[14] This chapter is an abstract of a Paper read at the meeting of the
National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, in Glasgow,
in Sept. 1860.
REVIVAL AND SANITARY PURPOSES OF THE EASTERN BATH.
The Eastern Bath in its essential nature is a well ventilated
apartment, in which the air is heated to an average temperature of 130
degrees of Fahrenheit. The bather sits, or reclines, or stands, in
this apartment, moving about at his pleasure; while the heat, by its
stimulant action on the skin, causes the perspiration to issue from
its seven millions of pores, and to flow over the surface in greater
or less abundance. While the perspiration is spreading in a sheet
over the skin, trickling downwards in lively rills, and falling in
continuous drops from all the salient points of the frame, the bather
gently rubs his body and limbs with his hands; the softened cuticle is
raised in thin flakes, and if the bath be taken but seldom, the cuticle
is rubbed up in such quantity as to form little elliptical rolls,
more or less begrimed with dirt. After the lapse of a certain number
of minutes, varying from twenty to sixty or more, the bather soaps
himself thoroughly; he then receives a shower of warm water, which
washes the soap and impurity from the surface, and is most agreeable
to the sensations. He next has a shower or douche of cold water, which
effects the closure of the gaping pores, and is extremely refreshing.
He then envelopes his body in a cotton mantle or sheet, and retiring
to a cool room, to which the external air is freely admitted, he sits
or reclines, remaining as impassive as possible, until the skin is
thoroughly dried, and feels smooth and satiny in every part. The bather
then resumes his usual dress, and the process is complete.
THE SANITARY PURPOSES which the bath is calculated to fulfil are three
in number, namely:--
1. PRESERVATION OF HEALTH.
2. PREVENTION OF DISEASE.
3. CURE OF DISEASE.
The bath is _preservative of health_, by maintaining a vigorous
condition of the body; a state the best suited for the happiness of
the individual, as rendering him in the highest degree susceptible of
the enjoyment of life; and a state the most advantageous to social
interests, as ensuring the highest working condition.
The bath is _preventive of disease_, by hardening the individual
against the effects of variations and vicissitudes of temperature,
by giving him power to resist miasmatic and zymotic affections, and
by strengthening his system against aberrations of nutrition and
the fecund train of ills that follow disturbance of the nutritive
functions--namely, scrofula, consumption, gout, rheumatism; diseases of
the digestive organs; cutaneous system; muscular system, including the
heart; nervous system, including the brain; and reproductive system.
The bath is _a cure for disease_ when the latter state is already
established, and is a powerful and effective medicine.
These are a general summary of the nature and attributes of the Eastern
bath, which I shall now endeavour to illustrate with more exactness and
in greater detail.
It is an interesting and important feature in connexion with the
revival of the bath in Britain, after a lapse of fifteen hundred
years, that it should have been so eagerly taken up and adopted by the
working classes. Several baths, founded and maintained by working men,
have been established in our great manufacturing towns--among others,
in Bradford, Barnsley, Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, Staleybridge,
Rotherham, and Rochdale; and this fact, together with the general
popularity of the bath among the artisan class, will doubtless lead the
thinking man to recognise in the institution attributes of sterling
value and prospective public utility.
CONSTRUCTION OF THE BATH.
The processes which constitute the Eastern bath--in other words, the
stages of the bath--are three in number, namely:--1. Exposure of the
naked body to hot dry air; 2. Ablution with warm and cold water;
and, 3. Cooling and drying of the skin.--The bath, or thermæ, should
therefore consist of three apartments devoted especially to the three
processes--namely, the hot room, or Calidarium; the washing room, or
Lavatorium; and the cooling room, or Frigidarium. Or, for private
use, two rooms; or one room divided into two compartments, Calidarium
and Frigidarium, would be sufficient; the Calidarium being used as a
Lavatorium after the sweating process is completed.
My friend, Mr. George Witt, of Prince's Terrace, Hyde Park, to whom
I am indebted for my first introduction to the bath, possesses a
bath of the simple construction to which I am now alluding; and as
it fulfils very satisfactorily all the purposes of the bath, I shall
proceed to describe it, by way of illustration of one of the simplest
forms of bath for private use. On the ground-floor of his house he
had a room twenty feet long by ten feet in breadth, and twelve feet
high, with a window looking out upon a lead flat. To convert this
room into a thermæ he divided it into two compartments, by means of a
wall which crossed it at about one-third from its further end. He had
thus two apartments--an outer one, the Frigidarium; and an inner one,
entered by two small doors, outer and inner, in the partition wall,
the Calidarium. To preserve the heat of the Calidarium a lath and
plaster lining was placed inside and at the distance of a few inches
from the wall, and the space between the lining and the wall filled
in with sawdust. The same was done to the ceiling, and the floor was
paved with earthen tiles set on concrete. On the side corresponding
with the exterior of the house a square of thick glass was let into
the wall, and, above and below, were four circular holes three inches
in diameter, and fitted with plugs for the purpose of ventilation.
Further, in the partition wall was a small square of glass through
which a thermometer could be seen from the outside, and a gas-burner
from the inside, enabling the bather to ascertain the temperature
of the Calidarium from the outside without opening the doors, and
supplying a light exterior to the Calidarium when the bath is used in
the evening.
