a very great
+reputation in the treatment of skin diseases, gout, rheumatism,
+and the effects of metallic poisons, especially
+lead and mercury. There is, however, probably nothing
+peculiarly beneficial in the sulphur, and the good effect
+of these baths is due more to the heat of the water than
+to anything else. Many of the sulphur springs may
+rightly be regarded as salt waters also, and they have a
+great power of skin-stimulation, a power which adds
+immensely to their therapeutic efficacy. The bather in
+sulphur water is constantly inhaling the vapour of sulphuretted
+hydrogen, and this fact may have not a little
+to do with the good effects of the water. A course of
+bathing at a sulphur spring is generally combined with the
+internal administration of the water, and it is consequently
+a very difficult problem to determine whether the internal
+or external administration of the water has the greater
+effect in producing the desired cure.</p>
+
+<p>Steel baths, or baths containing iron, have fallen almost
+entirely into disuse, and any effect which was formerly
+attributed to the chalybeate water is now with more
+probability ascribed to the water and its temperature.
+The change in this respect is scarcely greater than that
+which has taken place at Carlsbad, where purgative
+waters, formerly used chiefly for bathing, are now almost
+exclusively employed for drinking.</p>
+
+<p>The author of the ‘Bubbles from the Brunnens’ thus
+describes his feelings while taking a steel bath at Langen
+Schwalbach, some forty years ago:—</p>
+
+<p>“As soon as the patient was ready to enter his bath,
+the first thing which crossed his naked mind, as he stood
+shivering on the brink, was a disinclination to dip even
+his foot into a mixture which looked about as thick as a
+horse-pond, and about the colour of mulligatawny soup.
+However, having come as far as Langen Schwalbach,
+there was nothing to say but ‘<i>en avant</i>,’ and so, descending
+the steps, I got into stuff so deeply coloured with the
+red oxide of iron that the body, when a couple of inches
+below the surface, was invisible. The temperature of the
+water felt neither hot nor cold, but I was no sooner
+immersed in it than I felt that it was evidently of a
+strengthening, bracing nature, and I could almost have
+fancied myself with a set of hides in a tan-pit. The
+half-hour which every day I was sentenced to spend in
+this red decoction, was by far the longest in the twenty-four 
+hours, and I was always very glad when my chronometer,
+which I regularly hung on a nail before my eyes,
+pointed permission to me to extricate myself from the
+mess. While the body was floating, hardly knowing
+whether to sink or swim, I found it was very difficult for
+the mind to enjoy any sort of recreation, or to reflect for
+two minutes on any one subject; and as, half shivering,
+I lay watching the minute-hand of my dial, it appeared
+the slowest traveller in existence.”</p>
+
+<p>In the delightful book from which the above quotation
+is taken, no mention is made of the disease, if any, for
+the relief of which the author underwent the unpleasant
+ordeal of the iron bath. The reader, however, will have
+no difficulty in surmising that the good he derived at
+Langen Schwalbach was due more to the change of air
+and scene and occupation than to the disagreeable bathing
+process to which he submitted daily. There is, or has
+been, a great deal of superstition in medicine, and the
+public have, or used to have, a surprising amount of
+faith in nasty medicines. In old dispensatories will be
+found the records of prescriptions into the composition of
+which there entered hideous and nameless abominations,
+and we are very much inclined to think that the lingering
+belief in steel baths, sulphur baths, and mud baths is but
+the remnant of a dying faith in nasty prescriptions, and
+the necessity of doing penance.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.<br>
+<small>A VISIT TO A BATH.</small></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>When the doctor’s fiat goes forth that his patient is to
+visit this or that bath for the benefit of his health, far
+more is implied in the injunction than the mere use
+of water, whether mineral or indifferent, hot or cold. It
+means that the sufferer is to leave his usual place of abode,
+and the climate which may perhaps have been instrumental
+in working him ill; to forsake the numerous causes
+of mental worry and bodily fatigue which may be connected
+with his occupation or his family cares; to bid adieu
+for a while to the cook—good, bad, or indifferent—who
+perhaps has tickled his palate to the ruin of his stomach,
+and the cellar which has daily furnished those wines which,
+gravitating to the toes, have necessitated the big boot
+and the stout staff; to turn his back for a season on all
+that is implied in the words “good society,” and exchange
+all these for something else. Whether that
+exchange will be beneficial or otherwise will depend
+upon the knowledge of the patient possessed by the
+adviser—knowledge, not only of his constitution and his
+ailments, but of his pocket and his inclinations. The
+man of cultured mind, like Sir Francis Head, whose
+diary of life at Langen Schwalbach forms so charming a
+volume, who is able to find amusement in the contemplation
+of human nature, or of natural phenomena, who</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,<br></div>
+    <div class="verse indent1">Sermons in stones, and good in everything;”<br></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>whose resources are within himself, will find his recreation
+everywhere, and provided the place to which he is
+sent be wholesome, he will get all the benefits which are
+derivable from change of scene and air. It would be
+cruel and useless, however, to send the votary of pleasure
+to a resort where art provides nothing for the amusement
+of the guests, and equally useless to condemn a man
+accustomed to a simple country life to mingle all day
+long in a fashionable crowd, intent on artificial joys.
