Swimming bath

“ The dew-bath.
35Small-boned and fleshy persons naturally make the best swimmers, but it must not be supposed that thin people cannot learn to swim, and swim well. The writer well remembers seeing one morning at Brill’s swimming baths, Brighton, a young fellow who had just stepped from his dressing-box ready for a plunge. He was standing where the water is deepest, and judging by his appearance he literally could not have had an ounce of flesh to spare. It was absurd to suppose that so thin a man could swim, and his movements were curiously watched. ”

“ Hot baths are weakening and relaxing, hence weak people should not stay long in the hot bath. Cold baths are stimulating to strong people and depressing to those who do not react well from them. Swimming is far different from taking a cold bath. A person who can swim with benefit and comfort for twenty minutes would have a chill, perhaps, if he remained for five minutes in the bath tub in water of the same temperature. Swimming is such an active exercise that it aids the circulation, keeping the blood pretty well to the surface in spite of the chilling effect of the water. ”

“ There is a great deal of difference between swimming and taking a bath in a tub. Some people cannot remain in the water long, but if they have any resistance at all and are active, there will be no bad results. ”

“ Since then public baths have been erected all over Great Britain and Ireland, and bath swimming has become, by reason of the lack of reasonable open water accommodation, the principal means of the teaching of the young. But open water swimming, and more particularly swimming in the sea, is the best training and practice for tbose who really love the art, because they arc able to swim under normal climatic conditions, instead of in tepid water. Many persons in England bathe in the open all the year round, notably in the Serpentine in London, on the sea-coast and in various inland waters. ”

“ I noticed in the water two black-clothed individuals, whose only business seemed to be to exercise those ladies and children who did not swim, so that they might not catch cold; to give lessons to beginners in the noble art of swimming, and to have an eye to the safety of the bathers generally. When the bath is over, the well-cared-for person is well wrapped up and hurried to the cabin, where a hot foot-bath is in readiness ”

“ The hot springs there are quite extensive, and the medicinal baths are delightful. The bathing places are in the highest style of art, elegantly fitted up with all that modern appliances, following ancient models, can accomplish. There is also a huge, open-air swimming-pool, filled with water, from the hot springs, giving most luxurious enjoyment.
It was my good fortune, on a former visit, to enjoy both it, and the further pleasure of a natural vapor bath within the rock recesses of one of the mountains. ”

“ Whenever any of these effects are produced, the bath should be at once given up.
The best time for taking a cold hath or for swimming is in the morning, not too early, but when the sun is well up. Immersion is best practised after a light meal, but not immediately following one. After breakfast, from 10 a.m. to noon, are the preferable hours. Should the bather be unable to swim, when going into the sea or into a river, he should keep briskly moving all the time his body is immersed in the water. If in a room bodily friction must be substituted for exercise. ”

“ Our recommendation of bathing applies chiefly to the warm bath and the tepid bath, which are alike adapted to the delicate and the robust, and to every condition of climate and season. Cold bathing, in this climate, is only suited to the most healthy and vigorous, and can only be safely practised during the warmer months of the year, and in a mass of water sufficient to permit of the heat of the body being maintained by swimming or other active exercise. ”

“ The marble floor and whitewashed walls breathe freshness, the water in the stone reservoir is limpid and cold as that of a pool that gleams in rocky hollows. And, as the bather dips in his bucket, and send the frigid stream pouring over him, he washes away, not heat and dust alone, but weariness and vexatious thought in a purification of both body and soul, and he understands why all Eastern creeds have exalted the bath into a religious observance. ”

“ We might swim or splash, dive or float, or sit on marble steps and comfortably soak at will in that great white tank, the clear spring water warmed by the sun to a soothing temperature for the long, luxurious afternoon bath, and cooled sufficiently through the night to give refreshing shock to early morning plungers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The cold bath, when too long continued, not only occasions an excessive flux towards the head, but chills the blood, cramps the muscles, relaxes the nerves, and wholly defeats the intention of bathing; hence expert swimmers are often injured, and sometimes lose their lives. All the beneficial purposes of cold bathing are answered by one immersion at a time, and the patient ought to be rubbed dry the moment he comes out of the water, and should continue to take exercise some time after. ”