Following this description, it will be seen that the Calidarium or
Sudatorium is simply a closed chamber, with an area of sixty-five
superficial feet, and containing seven hundred and fifteen cubic feet
of atmospheric air, the actual measurements being ten feet long by
six feet and a half wide, and eleven feet high; this chamber being
provided with sufficient means of ventilation through the agency of
the imperfectly-fitting doors, and also the occasional opening of the
doors on one side, and the four holes, already described as existing in
the exterior wall, on the other; and also, supposing the doors to be
more closely shut, between an ingoing current of cold air through the
two lower holes, and an outgoing current of hot air through the upper
holes. Ten persons can take the bath without discomfort, and without
being overcrowded in Mr. Witt's thermæ; I have myself formed one of
nine, but with six or seven the space is more than ample.
Let me now turn to the means of heating the Calidarium. In the
exterior wall, near its bottom, and opening on the lead flat, is a
furnace of the commonest possible construction, and capable, from its
free draught, of burning the commonest combustible material--such
as inferior coal, coal screenings, coke, cinders, and sawdust. This
furnace, encased in brickwork, is carried obliquely for a distance
of four or five feet into the Calidarium; and its flue, following
the angle of the floor, makes the circuit of the apartment. The flue
next ascends perpendicularly for a few feet, crosses the wall above
the brickwork which encloses the furnace, and then makes its way up
the angle of the room to the ceiling, where it escapes by means of a
chimney. The flue, in its course around the room, is raised from the
level of the floor, and separated from the wall by the breadth of a
brick, and consequently presents a free surface on all sides for the
radiation of heat. Its radiating surface is about one foot square, and
its length thirty-five feet. The common temperature maintained in Mr.
Witt's Calidarium is 130° to 140° of Fahrenheit. Mr. Witt tells me that
he has had it as high as 180°; and I have myself been in it, in company
with my friend Mr. Chadwick, at 150° of Fahrenheit.
As the British thermæ is at present in a state of infancy, the question
of construction, in reference to the threefold condition, of size of
apartment, degree of ventilation and temperature, and materials, is
before us for inquiry and research. The common plaster walls of Mr.
Witt's Calidarium answer perfectly: they are not too hot for the naked
skin, as a glazed or polished material would be; and they admit of
cleansing by water, whenever necessary. The red and blue earthen tiles
of his bath give a pleasant holding to the soles of the feet on account
of their roughness, and with the intramural position of the flue never
become too hot. Glazed tiles, although more elegant in appearance, are
too hot for contact with the skin, and require, consequently, to be
trodden on with wooden clogs; moreover, when at all moistened, they
are slippery and dangerous. Therefore, so far as our present means of
information go, it would appear that the more economical materials of
construction answer in every way the best. We are, however, still open
to instruction on these points, as well as in many others appertaining
to the bath, and we shall probably be doing best to adhere as closely
as possible to the Turkish model. Can the furnace, as at present
described, be improved? What combustible material would be the most
economical; taking into consideration the questions of price, of
rapidity of combustion and of deposition of soot in the flue, requiring
more or less frequent cleansing?
The flue in Mr. Witt's bath is constructed of galvanized iron plate,
and is square in form. This flue answers very well, but Mr. Witt does
not approve of iron, because in a hot dry atmosphere particles of the
metal are thrown off and mingle with the air. The best material for the
construction of the flue is earthen tiles or bricks; probably pipes
fitting end to end may, with some modification, be made to answer the
purpose, but heretofore they have been found to split with the heat.
Then, in the case of building a bath, the relative value of bricks,
and especially of hollow bricks, and pierced bricks, and bricks with a
surface finish, come under consideration.
Immediately over the fine passing around the floor of the Calidarium is
a wooden seat; and over the masonry of the furnace, a wooden step and
platform affording additional sitting room. On the platform is a wooden
couch, shaped like a straddling letter W, called the _dureta_ from the
hardness of its material, but in reality forming a most pleasant and
agreeable couch, as the angles of the couch correspond with the joints
of the body when in a reclining position. The dureta was borrowed
by the Emperor Augustus from Spain, or rather from Morocco through
Spain,[15] and contributes greatly to the luxury of the bath.
[15] "Pillars of Hercules."
It is a fault in Mr. Witt's bath that the flue entirely surrounds the
floor of the Calidarium, and consequently crosses the entrance door,
rendering it necessary to the bather to step down from the seat to
the floor of the apartment in going in, and to step upwards in going
out. This arrangement leads to occasional slips, particularly when the
floor is wet; and although unimportant to persons in the full vigour
of health, calls for caution in all, and especially on the part of
those who are in any degree infirm; and becomes a serious impediment
where it is necessary to lift an invalid into the bath. Fortunately
the inconvenience admits of an easy remedy; the flue, when it reaches
the jamb of the doorway, may be carried over the door and so onwards
along the side of the room; or it may be doubled back upon itself and
made to return to the line from which it started, and then carried to
any point of exit that may be suitable. A better material for the flue
is brickwork; and as the intention of the flue is to afford a large
surface for the radiation of heat, the plan has been adopted of making
flues of large size, for example, three or four feet in height. A short
length of a flue of these dimensions is equivalent to three or four
times the length of a flue of one foot square, and its course along two
or three sides of the room affords as much heat as can be required. I
visited lately a small bath in Bell-street, Edgeware-road, in which a
flue of this construction, about three feet in height and nine inches
in width, ran along three sides of the room, and gave out a temperature
of 160°.
