THE COLD SHOWER-BATH.
My long experience of ill health, and of dosing and drugging, had led me
to reflect not a little on the causes of disease, as well as on the
nature of medicinal agents; and I had really made considerable progress,
unawares, in what I now regard as the most important part of a medical
education. In short, I had gained something, even by the loss of so
precious commodity as health. So just is the oft-repeated saying, "It is
an ill wind that blows nobody any good."
It was about this time that I began to reflect on bathing. What gave me
the first particular impulses in this direction I do not now recollect,
unless it was the perusal of the writings of Dr. Benjamin Rush and Dr.
John G. Coffin. My attention had been particularly turned to cold shower
bathing. I had become more than half convinced of its happy adaptation
to my own constitution and to my diseased tendencies, both hereditary
and acquired.
But what could I do? There were in those times no fleeting shower-baths
to be had; nor indeed, so far as I knew, any other apparatus for the
purpose; and had there been, I was not worth a dollar in the world to
buy it with; and I was hardly willing to ask for money, for such
purposes of my father.
I will tell you, very briefly, what I did. My father had several clean
and at that time unoccupied stables, one of which was as retired as the
most fastidious person could have wished. In one of these stables,
directly overhead, I contrived to suspend by its two handles a corn
basket, in such a way that I could turn it over upon its side and retain
it in this position as long as I pleased. Into this basket, when
suspended sideways, and slightly fastened, I was accustomed to set a
basin or pail of water; and when I was ready for its reception, I had
but to pull a string and overturn the basket in order to obtain all the
benefits of a cold and plentiful shower.
Here, daily, for almost a whole summer, I used my cold shower-bath, and,
as I then thought and still believe, with great advantage. My
consumptive tendencies were held at bay during the time very
effectually. I was fortunate, indeed, in being able always, with the aid
of a coarse towel and a little friction, to secure a pretty full
reaction.
This season of cold bathing was when I was about sixteen years of age. I
shall ever look back to it as one of the most important, not to say most
interesting, of my _experiences_. Indeed, I do not know that in any six
months of my life I ever gained so much physical capital--thus to call
it; by which I mean bodily vigor--as during these six months of the year
1814.
I may also add here, that it has been my lot all my life long to learn
quite as much from experiment and observation as in any other way. The
foregoing experience gave me much knowledge of the laws of hygiene.
Sometimes, while reflecting on this subject, I have thought of the
assurance of the Apostle John, that he who "doeth truth cometh to the
light," and have wondered whether the good apostle, along with this
highly important truth, did not mean to intimate that the natural
tendency of holy living was to an increase of light and love and
holiness. And then I have gone a step further, and asked myself whether
it was not possible that the doing of _physical_ truth as well as
_moral_, had the same tendency.
I have alluded to experience, or experiment. It is sometimes said that
medical men are very much inclined to make experiments on their
patients. Now, although I have a few sad confessions of this sort to
make hereafter, yet I can truly say, in advance, that while I have made
comparatively few experiments on other people, I have probably, during
the progress of a long life, made more experiments on myself, both in
sickness and in health, than any other existing individual. Whether I
have learned as much in this way as I ought, in such favored
circumstances, is quite another question.