Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/94



Hydrotherapy is one of the eldest offspring—perhaps the first-born—of natural hygiene. The desire to relieve the debilitating effects of summer heat by immersion and draughts of cold water is almost as instinctive as the craving for food. And it cannot have been long before the settlers of the higher latitudes noticed the fact that the health-impairing effects of indoor life could be counteracted by the same specific.

A cold bath restored the vigor of the Celtic hunter, emerging dazed from the turf-fumes of his cave-dwelling, and an old Austrian army-officer of my acquaintance was probably not the first toper who contrived to "sober up" at short notice by putting his head under the spout of a horse-pump. In midsummer repeated plunge-baths helped to obviate the risk of dietetic disorders, and as early as A.D. 550 free bathing facilities had come to be included among the principal desiderata of a civilized city. Athens,