In the Turkish bath and in some of the modern British Thermæ the
flues are carried under the floor, constituting a kind of Roman
_Hypocaustum_, and are made to describe a series of parallel rows,
which traverse from side to side and are connected at the ends. A very
high degree of temperature is attained by this arrangement, as in the
private bath of Mr. Stewart Rolland, of Victoria-street, Westminster;
but it presents this manifest objection, namely, that the floor is
so hot as to be unbearable to naked feet or to a naked skin, and is
therefore not without danger to an invalid who may have accidentally
fallen on the ground. Again, where very high temperatures are obtained,
the woodwork of the seats becomes so hot as to render coverings of some
kind necessary. The temperature of Mr. Stewart Rolland's Calidarium,
when fully heated, ranges between 150° and 170°, while with the aid
of a _Laconicum_ he is able to carry his temperature twenty degrees
higher; his couches and seats are, therefore, covered with cotton
sheets having a thick pile; and in place of wood he uses fibrous slabs,
which have a lower conducting power and are less influenced by the
heat. Moreover, in the construction of his walls he employs felt, on
account of its non-conducting and non-inflammable properties, as an
intermediate layer, in place of the sawdust used by Mr. Witt.
From want of space, as I have before remarked, Mr. Witt's Calidarium
becomes his Lavatorium at the conclusion of the sweating process; and
no inconvenience results from this arrangement, because ample time
can be spared for the drying up of the moisture before the bath is
required for use a second time. But where the requisite extent of space
exists, and, as a necessity in a public bath where a succession of
bathers enter and depart, a separate apartment should be devoted to
the purposes of a Lavatorium. And, as the Lavatorium should adjoin the
Calidarium, a few feet of the flue may be introduced into the partition
wall between the two, and made to warm the air of the Lavatorium,
converting it, in fact, into a Tepidarium. The Tepidarium of the
ancient Roman Thermæ was an apartment of an intermediate temperature
between the Frigidarium and the Calidarium, and supplied a transition
medium between the two extremes; warming and relaxing the body on
its way from the Frigidarium to the Calidarium on the one hand, and
qualifying the depression of the temperature from the Calidarium to the
Frigidarium on the other.
Before its escape from the Calidarium, the flue is made to heat the
water which is required for rinsing the body after thorough friction
with soap. For this purpose a tank holding a few gallons of water (Mr.
Witt's tank holds ten gallons) is fixed on a portion of the fine at the
upper part of the bath, and a short descending pipe, with a horizontal
arm fitted at the end with a rose, distributes a grateful shower of
warm water over the bather. Another horizontal arm, with or without a
rose, brings the cold water, with which the ablution is completed, into
the Lavatorium, and is distributed either as a copious shower or as a
descending douche, as the bather may desire. In Mr. Stewart Rolland's
bath I was indulged with an alternate douche of hot and cold water,
which was wonderfully delicious.
The third compartment of the bath (the Frigidarium) may be as large
as convenient, but should be abundantly supplied with the means of
procuring fresh air, and even a current of air; it is not only a
cooling-room, but also a drying-room, for in it the moisture left on
the body is thoroughly evaporated, and the skin becomes smooth and
satiny. The Frigidarium should be furnished with a couch and a few
easy chairs, and as it is intended to be trodden with naked feet, it
should have a clean wooden floor or a mat. Moreover, it is here that
fresh water may be kept for drinking, or the acidulated drinks, or the
sherbet. It is here also that should be found the _Columbarium_, with
its pigeon-holes for receiving the mantles, the sheets, the towels, the
cummerbunds, the combs, together with any other appurtenances of the
bath that may be in use.
Again, in the two or three-roomed bath, a portion of the Frigidarium
may be devoted to the purpose of a dressing-room, Apodyterium, or
_Vestiarium_. Here the clothes may be hung up on pegs as they are
removed, and here shoes and boots should be left, the presence of
shoes being strictly prohibited in the proper cooling part of the
room. In this arrangement we are made aware that among the Romans the
Frigidarium and the Vestiarium were separate apartments, and formed a
portion of that series which Pliny conceived might, with the strictest
economy of space, be comprehended in five or seven rooms, but would be
more completely carried out in nine. The Frigidarium of the Romans,
like the Mustaby of the Turks, was open to the vault of heaven.
Such is the Eastern bath, in reference to the question of construction;
it is either a spare room with a partition, a furnace and chimney,
and a small reservoir of water; or it is an outhouse with a similar
arrangement; or it is five walls, with a roof, erected in a convenient
spot; or it is an elegant "hothouse," pendent to a country villa; or
it may be an architectural wonder of ancient Roman grandeur. In other
words, it may come within the reach of the poor man, at the expenditure
of a few shillings or pounds, or it may be the metamorphosis of
hundreds and thousands of pounds into a palace of magnificence and
luxury. But the poor man's bath will be essentially as perfect as that
of Dives, and he will, if he be wise, carry the balance of cost to the
education of his children. In a small society of neighbours, clubbing
their means, the bath would cost less than the tobacco-pipe; and where
the rules of the Bath are rigidly enforced, as they invariably should
be, the Bath would become a school of moral discipline as well as
physical health, and be a potent counterblast to the public-house.
OPERATION OF THE BATH.
We will now _take_ a bath. We will endeavour to solve the question,
WHAT IS THE BATH? We enter the Apodyterium or Vestiarium; we divest our
body of its clothing; we hang our garments orderly on the apportioned
pegs; we place our boots on the ground under our clothing, pushing
the socks into the boots; we fold the _cummerbund_, a scarf of the
Turkish red twilled cotton eight feet long and eighteen inches broad,
around our hips, or we may prefer a kilt of the same material, or a
pair of short drawers, and we are ready to enter the Tepidarium, if
such there be; or, in the absence of a Tepidarium, the Calidarium. This
is the costume of the Bath, and a costume is indispensable. Without a
costume in the presence of others, the bath is not the bath--it is an
evil, and as an evil it should be suppressed with the utmost severity.
