Sitz bath

“ Continue the bath five minutes longer, then administer a pail douche or spray, at about 85°, and wipe dry, as directed after a rubbing wet-sheet.
The sitz bath is useful for chronic congestions of the abdominal and pelvic viscera, diarrhea, piles, dysentery, constipation, uterine diseases, and genital and urinary disorders. In treating female diseases it is an indispensable remedy. It is very valuable in various nervous affections, especially those which immediately involve the brain. ”

“ Severe Pain in the Bowels.—Tepid sitz-bath, half an hour to an hour; much rubbing with wet hands on the back, stomach, and abdomen when in the bath; no exertion of mind or body; eat only of one thing; drink much water. When constipated, or had pain in the bowels, extended the period of the sitz bath. Patient’s recovery quite marvellous.
The sitz-bath may be resorted to two or three times a day, and also rubbing-sheet, if the case proves obstinate. ”

“ Every house of any pretension ought to have a bathroom. Nothing would be more conducive to health than regular systematic bathing. A hot and cold bath, a sitz bath, and a shower bath—each and all in their turn—are grand requisites to preserve and procure health. ”

“ Any temperature may be employed, being suited to the condition of the patient. The duration of the bath will also vary according to circumstances. A short cool bath is tonic in its effects, like all short cool applications; a more prolonged one is a powerful sedative. 117The hot sitz is very exciting in its effects if long continued. The warm bath is relaxing. The hips and trunk should be well rubbed during the bath by the patient or an attendant. The bather should be covered with a sheet or blanket during the bath. ”

“ Each lady bather should have a private dressing and reposing room, even if only formed by dwarf wooden partitions.
An arrangement may be designed whereby the bather enters first a room fitted with a number of dressing-boxes, and then passes through the frigidarium on his way to the hot rooms, whence he returns after his bath. Where the establishment is on a large scale, the arrangement may lead the bather first to a room fitted with dressing-boxes, then to the hot rooms, and finally, by way of the plunge bath, into a commodious and separate cooling room. ”

“ During the same year, (1810) , a sixth well was opened on the north side of the river, where a magnificent suite of baths and a spacious pump-room are erected, at the expense of twenty-five thousand pounds; there are twenty in number, hot, cold, tepid, vapour, and shower; one of them being a chair bath, which is an admirable contrivance to immerge the invalid, on the chair where he was undressed, into the bath, in a secure and easy manner.—These baths are spacious, and admirably constructed with Dutch tiles, and most of them have the accommodation of dressing-rooms. ”

“ The hair-dressing room and accommodation for the chiropodist—if he does not practise his art at the couch of the bather—must adjoin the frigidarium, as also should the attendants' room. A lavatory must be placed in the frigidarium when used as the dressing room. Closet accommodation should be accessible from the same apartment, but should be perfectly cut off from it by means of a passage or lobby. The greatest care should be taken to prevent these conveniences from becoming offensive. Returning from the bath, the sense of smell is peculiarly sensitive, and the slightest odour is detected. ”

“ The lavatorium and shampooing room now engage our attention. In elaborate baths they may, for the sake of effect, be distinct apartments, while, where strict economy must be studied, they may be comprised in one room; and where, again, space is extremely valuable, the plunge bath and douche may be also included. If the first arrangement be adopted, the shampooing room must be connected with the tepidarium, and the lavatorium placed next. Where the combination apartment is used, it will take the position of the shampooing room. ”

“ But if we cannot make the bathroom what it ought to be, the supreme and perfect shrine of the supreme moment of the day, the one spot in the house on which no expense or trouble is spared, we can at least bring the bath itself up to date. I don’t now, as I did, lay much stress on having a bath with fifteen different taps. ”

“ Dear Sir,—In the interests of personal cleanliness, we have—not without considerable hesitation—decided to install a fourth bathroom at our historic home, 'White Ladies'. This decision will necessitate the loss or conversion of one of the dressing-rooms, a fact which fills us with the gravest misgivings, since there are only eleven in the whole mansion. At the same time, thee conventions of a prudish age make it undesirable that a second bath should be installed in one of the rooms already existing for that purpose. ”

“ Other comforts of the sleeping room where bath-rooms are not attached are plenty of water and bath towels, a washstand for each occupant of the room, generous bowls, a well filled pail with which to replenish the pitchers, foot tub, a portable bath tub, capacious slop jars, a rubber or enameled leather cloth to spread upon the floor, a screen for seclusion’s sake, and room to splash. If the bedroom china, pails and jars be pretty in shape and color, so much the better, but at any rate, let them be large enough. ”

“ I went into the matter of bathrooms pretty carefully a few months ago, but since I have been in this hotel I see that there are one or two aspects of hotel bathing which still require attention.
To begin with, there is the question of the Korban or free bath. It is, of course, a scandal that a bath should be an extra, and an eighteen-penny one at that. After all, what is the bathroom for? We are not charged extra for smoking in the smoking-room or drawing in the drawing-room; why should we be bled for bathing in the bathroom? ”

“ The worst position for the closets is near the door by which the bather leaves the lavatorium. Defects in this point may ruin an otherwise excellent bath. If the cooling rooms and hot rooms be on separate floors, the closets may be designed off a landing on the staircase. In the separate accommodation for attendants and shampooers the same caution must be observed.
Adjoining, under, or partly under, the laconicum must be placed the heating apparatus in its chamber, with stokery and provision for fuel, &c. ”

“ Fig. 12 illustrates the complete fitting up of this bather's shower-bath.
In hydropathic establishments it might be an improvement to add a small foot-bath, formed by a sinking of about 6 in. in the floor, and filled with hot water; for physiologists tell us it is bad for invalids to enter the hot rooms with cold feet. Supply pipes, a waste, and overflow would have to be provided for this bath, and a marble seat might be placed round it. A marble coping and mosaic flooring would render it pleasing in appearance. ”