+There is no doubt that on the Continent the arrangements
+for the comfort and amusement of guests visiting
+a bath are more perfect than they are in this country; and
+the invalid who crosses the “silver streak” which
+separates us from the rest of Europe will find a greater
+difficulty in continuing in that groove of existence which,
+mayhap, has been prejudicial to him. On the other hand it
+must not be forgotten that to many persons foreign travel
+is exceedingly distasteful. There are many who know no
+language but English, and whose prejudices are so in favour
+of English manners and customs that they cannot be
+induced to fall in with Continental habits. We remember
+seeing a gentleman at a fashionable bath abroad, whither
+he had been sent for the relief of his gout, who was
+evidently most grievously bored by the process of cure.
+He associated with none, dined alone, and day after day
+partook, in a solitary corner of a restaurant, of a fried sole,
+a mutton chop, stilton cheese, and a pint of dry sherry.</p>
+
+<p>A man who thus carries his own atmosphere with him,
+and who persistently goes against the stream, wrapping
+himself in insular prejudice, will find very little benefit
+in foreign travel or in change of scene.</p>
+
+<p>There are few bathing places, either in this country or
+on the continent, where the drinking of water does not
+hold a position in the “cure” which patients are prepared
+to undergo, at least equal to the bathing. Drinking
+of mineral water and bathing go everywhere hand in hand,
+although at different spas the one or the other method
+of treatment will be found to preponderate. With the
+drinking of water we have, as we have before said,
+nothing, at present, to do; but, although in theory it is easy
+enough to separate the effects of bathing from those of
+water drinking, it is found less easy to do so in practice.</p>
+
+<p>What Epidaurus was in the palmy days of Greece when
+thousands flocked to seek health and recreation at its
+renowned temple of Æsculapius; what Baiæ was to the
+luxurious Romans who came to its famous warm springs,
+impelled equally by fashion and disease; what Bath was
+when at the zenith of its popularity; such is the Badstadt
+of the present time. The throng in the town in the
+height of the season (July and August) is very great,
+and the crowd of visitors is as fashionable as it is cosmopolitan.
+Here are German petty potentates, Russian
+princes, English nobles, and wealthy Americans, by scores;
+and there can be no doubt that the charm of a fashionable
+watering-place like this is by many found in the
+fact that all men are, more or less, upon an equality
+where there is only one fountain from which they all
+must drink, and one source in which they all must bathe.