But I am not describing the Bath for those who would abuse it, but
for those only who have the intelligence to apply it to the high and
noble purposes of which it is capable. An addition to the above simple
costume is sometimes made by folding a cotton scarf around the head--a
kind of turban; and the turban has its advantages, as a protection of
the bare head against the extreme heat of the apartment. The turban,
when used by the gentler sex, protects and supports the hair, and the
cummerbund gives place to a loose cotton chemise, that of the Turkish
red twill being the most becoming and appropriate.
We now enter the Calidarium; we are impressed with the sensation of
a most agreeable warmth; we look at the thermometer, we find the
temperature to be 135° of Fahrenheit; we take our position on one of
the seats, or we ascend upon the platform above, and we discover that
a hard wooden couch, the _dureta_, may be the pleasantest couch in
the universe. We look around us; the atmosphere is clear, there is no
haze upon the window, the floor, the seats, and the walls are dry,
and yet there is no oppression to the breathing organs; we breathe as
agreeably as in the open air--nay, those who are ordinarily oppressed
in the air from chronic bronchitis or asthma breathe more lightly and
pleasantly here. But I must explain: I am now describing the sensations
experienced in Mr. Witt's bath, and the freshness of the atmosphere
of Mr. Witt's bath has always been praised by the most experienced
bathers, and by those who have been accustomed to the Bath in the
East. Mr. Witt attributes this virtue of his bath, and with apparent
reason, partly to sufficient ventilation, and partly to the presence of
his warm-water tank in the upper portion of the apartment; the water
of this tank, evaporated by the heat of the flue, descends into the
apartment, and pervades the atmosphere as an invisible vapour--a vapour
which is felt, but not seen; and he further remarks that a similar
effect is not attainable by the introduction of water on the floor of
the bath.
If, after our first entrance into the Calidarium, we place the hand on
any part of our skin, it gives the sensation of coldness, as compared
with the temperature of the apartment. Soon, however, the skin becomes
warm and dry; shortly afterwards it is moist and clammy; and later
still, the perspiration begins to flow with greater or less activity.
The freedom of perspiration follows the known structure of the skin
in reference to the sudatory organs; it is first perceptible and most
abundant on the face and hands, where the sudatory glands are most
numerous and most developed; it succeeds on the chest and shoulders,
then on the rest of the body, and lastly, on the legs below the knees.
The perspiration at first issues from the pores in minute drops, the
drops swell to the size of peas, and the skin looks as if it were
garnished, with crystal beads; the beads run into little rills, and the
rills trickle down the hollow ways of the surface in small streams. It
is at this period that the whole body admits of being washed by means
of the water that issues from itself, and that the secret of the small
quantity of water provided for the baths by the Romans is discovered.
It is when the perspiration commences to flow in abundance, that
the beginner in the use of the bath, or the owner of a susceptible
constitution, becomes aware of an increase of rapidity of the heart's
pulsations; and this sensation is commonly associated with a feeling
of oppression, something approaching to faintness. On the first hint
of this sensation, the bather should retire to the Tepidarium or
to the Frigidarium, and sit there for a few minutes, or until the
sensation has ceased; he may then return to the Calidarium, and upon
each recurrence of the sense of oppression always quit the Calidarium
for the cooler temperature without. The sensation which I am now
describing is the only disagreeable one attendant upon the use of the
bath; it is unknown to the practised bather, and to the strong or
callous constitution, and may be effectually obviated, even in the
most sensitive, by the simple precaution which I have just suggested.
Strange to say, these passages from the hot to the cold temperature are
not attended with a check to the perspiration, they only moderate it,
while the stimulus of the fresh air provides more ample chest-room for
the oxygenization of the lungs.
One of the most curious, and at the same time impressive, of the
phenomena of the bath, is the relative freedom of perspiration of the
educated and the uneducated skin; in other words, of the practised
and the unpractised bather. There are certain persons who have
never perspired, and these persons require a long training in lower
temperatures before they can be admitted with safety to the higher
temperatures; they are also much assisted by the addition of watery
vapour to the hot air, converting it, in fact, into a vapour-bath.
But of the rest of mankind, who present every facility for active
perspiration, but who have never had, or but seldom have, the
skin aroused to its normal activity, the variety in the energy of
perspiration is very remarkable. The practised bather is enveloped
in a sheet of perspiration, while the skin of the beginner is hardly
moist; if the practised bather but raise his arm, the water drips from
his elbows and finger-ends in continuous drops; his cummerbund is
saturated, and the water may be wrung from it as from a soddened cloth,
while the cummerbund of the neophyte is still dry. If the beginner rest
his back for an instant against the wall of the Calidarium, he shrinks
away from it, because of the intensity of its heat; but the practised
bather presses against it with all his force, and receives only the
sensation of an agreeable warmth, because the abundant moisture of
his skin is sufficient to keep the wall cool. The beginner loses the
moisture only of the surface of the body, and feels no resulting
internal sensation; but, in the practised bather, the skin sucks up
the watery fluids from the deeper streams of the sanguine flood, and
the bather thirsts in the operation. He drinks water from time to time
to replenish the waste; pint upon pint is taken into his stomach,
and finds its way firstly into the blood, and then into the sudatory
system of the skin; surely an apparatus of organs and a current of
blood so rinsed by the transit of pure water must undergo an important
purification. To the practised bather the drinking of water during the
perspiration of the body is reviving and necessary, because his blood
has need of water to supply the place of that which has been withdrawn
by the skin, and the amount of need is expressed by his thirst. But
the beginner has no thirst, and he will do well to avoid drinking, as
calculated to increase the labour of perspiration, and likely therefore
to be followed by oppression and faintness.