“ To be consistent in our thought of keeping the floor clear, we should have a bathtub that rests upon legs. It should not, if avoidable, be placed under the window, and if it can be several inches from the wall, it is more easily cleaned on the outside, and the space next to the wall need not accumulate—or at least retain—soap, towels, and sponges that elude the grasp of the bather. Tubs come in lengths from four to six feet, and cost accordingly. The comfort of a six-foot bath to persons of any considerable elongation is always manifest, while a four-foot tub is merely better than a footbath. ”

“ But I detest such contrivances, and they are absolutely inadmissible on any other score except economy of service. All bathing arrangements would be better in a separate room, but if this should be impossible, then they should be behind a screen. But indeed [Pg 67] I prefer, wherever it is feasible, to contrive a small closet for all the washing apparatus, and to keep basin-stand, towel-horse, and bath in it. ”

“ The servants pull off your boots, and help you to get ready, and then fix a waist-cloth, which reaches the knees, very tightly round the waist, fastening it with a particular twist. The bath-man taking your hand, raises the curtain over the arched door of the bath-room, and leads you carefully in. The reason is that the floor being very smooth and wet, you are exceedingly likely, without great care, to have a dangerous fall. ”

“ Moreover in well-regulated houses, the bath towels should be dried by the housemaid at the fire, and each person should bring his or her towels into the bathroom when he or she is about to use it, and take them away again when the bathing is finished, the brass rod being used merely to hang up the bath blankets, though they also must be duly dried by the fire, and not be laid down on the floor except the bath be in the process of being used. ”

“ A portable bath was part of the furniture of every decent house—we had one so large that the frequent monthly nurse made her bed in it—but, like the warming-pan, it was not for common use; it was a medical appliance chiefly. Such is the case, I find, in many English houses still. We children were severely scrubbed and scoured in washing-tubs every Saturday night—"tub night"—and we did a great deal of sea bathing in summer; between whiles we ran constant risk of being sent from table to obliterate the line of demarcation between the washed and unwashed portions of face and neck. ”

“ A well-ordered Japanese bathroom, such as this one was, has a false floor of wood with drains beneath it, so that one may splatter about with the utmost abandon. One does one's actual washing outside the tub, rinsing off with warm water dipped in a pail from a covered tank at one end of the tub. Not until the cleansing process has been completed does one enter the water to soak and get warm. Bathtubs in hotels and prosperous homes are large, and the size of them makes the preparation of a bath a laborious business ”

“ As the space in the wards is very liable to be encroached upon, and the beds crowded, portable baths have been designed, into which the more helpless patients can be lifted, and lowered, on a frame or sack, without requiring space for assistants to stand around, or with the bath placed only at the foot of the bed. ”

“ When the bathroom has been used it should be properly aired, and the moment it is quitted the housemaid should go in, throw up the window, top and bottom, and take away and dry the towels. If the weather is cold, the fire or gas must be kept going night and day to keep out the frost, and always the floor must be wiped over and the bath blankets hung up until they can be properly dried, then will the room remain nice much longer than it otherwise would. ”

“ The temperature of this apartment, the Calidarium or Sudatorium of the Romans, is considerably higher than that of the middle room; the atmosphere is filled with "curling mists of gauzy and mottled vapour," the steam being raised by throwing water on the floor. In the middle of the apartment is "an extensive platform of marble slabs," and on this the bather is laid on his back, his scarf being placed beneath him to protect his skin from the heated marble, and the napkin that served as his turban being rolled up as a pillow to his head. ”

“ The shower remains a true experience which no coward would dare to operate. Mom has used it only once in the entire time we've been here, preferring the tried and true sponge bath method. The floor, which is of green marble, is quite interesting, as one is able to imagine pictures in it's design while contemplating upon the plastic toilet seat.
The main room is comfortably small (Dad's is uncomfortably small) and contains 2 single beds complete with iron-hard pillows, sheets, 1 gray blanket, and 1 two-tone brown blanket that Jon would surely approve of. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In all my travels in the South and elsewhere since leaving Hampton Institute, I have always in some way sought my daily bath. To get it sometimes when I have been the guest of my own people in a single-roomed cabin has not been easy to do except by slipping away to some stream in the woods. I have always tried to teach my people that some provision for bathing should be a part of every house. ”

“ The lack of ingenuity in sanitary fittings at present forbids the obvious convenience of hot and cold water supply to the bedroom, and there is a mighty fetching and carrying of water and slops to be got through daily. All that will cease. Every bedroom will have its own bath-dressing room which any well-bred person will be intelligent and considerate enough to use and leave without the slightest disarrangement. ”

“ A pugged partition and double-doored lobby separate the rooms. Space is left in the hot room for a full-length couch opposite the radiating stove, which has a metal screen around to protect the more adjacent [Pg 125] walls from the heat. A lavatrina is provided, as shown at the enlarged section. A nook is formed for a shower. This recess could be fitted with enamelled iron screen and hood, as at the end of elaborate slipper-baths. A couple of couches, lavatory, and toilet table are compactly arranged in the little frigidarium. ”

“ The bath itself (inner chamber) is a spacious vaulted chamber, paved and lined with marble; beside it are four small rooms: a vapour continually rises from a fountain and cistern of hot water, with which the burnt perfumes mingle."
His notice of the process of shampooing differs somewhat from that of others:—"A gentle moisture diffuses itself over the body; a servant comes, gently presses and turns the bather, and when the limbs are flexible, makes the joints crack without trouble, then masses (touches lightly) , and seems to knead the body without giving the slightest sensation of pain. ”