Sea bathing

“ Effects of Sea Bathing.—Sea bathing is much more tonic than all other kinds, and the reason is simple. The salt has a slightly irritating effect on the skin, which is very beneficial. Besides, sea bathing is always accompanied by the best of exercise, by relaxation and freedom from the ordinary cares of life, by a change of climate and scene. The beating of the waves against the body also has an exhilarating effect. The bath in the sea should be taken about three hours after breakfast. There are three stages experienced in the cold bath—first, that of depression ”

“ It is the most lovely and retired spot in the universe for a “quiet dip.” And, reader, here let me inform you, that bathing in our American ponds, and bathing in the surf at the sea-side, are two different things. In the latter case you go habited in a night-gown, striped like a state’s-prison bird, and with many an “oh!” and “ah!” you feel your way over the moist cool sand. At length you see the tall wave lifting itself up like a rearing war-horse, and with silver-mane flashing, and azure-breast dashing, on it comes. ”

“ During the fashionable season the town is visited for sea-bathing, and excellent accommodations are now provided, bathing-machines having been introduced, and the private baths rendered most convenient. They stand in a large reservoir of sea water, which is changed at every tide, and supplied with fresh water every hour, by a contrivance on the principle of a natural syphon. In some of these baths, the water is made hot for invalids, who, if they have neither strength nor courage to plunge themselves into the water, are assisted with a chair. ”

“ Sea-bathing differs from out-door fresh-water bathing in the greater specific gravity of sea-water and its consequent greater buoyancy and more uniform temperature, while the pure air, sunshine, and better sanitary surroundings of sea-side places contribute largely to the results. ”

“ For sea bathing, however, it is far better, no matter how good a swimmer one may be, to have a boat in attendance. Before bathing in any strange place, the swimmer should make himself acquainted with the currents and the direction of the tide. When the tide is going out the course should be made along the coast, close in shore. ”

“ Immediately after emerging from the bath, the patient should be thoroughly dried and dressed and then moderate exercise should be taken to induce reaction. If the reaction is slow, a mild stimulant may be taken and the duration of the bath must be diminished the next time. When sea-bathing is beneficial improvement is soon manifested. The blood becomes richer, the whole system is strengthened and the functions are performed with more regularity. To the rich, sea-bathing is a luxury, but it is a remedy beyond the reach of the poorer classes unless they live near the sea-shore. ”

“ Although a baby under two years should never be given a sea bath, a word of caution about sea bathing for young children may not be amiss. The cruelty with which well-meaning parents treat young, tender children by forcibly dragging them into the surf, a practice which may be seen at any seaside resort in the summer, can have no justification. ”

“ Summer and autumn are the best seasons of the year for cold sea bathing—August and September being the best months. To prepare the skin for the cold sea bathing, it would be well, before taking a dip in the sea, to have on the previous day a warm salt-water bath. It is injurious, and even dangerous, to bathe immediately after a full meal; the best time to bathe is about two hours after breakfast—that is to say, at about eleven or twelve o’clock in the forenoon. The bather, as soon as he enters the water, ought instantly to wet his head ”

“ Sea-bathing is useful both as an exercise and for the effect upon the sluggish peripheral circulation, but the slothful life at the seashore, with over-indulgence in eating and drinking, is a source of more harm than good. Warm baths, and cold douches to the abdomen, compresses of cold water or of alcohol, the cold douche to the spine while in the hot bath, are all beneficial. Massage for women, children, and feeble persons takes the place of exercise. ”

“ The benefit of sea bathing comes not from the salt in the air or in the water, as some people suppose, but simply from the cold water. The reaction from the dip into the cold water, which is brought about by the blood rushing to the surface to supply the heat which has been taken from it by the application of the water, is one of the most valuable of all curative processes. ”

“ Bathing in a quiet stream or lake is apparently harmless, but sea bathing, if the surf is rough, is inadvisable because of the impact of the waves upon the abdomen and the general violence of the exercise. ”

“ All of this trouble and swindling might be saved if people would only consider for a moment the fact that all the benefit they obtain from bathing is derived from the exercise, the temperature, 147and pure water, and not from any impurities which the water may chance to contain.
Sea-bathing is usually overdone. More benefit will be gained by one or two daily baths than by a half-dozen. Fifty baths in a single week are not equivalent to a single bath each in fifty weeks. ”

“ PLAN TO BE PURSUED WITH THE DELICATE AND STRUMOUS.—If a child is of a delicate and strumous constitution, the cold bath during the summer is one of the best tonics that can be employed; and if living on the coast, sea-bathing will be found of singular benefit. The effects, however, of sea-bathing upon such a constitution must be particularly watched, for unless it is succeeded by a glow,—a feeling of increased strength,—and a keen appetite, it will do no good, and ought at once to be abandoned for the warm or tepid bath. The opinion that warm baths generally relax and weaken, is erroneous ”

“ Many bathers by remaining a long time in the water do themselves great injury. If sea bathing be found to be invigorating—and how often to the delicate it has proved to be truly magical—a patient may bathe once every day, but on no account oftener. ”

“ Young girls suffering from disturbances of their general health dependent upon a scrofulous or rachitic habit of body may with advantage be sent to brine baths, especially to such as are situated in the Alps or other mountainous regions. These weakly, lymphatic, scrofulous girls, suffering from scanty or irregular menstruation, may also practice sea-bathing with advantage, especially at watering places on the sea coast, where the waves are powerful. ”

“ When the resisting and rallying power and the circulation generally are weak, as shown by shivering, coldness of the extremities, and sense of exhaustion, river or sea bathing should be given up. So, too, persons whose lungs and hearts are weak, and above all those who have any actual diseases of those organs, should not attempt it. There is a general tendency among those who enjoy outdoor bathing to stay in the water too long. Boys in summer remain for hours at lake or river side, most of the time in the water. ”