The time passed in the Calidarium, with the occasional retirements
already mentioned, may vary between twenty minutes and an hour;
_a continuous moderate perspiration of a certain duration_ being
the object which should be kept in view. Besides causing an active
perspiration, the warmth and moisture of the Bath soften the epiderm or
scarf-skin, and by gentle friction with the hand the softened epiderm
is rubbed off in small elliptical cylinders. At the conclusion of the
bath the skin should be gently rubbed over with soap, applied either
with the kheesah or goat-hair glove, or with a wisp of lyf--the white
woody fibre of the Mecca palm, commonly used for the purpose in the
East. After the friction with soap, the body should be thoroughly
rinsed by means of the warm shower-bath; and after the warm shower-bath
follows a shower of cold water, or a cold douche. The idea of a douse
of cold water upon a fully perspiring skin suggests a feeling of alarm
in the minds of those who have not experienced it, or have not thought
upon the matter; but in practice it is inexpressibly grateful to the
sensations, and wholly free from the shadow of danger.
The purpose of the cold douche is to cause a sudden shrinking or
contraction of the skin, and this contraction closes all the pores, and
tightens and braces the cutaneous vessels. The process is necessarily
accompanied with a trifling amount of cooling of the surface, and the
bather remains in the Calidarium for a few minutes longer, until this
coolness has passed away, and the skin is everywhere warm to the touch.
He then leaves the Calidarium, and enters the Frigidarium. When the
bather possesses a separate Lavatorium, the process of soaping, with
the subsequent ablutions, is performed in that apartment; and, being
accomplished, he returns to the Calidarium to recover his warmth, and
is then ready for the Frigidarium. The warming of the body after the
cold douche is thus shown to be an important part of the bath--as, in
fact, is every process, howsoever trivial each may seem when considered
separately and by itself.
On entering the Frigidarium the bather is enveloped in a large cotton
sheet or mantle, which covers him from the head to below the feet; he
lies or sits down, enclosing each limb in a separate fold of the sheet,
and he wipes his face and head with a dry napkin, or with a corner of
the sheet. He then remains perfectly tranquil and quiescent, the sheet
absorbs any excess of moisture, and the accumulated heat of the body
disperses the rest. After fifteen or twenty minutes he exposes an arm
to the air; then both arms and the upper part of the trunk of the body;
then the lower limbs; bringing every part of the skin in succession
into relation with the cool air or cool breeze of the apartment. Of
course, where an attendant is attached to the bath, the investiture
with the mantle, the wiping of the head and face, the wrapping of the
separate limbs, and the packing of the body, are performed by such
attendant, or one bather performs the office for another; but where the
bather is alone, he finds no difficulty in doing it all for himself.
The cooling and drying process, which is the special use of the
Frigidarium, is regarded by experts as not the least important part of
the curriculum of the bath. It is here that the moisture is dissipated
from the skin by the heat of the body, that the bather recovers from
any little physical exhaustion that the processes of the Lavatorium
may have occasioned, that the skin is brought into contact with the
open air, and imbibes its oxygen; that the man becomes sensible of
a delicious repose of the nervous system, and an equally agreeable
restoration of his powers. If the quiet impassibility of the Roman, or
the listlessness of the Turk, is to be imitated in the preceding stages
of the bath, it is doubly deserving of imitation here; calm, repose,
dignity, thankfulness, should fill the soul of the bather while in the
Frigidarium. When his skin is perfectly dry, but still warm, smooth,
and satiny to the touch, then, and then only, slowly and leisurely, he
should begin to resume his usual clothing. If he dress too soon he will
be apt to break out into a perspiration while putting on his clothes,
or after quitting the bath; in which case he will be in danger of
taking cold, and frustrating the benefits of the bath.
SANITARY PURPOSES OF THE BATH.
In reference to the sanitary purposes of the bath, I assume that it is
Preservative of Health; that it is Preventive of Disease; and that it
is also Curative of Disease.
The mode in which its power operates in the fulfilment of these results
is by the production and maintenance of a healthy skin. A healthy skin
I therefore assume to be the end and aim of the bath; and to support my
argument it will be necessary that I should point out the importance
of a healthy skin in the animal economy, and those conditions and
circumstances of common life that tend to deteriorate its structure and
function; to show, in fact, why the skin is worth preserving, and how
its preservation in a state of health conduces to the health of the
entire organism.
The skin, from its large extent, deserves to be ranked among the great
organs of the body, and belongs especially to that group that are
commonly called emunctory--in other words, the cleansers or purifiers
of the blood. In this sense it ranges side by side with the liver
and kidneys; and, all things considered, it would be a difficult
problem for any physiologist to solve, to determine which of the three
deserves to stand before the others in importance. These three organs
are sometimes called the scavengers of the body; and they may with
considerable truth be regarded as three great and important systems of
purification and drainage.
Now, if to drain the system of its impurities, to cleanse and purify
the blood of the animal economy, three grand systems of drainage are
required, the inference is plain, that one would not be enough--that
two might perform the office, but with a strain upon the machinery. But
to be perfect, to perform the office completely and efficiently, to be,
in fact, in health, to constitute health, all are needful. Therefore,
if in the course of these observations I can show that one of these
scavengers is weakened in its powers, and being weakened in itself,
throws an additional degree of labour on the remaining two; if, in
fact, our present mode of management of the skin tends to deteriorate
its powers as a purifier of the body, and consequently produces a
strain on the liver and kidneys, which leads to their deterioration and
disease, I shall, provided I can also show that the bath preserves the
health of the skin, make out a _primâ facie_ case in favour of the bath.