+The duke, whose pedigree reaches back to the Dark Ages,
+must equally wait his turn with the merchant whose
+wealth is of yesterday’s creation; and in waiting-rooms of
+bath-houses, at tables-d’hôte, and at the brink of healing
+fountains, blood which is of the bluest tint comes into
+very close contact with that which is of other shades.</p>
+
+<p>The town of Badstadt is most charmingly situated
+upon an elevated plateau, some 600 or 700 feet above
+sea-level, and in the midst of delightful scenery, which
+is to be found among the mountains which surround the
+town on every side but one. The mountains are clothed
+to their summits with pine, and these pine woods are
+amongst the most favoured places to which the “cure
+guests” of Badstadt resort. In the depths of the pine
+forest there is always, even in the hottest day, a refreshing
+coolness and an invigorating aroma, and to wander
+here with a book, or a companion and some luncheon, is
+a most pleasant method of killing the sultry hours of
+noon. One day is pretty much like another at Badstadt,
+although here is just sufficient variety to obviate any feeling
+of irksomeness. What will the fashionable Londoner
+think when, at six o’clock in the morning, he finds that he
+can no longer sleep because every one in the hotel is
+already stirring? There is nothing for it but to go with
+the stream, to get up and dress oneself (in the nattiest of
+lounging coats if of the male sex, in the most bewitching
+of light summer costumes if of the female), and away with
+the rest of the world to drink the water at the Betsinda
+Quelle, the most fashionable spring in all Europe. It
+is not seven o’clock, we are nearly four hours earlier
+from our beds than is our wont, the fresh morning air
+is bracing and delightful, the sun has not yet dissipated
+the dew, and yet the whole world of Badstadt is alive.
+Here beneath the trees of the Cur-garten are some
+2000 or 3000 fashionables, all sauntering and talking,
+so that the hum of conversation is audible at a great
+distance, and forms a not inharmonious obbligato to the
+music of the orchestra in the Kiosk which is hard by.
+Few prettier sights than this can be seen or imagined.
+The avenue of limes offers in either direction, a most
+attractive vista; the sunlight comes glinting through the
+fret-work of leaves upon the gravel, creating little dancing
+shadows and lighting up the many and varied colours of
+the ladies’ costumes; the roses in the neighbouring flower-beds
+lend their bright colours to give the eye additional
+pleasure, while their aroma tickles yet another sense;
+and the ear is pleased by a performance, by an excellent
+band, of the best compositions of the best masters. The
+focus, as it were, of all this gaiety is the Betsinda Quelle,
+and most of the guests may be seen to advance to the
+edge of the health-giving fountain, which is enclosed in a
+sunken ornamental basin, and tender a glass for the prescribed
+dose of the water. The water contains a good deal
+of common salt and not much else, and is nearly as nasty
+as sea-water; but it is surprising to see how methodically
+and with how little fuss the <i>habitués</i> get through their
+allotted portion. The physician probably said to this
+or that patient: “You are to drink two glasses of the
+Betsinda, and you are to walk for twenty minutes after
+each glass;” and one may see hundreds, who, watch in
+hand, carry out their directions to the letter. He who
+frequents the springs regularly will soon recognise that,
+morning after morning, the same people arrive at the
+same time, consume the ordained number of glasses and
+disappear. The majority of these, it must be confessed, do
+not appear to be very ill, although here and there may be
+seen some whose faces bear evidence of disease, whose
+limbs are crippled with gout or rheumatism, and who
+accomplish the morning promenade with the aid of sticks
+or crutches, or, in place of walking, perform a cruise upon
+wheels in an invalid chair. Badstadt is above all things
+a pleasant place, and everything has been done that
+money can accomplish to charm the senses and make
+life agreeable. The notables of society are its chief
+patrons, and there can be no doubt that the majority of
+the visitors come here for the season, strange as it may
+seem, that they may meet the same persons that they
+have been meeting earlier in the year in the “Row,”
+upon the lawn at Goodwood, or in the salons of Paris.
+“Good Society,” by which term we mean those wealthy
+and noble individuals who prefer an artificial to a natural
+existence, annually makes itself ill by attending too assiduously
+to its duties. Having risen from its bed some eight
+hours later than the sun; having dined largely every night
+on a mixture of all that is rich and unwholesome; and
+having freely partaken with its meals of all manner of
+liquids other than water; having danced night after night
+in rooms reeking of androsmia (which is polite Greek
+for the “smell of humanity”), and rendered stifling by
+wax lights or gas; having retired to bed just before sunrise,
+and, in short, having shown an unaccountable dislike
+for the light of heaven, and an equally unaccountable
+preference for those wretched and poisonous substitutes
+which our dark northern latitudes have rendered necessary,
+Society takes itself to Badstadt to try the experiment of
+undoing all the mischief which has been brought about
+by its own folly. The morning promenade is an integral
+and most important factor in the Badstadt cure;
+and the potations of salt water have not only a cleansing
+and “alterative” effect, but they damp the appetite a little,
+and help to prevent Society from taking too much food.
