Thermal baths

“ The purity or foulness of the air in the hot rooms forms all the difference between a good bath and a bad one, which latter is infinitely worse than no bath at all. There exist, at the present time, scores of baths where the odours of the sudatory chambers are nauseating. Such foulness arises from stagnation of the air. There is no continuous flow, and the respirations and exhalations of the bathers are not removed. A system of ventilation may be pointed out, but it is on the wrong principle, and does not act. There is no change of air. The atmosphere of such places becomes pestilential. ”

“ The temperature of the room during a bath should be 70° to 85°. Invalids require a warmer room than persons in health. Thorough ventilation is an important matter; but draughts must be carefully prevented, by screens of netting placed before openings into the room when necessary.
5. Never apply either very cold or excessively hot treatment to aged or feeble patients. Cold is especially dangerous.
6. Hot baths are rarely useful in health. The warm bath answers all the requirements of cleanliness.
7. Never take a cold bath when exhausted or chilly. ”

“ In the vapor and Russian bath the temperature is raised to 160°, and in the hot-air and the Turkish bath to 176°. The temperature of the body is so increased in these baths that the sudden transition to the cool shower bath and douche is soothing, and is followed under favorable conditions by copious perspiration. The mineral mud bath (85° to 100°) consists of mud taken from the marshy ground about the source of mineral springs. It is used chiefly in diseases of the skin, chronic rheumatism, and affections of the joints. ”

“ The hot bath, then, will supply the invigorating functions of the cold, if it is really hot and is not too long. In the same way both it and warm baths supply the cleansing functions which are wanting in the cold bath, and the combination of the two—i.e., a hot or warm bath for purposes of cleansing followed by a cold douche or cold sponging, is perhaps the most perfect application of water in all its uses that we know, and contains the same principles as the Turkish bath. ”

“ The thick walls have been highly charged with caloric during the firing of the bricks or other articles. They have absorbed vast quantities of heat, and are now giving off the same to the enclosed air and to ourselves standing within. In the old Roman bath the walls were charged with caloric by means of innumerable earthen tubes lining the sides of the laconicum, and covered with a peculiar plaster. But in both cases the nature of the resultant heat is identical. It radiates to one from all sides. There is no acrid biting of the face such as one feels in the worst type of hot-air baths ”

“ Tepid, warm, and hot baths are employed, not only for cleansing the body, but to diminish blood pressure and to reduce nervous excitability. The hot bath is used in restoring warmth to the body in certain cases of shock, and to remove the effects of exposure to a low temperature. ”

“ No harm will result from a cool bath if the body is simply warm, even though it may be in a state of perspiration. Contrary to the common opinion, a considerable degree of heat is the best possible preparation for a cold bath. The Finlanders rush out of their hot ovens—sweat-houses—and roll in the snow, without injury.
8. Cold baths should not be administered during the period of menstruation in females. At 89such times, little bathing of any kind is advisable with the exception of a warm or tepid sponge bath, or such treatment as may be advised by a physician. ”

“ As a general rule, mineral and salt-water warm baths are less relaxing than those of pure water. The vapor bath, when the vapor is not breathed, acts more powerfully, though much in the same manner as the warm bath, but it is more useful in common cold and rheumatism. The warm-air bath, at from 100° to 120°, is highly convenient and useful, where it is desirable to excite perspiration, as in rheumatism, scaly eruptions, and certain stages of fever and cholera. ”

“ The full bath is one of the most refreshing of all baths, being also one of the most pleasant. Employed at a low temperature, it is a powerful means of reducing excessive heat in fevers. The 109hot full bath very promptly relieves the pains of acute rheumatism, and is almost a specific for colds, if taken just before retiring. Very hot and very cold temperatures are quite hazardous with this bath, since it involves so large a portion of the body. Such extremes are rarely useful in any case, and should not be used except under the eye of a physician. ”

“ The natural bath is so called because the water used in its formation is at the natural temperature, as it issues from the perforations in the floor of the baths. The stream being continuous and large in volume, an overflow is provided at the top of each bath, which not only secures constant change of water for the bathers, with corresponding purity, but much greater medicinal action upon the system. ”

“ A great deal depends on the form of the cold bath; thus one may have— (1) Its depressing operation,—with a loss of heat, retardation of the circulation, and feeling of weariness, when the same water remains in contact with the skin, and there is continuous withdrawal of heat without fresh stimulation. This occurs with full or sitz baths, with partial or complete wrapping up the body in a wet sheet which remains unchanged, and with frictions practised without removing the wet sheets. ”

“ Hot Baths,— by which are meant those of a temperature of from 85° to 105° F., are chiefly used in the treatment of ailments and diseases as powerful stimulants. Every parent should remember that a hot bath, causing free perspiration, followed by wrapping up warm in bed with blankets, will often save children and adults from severe attacks of illness, if promptly resorted to after exposure to cold or wet. ”

“ For the cold bath, taken rapidly, no time is better than immediately after rising. Those beginning the use of cold baths should first try them at 70° Fahr., and gradually use those of a lower temperature. From five to twenty minutes may be considered the proper limit of time to remain in a bath; but a sensation of chilliness is a signal to withdraw instantly, whether at home, or at the sea-side. ”

“ In fact one may be comfortable in a much lower air temperature than that found in most American houses and public buildings, provided one does not lose more heat than one is generating at the time. The floor and wall surfaces of the Forum Baths radiated enough warmth to keep bathers comfortable in relatively cool air with unglazed windows.258 The courtyard of the baths was paved with white mosaic to reflect light and heat. A room which commanded a maximum of sunlight has radiant heat in the floor only, not in the walls. The various rooms of the baths were heated to different temperatures ”