But it is not as an emunctory or purifier only that we must regard
the skin; its influence and power have a wider range of action in
the maintenance of health. Besides comprehending a vast system of
drainage tubes, which open on the surface by seven millions of pores,
and which in actual measurement would stretch over nearly thirty
miles if laid end to end; besides this, which belongs to its purely
emunctory function; besides, also, a wonderful and perpetual labour,
by which the skin is drawing from the blood certain organic elements
in the fluid state, and converting them into solid organic formations,
which are known as cells and scales, these cells and scales being the
tesselated mosaic with which the skin is finished upon the surface, so
as to render it capable of existence in the atmosphere of the external
world; besides this, and much more, unnecessary in this place to
detail, the skin is converted into a kind of sponge by the myriads of
bloodvessels which enter into its structure--bloodvessels, that many
times in an hour bring the whole--ay, every drop--of the blood of the
body to the surface; bring it that it may furnish the materials for
the microscopic pavement; that it may be purified by the abstraction
of its unwholesome principles; that it may breathe the vital air of
the atmosphere without;--besides this, also, the skin near its surface
is one vast network of nerves--nerves, mysterious organs, that belong
in their nature to the unknown sources of the lightning, the electric
currents of the universe. And, besides these again, there is every
variety of animal tissue and contrivance by which all this apparatus is
held together and maintained in the best state and position to ensure
its safety and perfection. In truth, the contemplation of the structure
and functions of the skin, when viewed with the eyes of the mind, is
almost overwhelming; and as we gasp breathless, to gain an instant of
reflection, the words of the Poet break upon our memory:--
"In human works, though labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;
In God's, one single can its end produce,
Yet serves to second, too, some other use."
One word more as to the importance of the skin in the animal economy,
and that word a summary of its functions and principal vital
attributes. The skin is a "sanitary commissioner," draining the system
of its impurities; it is an energetic labourer, in that perpetual
interchange of elements which in its essence constitutes life; it is
a regulator of the density and fluidity of the blood; it performs the
office of a lung in supplying the blood with oxygen, and abstracting
its carbon; it changes the crude organic elements of the blood, so
as to render them capable of nutrition; it emulates the heart in
giving speed to the circulating blood; it is the minister of the brain
and spinal marrow in its properties of sensation; and it feeds and
nourishes, and keeps in the highest operative condition, that part of
the nervous system which is confided to its care. Viewing the skin
in this way, and recognising its just claims to consideration as an
important animal organ, we are led to the conclusion that the skin is
a part of the digestive system, like the liver and kidneys, by virtue
of its emunctory and nutritive powers; it is an appendage of the heart
and a part of the system of circulation of the blood; it is a surface
lung, a breathing organ; and it partakes of man's intellectual nature
by its close connexion with, and dependence on, the brain. In the
lower animals, the skin combines in itself alone, the feeling, seeing,
smelling, hearing, and judging organ.
The structure of the skin--with its drainage tubes requiring a free
exit; its streams of blood seeking for oxygen from the air; its nerves
demanding the contact and stimulus of the atmosphere--obviously points
to the relation which should subsist between man and the external
world--to the fact that his natural and intended state is one of
nakedness. Certain portions of the skin, in different parts of the
world and among different nations, are commonly exposed to the air as
Nature doubtless intended the whole body to be. Our faces and hands; in
women, the neck, and often the shoulders; among the Highlanders, the
lower limbs; these portions of the body are naked, are unblushingly
exposed; and, as we all know, without inconvenience. Who ever feared
to take cold because his hands and his face were open to the free
air of Heaven? What lady ever complained of inconvenience resulting
from her _décolleté_ shoulders at an evening party or the opera, or
even from the bitter draughts of night air that frequently close
those entertainments? Who ever heard of a Highlander suffering from
rheumatism in the knees? That charming friend and companion of our
youthful dreams, Miss Jane Porter, who was always taking colds from the
slightest exposure of her skin to the air, once said to her brother,
who was a physician,--"How I wish that my skin were all face?" "Try and
make it all face," was his reply. And she partially succeeded; but for
complete success she wanted the knowledge of the Turkish Bath.
The bath has the property of hardening and fortifying the skin, so as
to render it almost insusceptible to the influence of cold. The feeling
after quitting the Calidarium is one of defiance of cold; the bather
has a longing for the cool air of the outer world, and with no other
covering than his cotton mantle, a lawn or a terrace would be his
chosen resort if the opportunity were within his reach. In the hands of
Mr. Urquhart, the bath has presented us with one remarkable instance
of the power of endurance of the skin developed by its aid. A fine,
athletic child of five years old has been brought up in the bath, and
has never worn other clothes than a loose linen garment. He is a sturdy
little fellow, with the independence of deportment of an Indian and the
symmetry of an Apollo. He was met one wintry day, when the snow was on
the ground, walking in the garden, perfectly naked. "Do you feel cold?"
inquired his interlocutor. "Cold!" said the boy, touching his skin
doubtfully with his finger, "yes, I think I do feel cold." That is, he
felt cold to his outward touch, but not to his inward sensations, and
it required that he should pass his finger over the surface of his body
as he would have done over a marble statue to be sure, not that he was
cold, for that he was not, but to be convinced that his surface felt
cold.
That the skin of man can support the temperature of a climate such
as that of Britain, when trained to it from the cradle, is perfectly
clear; our forefathers, the ancient Britons, wore no clothes. The Roman
invaders of Britain tell us of the "naked savages of Scotland." The
inhabitants of the Tierra del Fuego at Cape Horn, a country colder than
Britain, have no other clothing than a hide which they hang on their
windward shoulder; and their children may be seen, perfectly naked,
gambolling on the sea-shore, and scrambling in the bottoms of the boats
that come off to the passing ships. The mother of the little Apollo I
have already described called the attention of a friend to the warmth
of her infant's feet, and with the remark, "While my old nurse was
with me, the child's feet were always cold, because she insisted upon
covering them up with socks; but now that I leave them exposed to the
air, they are constantly warm."