“ 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 bath-room, with its warm pipes, its great wooden tubs, with the carved gilt garlands round them, its lounges for cooling, its little tables spread with a dainty supper, still preserved a souvenir of Roman luxury. People used to bathe in company, sometimes men and women together (as we still do at the sea-side) , their heads beautifully dressed and adorned with flowers, their bodies hidden up to the neck in their great cask-like baths, where the water was often thickened with scented bran or strewn with a dust of salutary herbs. ”

“ Bathing after hard exercise must be indulged in judiciously: a bath after a day’s shooting or cricketing, or an afternoon at lawn-tennis—to an enthusiast, who really plays, by far the hardest and most tiring form of amusement of the three—is pleasant and invigorating, and better understood than when it was an article of faith that to plunge into 38cold water, when heated, was almost equivalent to committing suicide. ”

“ We bathe in well-warmed rooms, often in cold water, but with steaming hot water in ample command at a turn of the hand. Had we to carry all the water for our bathing use from a well whence we laboriously raised it in small amounts, and were we forced to bathe in an icy atmosphere, with cutting draughts striking us on every side, with the basins of water freezing on the hearth in front of a blazing fire, and the juices of the wood freezing at the ends of burning logs, we might not deem our daily bath such an indispensable necessity. ”

“ Cool bathing, in hot weather, is very useful; but the water should be very little cooler than the skin of the child. When the constitution is delicate, the water should be slightly warmed. Simply sponging the body, freely, in a tub, answers the same purpose as a regular bath. In very warm weather, this should be done two or three times a day, always waiting two or three hours after food has been given. ”

“ After this you are again drenched with buckets of water, beginning with warm and going on a descending scale to cold, so that there shall be no shock to the system. Men have rushed from the bath into a snowbank, but this is not the custom; the peasants frequently leave the bath to take a swim in the river, but only in mild weather. No doubt there have been cases of bathing voluntarily through the ice or in iced water, but you must search far and wide to find them. ”

“ In bathing we have two distinct objects in view,—to keep the skin clean and to impart vigor. These are closely related, for to remove from the body worn-out material, which tends to injure it, is a direct means of giving vigor to all the tissues. Thus a cold bath acts upon the nervous system, and calls out, in response to the temporary abstraction of heat, a freer play of the general vital powers. Bathing is so useful, both locally and constitutionally, that it should be practiced to such an extent as experience proves to be beneficial. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You sit down at the edge of the water and you watch the bathers. The women come down, wrapped in long bath robes, which they throw off daintily when they reach the foamy edge of the rippling waves; and they run into the water with a rapid little step, stopping from time to time for a delightful little thrill from the cold water, a short gasp.
“Very few stand the test of the bath. It is there that they can be judged, from the ankle to the throat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The feeling after quitting the Calidarium is one of defiance of cold; the bather has a longing for the cool air of the [117] 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. ”

“ At a temperature of 94° to 98°, the bather, at the moment of immersion, experiences an agreeable sense of warmth—the vital powers are exalted, and all the functions of the organs are put into a state of increased activity. The pulse expands and quickens, but is still soft—and all the secretions and excretions are augmented after leaving the bath. ”

“ But in places where there is no sea, lake, or river in which to bathe, we could, if living in the country, enclose some spot for such an air bath which, in sunny weather, would also become a sun bath at the same time. On the grass of a clearing in a wood, or in a garden, such an air bath could best be taken. In summer, if the air is not too warm, and if we are in the sun, we may remain longer than ten minutes in such an air bath. ”

“ Persons who cannot bathe in fresh water are often benefited by surf bathing. The stimulating action of the salt water, the impact of the waves, the exhilaration and excitement occasioned by the incoming breakers, and the wholesome exercise which usually attends a sea bath, all contribute to the benefit of surf bathing. ”

“ To resist this is of the utmost consequence.” “The operation of bathing in water endowed with much power, from heat and other circumstances, is not to be viewed lightly. Much mischief has arisen—nay, fatal results have followed, from its indiscriminate adoption. A rich merchant, who, but a few hours before, had been noticed on the public promenade after dinner, on the day after our arrival, was found dead in a bath at 8 o’clock of the same evening. A lady was pointed out to me, who had lost the use of her limbs after using three hot baths.” ”