+The Badstadt breakfasts are very simple repasts; one
+cup of coffee and delicious bread, butter is not allowed
+except to a favoured few who can find some good excuse
+for being treated exceptionally; eggs are a luxury which
+the local doctors regard with manifest dislike; and
+as for the chops, devilled kidneys, fried bacon, bits of
+fish, cold grouse, dabs of marmalade, and other “necessaries,”
+which Society takes at home, they are not to be
+thought of.</p>
+
+<p>After the frugal repast of coffee and bread has been
+disposed of, a novel or the newspaper serves to wile away
+an hour or so, and then the all-important time for bathing
+is at hand. The baths are of all kinds here, and are
+made of mineral water or simple water, according to the
+fancy of the patient or the prescription of the “Bad-artzt”
+(as the local practitioners are called). Both before and
+after the bath the patient scrupulously observes the
+directions of Hippocrates, and is careful to keep both
+body and mind in a state of complete rest, so that
+sufficient power may be left to thoroughly digest the
+mid-day meal, which the English call luncheon and the
+Germans dinner. With those who are wise this meal is
+as simple as it can be made, and consists of a portion
+of braised or stewed meat, vegetable, and some simple
+farinaceous pudding. As for wine, half a bottle of weak
+Rhenish or Moselle is all that is allowed; visitors being
+especially warned to avoid even the stronger of the
+Rhenish wines, such as Rüdesheimer or Steinberger,
+vintages, towards which those English who have well-filled
+pockets are very apt to gravitate. In the middle of the
+day the Germans habitually take their heartiest meal, and
+towards one o’clock a stream sets in the direction of the
+‘Adler’ or the ‘König Wilhelm,’ where possibly the
+same sixty or eighty persons meet day after day at
+the table d’hôte. These repasts are often regulated by
+the advice of the local physicians, and one great advantage
+of patronising them lies in the fact that it is impossible
+to get viands which are at all difficult of digestion,
+or which are likely to disagree with the waters. After
+dinner comes an open-air concert beneath the trees, in
+the garden of the Cur-haus, and the process of digestion
+is allowed to complete itself in the fresh air, while the
+ears are tickled by the sound of first-rate music.</p>
+
+<p>For those who wish to read, the salons of the Cur-haus
+are always open, and every journal of note which is
+published in San Francisco or St. Petersburg, or any of
+the intermediate cities, is freely placed at the disposal
+of the guests. When we say freely placed we mean
+freely to those who pay the “Cure tax,” a small sum
+which is levied from all who come to participate in the
+enjoyments which are provided by the Badstadters for
+their guests.</p>
+
+<p>The afternoon is devoted to a drive or a leisurely walk
+to the neighbouring forest; and at six o’clock the English
+return to dine; and at seven or half-past seven the
+Germans come home to supper. The <i>cuisine</i> at the
+Cur-haus, being modelled on Parisian lines, attracts many
+of the guests who cannot submit to the Spartan <i>régime</i>
+of Badstadt in its entirety; and there may be seen
+occupying the small tables on the terrace snug parties
+of three or four having just one of those very “little
+dinners” which have been the main cause of that indisposition
+which has made a “cure” necessary. The
+evenings are usually occupied by promenading in front
+of the Cur-haus, and occasionally a display of fireworks,
+or an illumination is provided. There is a theatre
+too, at which the best actors and singers appear during
+the season; but these after-dinner amusements are mostly
+of short duration, and, as a rule, Badstadt retires to bed
+not later than ten o’clock.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it will be seen that life at a bath is spent largely
+in the open air, that the amusements and the routine of
+each day are regulated mainly with a view to health,
+that the diet is restrained within the limits of prudence,
+and that “early to bed and early to rise” is a wise
+maxim, to which a rigid adherence is expected of all
+who come in quest of health to the baths and springs of
+Badstadt. It is not surprising that the Badstadt waters
+should be regarded as a panacea throughout the whole
+of Europe.</p>
+
+
+<p class="c">LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET
+AND CHARING CROSS.
+</p>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75757 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+book #75757 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75757)