To question Number 1 we should reply: Begin to-morrow.
Question Number 2: Until you are in a glorious perspiration, and all
aches and pains, and all sense of weariness forgotten. From a quarter
of an hour to twenty minutes will be enough at first.
Question Number 3: How often should you take it? Once or twice a week,
or even three times, or whenever required to banish ennui, fatigue,
aches or pains, or incipient cold, or biliousness, or lassitude, etc,
etc.
To question 4, the reply is: The bath must not be taken on a full
stomach, about three hours after a meal is the best time. But those who
dine about six or seven in the evening should take the bath before
_dinner_. People who are engaged all day, may with advantage use it
either before retiring for the night, or after getting up in the
morning, following it by the usual cold sponge. If the cold bath is
forbidden, then the best time is going to bed.
Now comes your last question, (but let me here say parenthetically that
we may be consulted about everything connected with the bath, and baths
of all kinds, or about any ailment, chronic or otherwise, that bathing
in some forms is likely to cure or alleviate.)
What you want then, in order to enjoy the luxury of a bath in your own
room, is first, one of the portable baths; secondly a shallow bath like
the one here depicted; (Plate Four.) Thirdly a good big sponge;
fourthly, a small hand shower bath, cost I believe is 5 shillings from
Messrs. Allen and Sons, (Plate Five); fifthly, a flesh brush; sixthly a
piece of good soap (Pears' transparent tablet is by far and away the
best, and really least expensive in the long run,--it is _so_ well made,
and lasts so long); and seventhly, a few good rough towels.
All being ready, you light your lamp and fix up the apparatus according
to instructions given with every portable bath. The shallow bath is to
be half filled with nice hot water, all ready. After you have perspired
enough, turn out and turn into the shallow bath. Here you are to lather
and sponge, and use the flesh brush well.
Next use the hand shower, or the sponge if you prefer it, filled with
cold water, do not be afraid of this, it is life and luxury combined.
Then to dry, and dress leisurely, to loll on the sofa for a while, and
quietly sip your tea or coffee, while the fresh breeze from an open
window is playing around you. This is indeed enjoyment.
People who use the bath for the purpose of gaining health and strength,
should live temperately, both as regards eating and drinking, take
abundant suitable exercise in the open air, and make use of some tonic,
with now and then a gentle aperient.
Both the tonic and aperient must be carefully chosen to suit individual
idiosyncrasies and cases, but we have seen very much good indeed accrue
from this conjunction of tonics, with mild and suitable aperients while
taking a course of Turkish baths.