I need scarcely say more to prove that the bath gives endurance, and
that endurance fortifies the individual against a very prevalent cause
of disease in this climate--namely, colds and affections of the chest
and lungs. A Doctor of Divinity whom I frequently met in Mr. Witt's
Bath, told me that during the winter-time he was scarcely ever free
from colds, often so severe as to lay him up for several weeks, and
that he also suffered from attacks of neuralgia; but that, since he had
adopted the use of the bath twice a week, all disposition to colds and
neuralgia had ceased; and, for the first time in sixteen years, he had
passed the winter without a cold.
It is impossible, therefore, to avoid the conclusion that the close
clothing of the body from the moment of birth, and the continuance of
the process throughout our lives, must tend to prevent the proper and
healthy development of the skin and also to debilitate it; and that the
opposite course, of exposing the skin to the air, and promoting its
natural functions by means of the bath, must have the contrary effect
of hardening and strengthening the skin and rendering its functions
more perfect.
In the bath we learn to distinguish by the eye and by the touch, the
weak and the strong, the unhealthy and the healthy skin; we find the
former pale, soft, flabby, wrinkled, sordid, starved, and morbidly
sensitive; while the latter is pink, hard, firm, elastic, smooth,
clear, sensible, and well nourished. When the fingers are drawn
forcibly over the skin of the practised bather, the white streaks
caused by the pressure are instantly restored to their pink hue when
the pressure is relaxed; the sanguineous stream seems to follow the
pressure like a surge and instantly obliterates its effects; and the
skin recoils with a snap like India-rubber when it is pulled away from
the body and suddenly released. In the bath there are no wrinkles and
no decrepit age; the skin becomes firm and elastic; it recovers its
colour and its smoothness; it fits close to the muscular frame beneath,
instead of falling away from it in grim festoons; its hues are selected
from the palette of youth. But this is not all: as the skin regains
its health, the hair returns upon the scalp of the bald; and white
hairs which have crept untimely and unbidden among the dark locks of
mid-age, shrink away from the sight, and seek a more suitable and more
unwholesome roost.
But these visual appearances of the skin, which obviously indicate its
unhealthy external characters, also denote a deficient and imperfect
circulation of the blood; a deteriorated sensibility; a defective
cell-formation and secretion; an exhausted tone and vigour.
In respect of one of these qualities--namely, healthy sensibility of
the skin--I met in the bath with a curious and unexpected illustration.
When I was invited by Mr. Stewart Rolland to pass from his Calidarium
at a temperature of 170°, into his Laconicum, in which the actual
temperature was 190°, but the sensible temperature some degrees higher,
in consequence of the presence of watery vapour, I was suddenly made
aware that the skin of my body had lost its power of appreciating
the higher degrees of heat, and that my face and hands were my only
reliable monitors of the actual elevation of the temperature.
To the face and hands the temperature was for a moment almost scalding,
but my body was sensible of no inconvenience. Had I been asked, before
I made this experiment, what part of the body would have suffered most
from the extreme heat, I should have said, the skin of the trunk of the
body, because this is naturally the most sensitive from being covered
and protected by clothing; but I was unprepared to find the real fact
in the very reverse of this--to learn that the skin of the trunk of
the body had lost its power of sensibility; in other words, had become
partially paralysed from disuse of its proper functions.
In a word, the habit of clothing the body, of keeping it shut in
from the air and from the light, weakens the nerves of the skin
and consequently the natural and healthy sensibility of the organ.
Although I could not appreciate the extreme heat of Mr. Rolland's
Laconicum, I should have suffered acutely from a scratch, a pinch,
or a blow on the bare skin: but the habit of the bath would reverse
this unnatural sensitiveness, the skin would learn to appreciate truly
instead of mendaciously; and blows, or pinches, or external injury,
unless very severe, would cease to be felt as an inconvenience or an
annoyance. The little boy bred in the bath complains of no hurt when
he is accidentally struck or when he tumbles; and that which would be
punishment to another boy is none to him. This, we see, must be the
natural state of the skin, otherwise the Indian could no more exist
without clothes than the lobster without his shell.
Another phenomenon of the bath shows the power of increased firmness
and solidity and strength which the texture of the skin acquires by its
use. A person unaccustomed to the bath bruises without any great force,
and the discoloration of the bruise, occasioned by the escape of blood
from its vessels and the dispersion of the blood in the texture of the
skin, lasts for a considerable time. Indeed, we know of some skins that
bruise upon the most moderate pressure, even without a blow. But the
practised bather does not bruise, excepting from serious injury; and,
when he does bruise, the discoloration is rapidly dissipated.
The power of influencing the skin by education is also shown in the
degree of facility with which perspiration is induced in the bather.
In the practised bather the perspiration comes almost at call; it
comes soon, freely, abundantly: but in the neophyte, the perspiratory
fluid is slow to emerge from its pores; it comes unwillingly and in
insufficient quantity. Each succeeding bath, however, exhibits an
improvement; and, in time, the perspiration obeys the word of command
in the pupil as well as in the master.
I have assumed for the skin the possession of a power of nutrition, and
have in this way brought it into the category of the digestive organs;
let me explain:--Nutrition, in its essence, is that interchange of
material, by the influence of which the old material is removed and
new material is deposited in its place. Now, the emunctory function of
the skin obviously results in the removal of the old material from the
body, and in proportion to the energy and completeness of its removal,
will be the eagerness of the tissues to take up new material from the
blood. If the skin be in the torpid and atrophied state I have already
described as the consequence of our present habits of life, this source
of interchange, of nutrition, will be valueless: but if, by improving
the health of the skin through the agency of the bath, or by any other
method that can be devised, we render its function more active and
energetic, we necessarily make nutrition also more active and complete.
