BATHS AND BATHING

502. The best materials for constructing baths, are slabs of polished marble, bedded with water-tight cement, in a wooden case, and carefully united at the edges. But, as white or veined marble baths are apt to get yellow or discolored by frequent use, and cannot easily be cleaned, large Dutch tiles, or square pieces of white earthenware, are sometimes substituted; these, however, are with difficulty kept water-tight, so that marble is altogether preferable. Copper, or tinned iron plates, are also used; the former is more expensive at the outset, but far more durable than the latter, which is also liable to leakage at the joints, unless excellently made. Both copper and iron should be well covered, in and outside, with several coats of paint. Wooden tubs--square, oblong, or oval--are sometimes used for warm baths, and are cheap and convenient; but the wood contracts a mouldy smell, and there is great difficulty in preventing shrinkage in them, and keeping them water-tight.

The fittest place for baths, is the bed-room floor; they are sometimes placed in the basement story, which is cold and damp, and in all weather disagreeable.

Due attention should be paid to the warming and ventilation of the bath-room. A temperature of 70 degrees, by the thermometer, should be kept up in it; and ventilation is requisite, to prevent the moisture settling upon the walls and furniture.

An improvement in the construction of baths, is a slightly hollowed space at one end, to receive the head of the bather, so as to prevent that sensation of cramp which is often experienced from the ordinary, abrupt shape of a bath.

The hand is a very uncertain test for the heat of water, and should, therefore, not be relied on in preparing a bath; but a thermometer should be employed, which will denote the actual temperature, thus:--

Cold bath, from 32° to 75° of Fahrenheit. Tepid " " 75 to 92 " " Warm " " 92 to 98 " " Hot " " 98 to 114 " " Vapor " " 100 to 140 " "

503. _Hand Shower-Bath._--An excellent hand shower-bath for children, has been invented. It consists of a metal vessel, containing about a gallon, the bottom of which is pierced with holes, while the upper part is open, and provided with a handle. When intended to be used, the vessel is immersed in a pail of water, and it quickly fills from the lower part. The thumb is placed over the aperture at the apex, which prevents all escape of water. It may be held at a convenient distance over the child, and the moment the thumb is removed, there falls a refreshing shower, which may be stopped instantaneously, by placing the thumb over the upper opening.

504. _Simple Vapor Bath._--Wrap the patient in blankets, which fasten closely about the neck, leaving the head exposed: then place him in a chair, under which set a basin or deep dish, with half a pint of spirits of wine, or whisky, which should be ignited: close the blankets to the floor, and in a few minutes the patient will be in a profuse perspiration, and should be put to bed between warm blankets.

505. _Advantages of Bathing._--It is a fact officially recorded, that during the terrible visitations of cholera in France, out of nearly 16,228 subscribers to the public baths of Paris, Bordeaux, and Marseilles, only two deaths among them were ascribed to cholera. We doubt whether there exists a more effectual preventive of disease of every kind, and a greater promoter of good health at all times, than the practice of daily bathing.

506. _Uses of Hot Water._--The efficacy of hot water, on many occasions in life, cannot be too generally known. It is an excellent gargle for a bad sore throat, or quinsy. In bruises, hot water, by immersion and fomentation, will remove pain, and prevent discoloration and stiffness. It has the same effect after a blow. It should be applied as quickly as possible, and as hot as it can be borne. Insertion in hot water will also cure that troublesome and very painful ailment, the whitlow.

507. _Good effects of Bathing._--"I am often asked, what baths are safest--as if everything, by its fitness or unfitness, is not safe, or the reverse. The value of all baths depends upon their fitness; and that, in many instances, can only be known by trial. It depends upon constitution, more than upon the name of a disease, whether particular patients shall be benefited by one bath or another. Generally speaking, when the skin is hot and dry, a cold bath will do good; and when chilly, a hot bath. But the reverse sometimes happens. The cold stage of ague, may at once be cut short by a cold bath. I have seen a shivering hypochondriac dash into the cold plunge bath, and come out, in a minute or two, perfectly cured of all his aches and whimseys. But, in cases of this nature, everything depends upon the _glow_ or _reaction_ which the bath produces; and that has as much to do with surprise or shock as with the temperature of the bath. I have seen a person with a hot, dry skin, go into a warm bath, and come out just as refreshed as if he had taken a cold one. In that case, the perspiration which it excited, must have been the principal means of relief.

"So far as my own experience goes, I prefer the cold and tepid shower-baths, and the cold plunge-bath, to any other; but there are cases in which these disagree, and I, therefore, occasionally order the warm or vapor-bath instead."--_Dr. Dickson._

508. _Diet for Patients._--"I am every day asked by my patients, what diet they should take. I generally answer by the question, 'How old are you?' Suppose they say, _Forty_--'Forty!' I rejoin: 'you who have had forty years' experience of what agrees and disagrees with you--how can you ask me who have no experience of the kind in your case whatever?' Surely, gentlemen, a patient's experience of what agrees and disagrees with his own particular constitution, is far better than any theory of yours or mine. Why, bless my life! in many chronic diseases, the diet which a man can take to-day, would be rejected with disgust to-morrow; under such circumstances, would you still, according to common medical practice, tell a sick person to go on taking what he himself found worried him to death? Gentlemen, I hope better things of you.

"The only general caution you need give your patients on the subject of diet, is _moderation_; moderation in using the things which they find agree with themselves best. You may direct them to take their food in small quantities at a time, at short _periodic_ intervals--intervals of two or three hours, for example; and tell them to take the trouble to masticate it properly before they swallow it, so as not to give a weak stomach the _double_ work of mastication and digestion--these processes being, even in health, essentially distinct. Unless properly comminuted and mixed with the saliva, how can you expect the food to be anything but a source of inconvenience to persons whom the smallest trifle will frequently discompose?"--_Dr. Dickson's Lectures._

509. _Abstinence, or Starvation._--Beware of carrying this too far!--for "abstinence engenders maladies." So Shakspeare said, and so nature will tell you, in the teeth of all the doctors in Europe! Abstinence may produce almost every form of disease which has entered into the consideration of the physician.--_Ibid._

510. _The Blood is the Life--never be Bled!_--"He who loses a pint of blood, loses a pint of his life. Of what is the body composed? Is it not of blood, and blood only? What fills up the excavation of an ulcer or an abscess? What re-produces the bone of the leg or thigh, after it has been thrown off dead, in nearly all its length? what but the living BLOOD, under the vito-electrical influence of the brain and nerves! How does the slaughtered animal die? Of loss of blood solely. Is not the blood, then, in the impressive language of Scripture, 'the life of the flesh?' How remarkable, that while the value of the blood to the animal economy should be thus so distinctly and emphatically acknowledged, blood-letting is not even once alluded to, among the various modes of _cure_ mentioned in the sacred volume. We have 'balms,' 'balsams,' 'baths,' 'charms,' 'physics,'--'poultices,' even--but loss of blood, never! Had it been practised by the Jews, why this omission? Will the men who now so lavishly pour out the blood, dispute its importance in the animal economy? Will they deny that it forms the basis of the solids? that when the body has been wasted by long disease, it is by the blood only it can recover its healthy volume and appearance?"--_Dr. Dickson's Lectures._