“ Now those two aforesaid baths (in one whereof those spirits are used in a humid way, being mixed with warm water, for the whole body to be bathed, and sweat in, but in the other in a dry way where the vapours are by force of the fire made under the Globe, forced up into the sweating box towards the patient, which being used after this manner do oftentimes penetrate, and operate more efficaciously than that humid way) are not to be slighted for the recovery of health, as doing things incredible. ”

“ Very hot baths have a distinct relaxing effect; they favor the onset of sleep and can be taken to best advantage just before retiring. There is nothing in the common idea that a hot bath opens the pores of the skin; the only pores the skin has are the openings of the sweat glands, and these do not vary in size. What a hot bath does do, is to cause a marked flushing of the skin as the result of which the body loses heat rapidly. It is necessary, therefore, after a hot bath to wrap oneself warmly so that excessive loss of heat shall not occur. ”

“ Hot-air and Vapour Baths, Turkish Baths, &c.—The Lancet expresses a strong objection to that form of bath which involves the patient being in an erect or sitting posture, where the bath is used to produce perspiration; it is always possible that some amount of faintness or giddiness may be experienced by the bather even when the blanket or tent-shaped envelope is so effectively applied as to prevent the fumes rising to the mouth and being inspired. It is always far better, and ought to be a rule, that the patient should be in the recumbent position. ”

“ Thanks to the tonic effects of the current, they are by the feeble and infirm borne much better than the ordinary warm bath. There is likewise much less liability to get cold after the electric bath. The stimulus which the current furnishes to the peripheral circulation is a powerful protection against cold, so that even in midwinter I see people daily take electric baths at an average temperature of 95°, and enjoy apparent immunity from colds. ”

“ The bath, which is coated with white marble, is 12 feet 10 inches in diameter, about 3 feet deep and has two marble steps to facilitate the descent into it, and a seat surrounding it at a depth of 10 inches from the bottom, for the purpose of enabling the bathers to sit down and wash themselves. It is probable that many [50] persons contented themselves with cold baths only, instead of going through the severe course of perspiration in the warm apartments ”

“ Warm baths should, in my opinion, never be taken on rising except under the above conditions, but warm baths at night are often desirable. They should be taken just before going to bed, when they have the effect of relaxing the muscular system and of promoting sleep by soothing the activity of the brain by the withdrawal of blood from it. I do not think warm baths at night are weakening, as the depression of vital energy which may occur is recovered during sleep. ”

“ Patients have been known to die in the bath of apoplexy induced by the excessive heat. It is followed by shampooing and cooling baths of various sorts.
HOT-AIR BATH. In administering this bath, prepare the patient precisely as directed for the vapor bath. Instead of placing under the chair a vessel of hot water, place a large alcohol lamp or a small dish containing a few ounces of alcohol. When all is ready, light the lamp or alcohol, and carefully exclude the air. It is hardly necessary to suggest the propriety of putting the lamp in such a position as to insure safety from fire. ”

“ I am a great believer in hot baths for taking away any nasty knock or soreness, but they must be taken with the greatest possible care so as to avoid catching cold. There is no finer sensation after having a hot bath than to jump into a stone cold one or to stand under a shower. ”

“ Where the bath-room does not exist it is easy to bathe thoroughly and completely. A wash-basin of water, with a sponge and towel, furnish all that is absolutely necessary. A most convenient bath is the portable thermal bath, an arrangement of rubber cloth that can be opened out to form a square enclosure in which the person sits, with the head in the free outside air, the body enveloped in steam generated by an alcohol lamp. This, followed by a quick sponge-bath of cool water, is a most efficient way of cleansing the skin ”

“ The various forms of treatment consist of hot, cold, vapor and mud baths, and have been so often described that a repetition would be monotonous; their efficacy being almost unfailing, except in cases of pulmonary disease, in which they would soon prove fatal. One who has ever enjoyed these baths will always long for the luxury years after leaving them behind. ”

“ The baths are arched with stone—the window to each is small, admitting little light, and less air:—and, as the doors are kept shut, except when the bathers are entering or retiring, the whole space not occupied by water, is full of a dense vapour, as hot as the Thermæ themselves. The very walls of the baths are warm, and always dripping with moisture. Such are the Sudatoria in which the German, Swiss, and Italian invalids indulge more luxuriously than ever did the Romans in the Baths of Caracalla. ”

“ Their hot baths for they almost all bathe in very hot water of about 110 Fahrenheit also help to keep them warm in winter. For though moderately hot water gives a chilly reaction, this is not the case when the water is extremely hot, neither is there then any fear of catching cold. ”

“ The ventilation of private baths should receive as much careful attention as those for public use. The hollow external walls may often be used with advantage for the extraction of the vitiated air, which must be let into the cavity at the floor level. If the bath be constructed on the ground floor, with nothing beneath, the system of carrying off the vitiated air by horizontal conduits—recommended for public baths—should be employed, as in the accompanying design for a large private bath, where the whole of the foul air is drawn into one vertical shaft of sufficiently wide section. ”

“ The body is never so well calculated to withstand the effects of cold as when it is heated; and the only danger to be apprehended from cold bathing is that arising from entering the water in a chilled condition, when, from the low vitality of the body, the subsequent reaction becomes imperfect. Let these maxims be remembered:—that without subsequent reaction, no bath is beneficial—therefore, water should be always used of a proper temperature to secure reaction, and exercise to warmth, taken immediately before and after a cold bath, when practicable ”