The accomplishment of this object is the basis of that process known
by the name of _training_, by which animals are brought into the
highest state of condition and strength. It is for this that the
racehorse is galloped, and sweated, and often purged; for this, also,
the prize-fighter, the prize-rower, and the prize-cricketer are made
to go through a similar ordeal. It requires little argument to show
how admirably the bath is suited to this purpose; the sweating, the
cleansing, the strengthening of the blood, are obtained in the bath,
without effort and without exhaustion; and the system is brought into
that state which, above all, is most favourable for the absorption
of new and nutritious material. The bath has been already applied to
the training of horses, and before long will be used in the training
of men. The Romans kept their army in health and strength by means
of the bath; and the bath might, on the same principle, be adopted
with advantage under all those circumstances in which bodies of men
are assembled together, temporarily or permanently, as in barracks,
prisons, schools, factories, &c.
In the gas factories and metal-smelting houses, and probably in other
trades where men are exposed to great heat, a plan is adopted which
has considerable physiological interest, and is specially illustrative
of the nutritive capabilities of the bath. In the retort-house, the
stokers are kept for many hours in a deluge of perspiration; the drain
is consequently very active, and it is necessary to supply the loss
occasioned by that drain by means of drink. With this object, each man
is allowed a certain quantity of oatmeal daily: the oatmeal is served
out by the foreman, and is scalded with hot water and made into thin
gruel; this is the drink with which the men supply the place of the
perspired fluid. They give forth, in the shape of perspiration, water
holding in solution the used and useless materials of the frame, and
they receive in return a wholesome nutritive material. Can we wonder
that these men are perfect Athletæ in form, that they are in the finest
possible condition for labour; and that, although working in buildings
open to every draught of cold wind, and bathed in perspiration, they
never, indeed they cannot, take cold.
Let us apply this lesson of the retort-house to the ill-nourished,
weakly invalid; or, better still, to weakly, ill-conditioned children.
Let us suppose that we have the power, by an easy, pleasant process,
of extracting the old, the bad, the useless, even the decayed and
diseased, stuff from the blood and from the system by means of the
bath; how simple the operation by which we could give back in its
place wholesome and nutritious material.--Where would be atrophy and
scrofula, if we had this power?--and this power is, I believe, fast
approaching, fast coming within our reach, by means of the Eastern
Bath. We squeeze the sponge as we will; we replenish it as we will.
The faculty of preventing disease, as exercised by the skin, besides
being indirect and operating on the general health of the body, is also
direct. The skin repels the depressing effects of cold, of alternations
of temperature, of extreme dryness or moisture, by virtue of its own
healthy structure; by its intrinsic power of generating heat; and it
also repels other causes of disease, such as animal and miasmatic
poisons, by its emunctory power, which enables it to convey them
directly out of the body. In unwholesome states of the atmosphere, in
an atmosphere of malaria, which must necessarily pass into the body
with the inhaled air, and being in the lungs must be absorbed by the
blood, we naturally inquire by what means we escape the morbid effects
of such malaria? The answer is:--the malaria is conducted out of the
body as rapidly as it is introduced, by the emunctory organs--by the
liver, kidneys, and notably by the skin. If the powers of the skin be
weak, then the poisons are detained in the blood, and disease is the
result; but if the skin be healthy and active, then they can do no
evil; and ultimately they become innocuous. Thus the bath, by conducing
to the health of the skin, becomes a direct means of preventing disease.
Reasoning, on the same premisses, shows us how the bath may be
employed in the cure of disease. We can, at our will, so far excite
the emunctory power of the skin as to make it the means of carrying
off the elements together with the seeds of disease. If we wish to
comprehend the operation better, we have only to watch Nature's own
processes. A morbid poison is in the blood, it produces a shock to the
whole system, that shock is represented by a chill; next to the chill
succeeds a fierce fever, which marks the furious battle waged between
the poison and the blood; then follows the perspiration, which hurries
the contending poison out of the system; the perspiration, for the
time being, is the cure. The observation of this well known series of
symptoms suggested to the inventive mind of Mr. Urquhart the notion,
that by raising artificially, as by the bath, the temperature of the
body above fever-heat, the proper stages of fever might be stepped
over; the chill fit would pass at once into the hot fit, and the hot
fit be resolved by perspiration. The suggestion is worthy of mature
thought.
Let me conclude with a brief summary of the sanitary views which it
is my aim to inculcate in this essay.--I have endeavoured to show the
importance of the skin as an independent organ endowed with sensation,
circulation, powers of nutrition, and powers of elimination. I have
viewed it in its relations to the rest of the animal economy--the
digestive organs, the heart, the lungs, and the brain--with the purpose
of showing its influence on these organs. I have regarded it in its
natural state, as full of vigour, and possessing the properties of
healthy colour, texture, sensation, and secretion; and in the unnatural
state to which it has been brought by the perpetual use of clothing,
wherein its colour, texture, sensation, and secretion are unhealthy,
and its power of generating heat lost. I have explained the manner of
operation of the bath on the skin, both in its healthy and unhealthy
state; how, in the former case, it is a direct preservative of the
health of the skin, and, through the skin, of the entire organism;
and, in the latter, that it possesses the power of restoring the skin
to a state of health: further, that the bath may be made the means
of preventing disease, and an adjuvant in its removal when already
established.