“ The surf, too, was much discolored with sea-wrack and the nameless rubbish it is always turning over and over. Groups of bathing-houses were dispersed along the upper margin of the strand. [Pg 383] They are not much larger than, and bear a strong resemblance to, sentry-boxes. When feasible, bathing is regulated by signals, flags of different colors being used to designate the hours assigned to males or females. The floor of the beach is hard and gently shelving. There being little tide, a plunge into the sea may be enjoyed without danger from quicksands or under-tow. ”

“ Salt-water is more energetic in its action on the skin than fresh, and, after a dip in the sea, there is not the same liability to take cold from insufficient drying as after a fresh-water bath. Some bathers go so far as to habitually only half-dry themselves, the saline particles left on the skin further exciting its action, and producing a healthy and more vigorous glow. ”

“ Bathers can be supplied with a bathing dress, and have it washed, but most people naturally prefer to have their own habiliments.
Bathing is the great occupation of the visitors. Many bathe twice a day, and some, I believe, all the year round, wind and weather permitting. The sea is full of saline particles, and is usually warm, while the atmosphere is also warm and salubrious, so that bathing is even advantageous to those who dare not venture on it in the British Isles. Unless the wind be blowing, say, from the north-west, it is almost always possible to obtain a dip. ”

“ Sea-bathing is a luxury which the Northern visitor will be glad to improve, if the natives are not, and for their information let us state that it may be safely enjoyed here. Establishments will be found where baths have been cut in the rock on the shore, west of the Punta fort, along the Calle Ancha del Norte. ”

“ While the danger of chilling and taking cold are less in sea bathing, yet the usual precautions should be observed. If warm, do not wait to cool off before going into the water. This is always hazardous. Plunge boldly in, taking care to wet the head, neck, and face as quickly as possible. ”

“ The bathing is delightful, but you must keep a sharp look out for sharks. One morning, however, while bathing, we stood in much greater danger from the mad folly of some Cockneys who had recently come to the hotel. We had been bathing in an arm of the sea, the point beyond which it was not safe being marked by a stake driven into the sand. Between our bathing place and the hotel was a high sand bank, screening us from sight, the stake being visible from the verandah of the hotel. ”

“ One side of the house is devoted to the dressing-rooms of the ladies and the other to those of the gentlemen, and long wooden stairs on each side enable the bathers to reach the sands. A few yards brings into sufficient depth for bathing, but at low water the sea goes back so as to land one among the rocks, especially in spring tides, and bathing is then not so pleasant, especially to non-swimmers ”

“ Bathers would like a large pool or tank where, by a system of planks fastened to a central post, two bathers could go alternately up and down, one being in the water while the other was in the air, an arrangement like the see-saw which children are so fond of. It should have sufficient capacity to accommodate a number of bathers at once, and should be as near as possible to the sea, so as to be available by persons in bathing suits, who have already had a salt bath. ”

“ After dinner, eaten in front of the hotel in Jericho, we drove over to the Dead Sea, a distance of several miles, and soon we were all enjoying a fine bath in the salt water, the women bathing at one place, the men at another. The water contains so much solid matter, nearly three and a third pounds to the gallon, that it is easy to float on the surface with hands, feet and head above the water. One who can swim but little in fresh water will find the buoyancy of the water here so great as to make swimming easy. ”

“ It was not in the pond that the incident occurred, for that, being a piece of ornamental water, and private property, as I have told you, was not permitted to be used as a bathing place.
But the people of a sea-shore town need no lake in which to disport themselves. The great salt sea gives them a free bath, and our village had its bathing beach in common with others of its kind. Of course, then, my swimming lessons were taken in salt-water.
The beach which was habitually used by the villagers, had not the best name as a bathing place. ”

“ Quite a large business is carried on in the evaporation of sea-water and the sale of the dirty residue, which is again dissolved in water and used in bathing by those who live too far inland to enjoy the benefits of bathing in the sea, or who prefer to take their sea-bath in their own private bath-room. ”

“ Bathing, previous to these exercises, is also the best preservative of health, and here people have the opportunity of doing it either in the rivers or in the sea.
Frequently bathing in cold water is productive of much benefit to persons in warm climates; as, exclusive of that which arises from cleanliness, so necessary in hot countries, it braces the nerves, and keeps the body refreshingly cool the whole day after. ”

“ In one place we came upon a large company of naked natives, of both sexes and all ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of surf-bathing. Each heathen would paddle three or four hundred yards out to sea, (taking a short board with him) , then face the shore and wait for a particularly prodigious billow to come along; at the right moment he would fling his board upon its foamy crest and himself upon the board, and here he would come whizzing by like a bombshell! It did not seem that a lightning express train could shoot along at a more hair-lifting speed. ”

“ Nobody could catch cold by the Sea, Nobody wanted appetite by the Sea, Nobody wanted Spirits, Nobody wanted Strength.—They were healing, softing, relaxing—fortifying & bracing—seemingly just as was wanted—sometimes one, sometimes the other.—If the Sea breeze failed, the Sea-Bath was the certain corrective;—& where Bathing disagreed, the Sea Breeze alone was evidently designed by Nature for the cure.—His eloquence however could not prevail. ”

“ Bathers come out of their dressing-houses wrapped in short white sheets, which they deposit on the stones, taking an air-bath for some minutes before entering the water. Like everything in France, the bathing is excellently managed, and you feel the firm hand of a paternal and overlooking government the moment you issue from your hut. The Government will on no consideration consent to your being rash. There are six or eight worthy old sons of Neptune on the beach—perfect amphibious creatures—who, if you are a new-comer, immediately accost you and demand pledges that you know how to swim. ”