Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/405

 BATH 385 Bayard Taylor, in his winter travels in Lap- land, gives an account of similar baths. There the bather is placed on an elevated platform, and vapor is produced by throwing water on heated stones beneath. In Mexico, a pecu- liar form of vapor or steam bath is in use. The steam, generated below the floor of a Mexican Steam Bath. small apartment, is admitted around the bather, who reclines on a low bench. The Japanese are constant frequenters of the bath, though bathing is with them a simple process. A large tank or pond occupies the centre of their bath house, and men and women bathe toge- Japanese Bath. ther. The warm bath, in its more elaborate forms, is seldom found in Japan. The use of the bath has not marked the manners of the most civilized modem nations, as it did those of the polite nations of antiquity. Yet it is less neg- lected now than formerly, and public baths, though they are not centres of resort for the people, are found in all large cities, and private baths are common in dwelling houses. Turk- ish baths, with some peculiarities adopted from the baths of other eastern nations, have also become popular of late years in western Eu- rope and America, and are now to be found in almost every large city ; and Russian baths are also numerous. Hygiene of Bathing. To bathe, in the widest sense of the word, is to surround the body, or a portion of it, for a temporary period, by a medium different from that in which it usually exists. The medium may consist of air or vapor, of water, either pure or holding various substances in solution, or finally even of sand or mud. The body may be wholly or partially immersed in the medium, as in the ordinary plunge bath, the foot bath, hip bath, &c. ; or the medium may be poured with greater or less force upon the body, as in the shower and douche bath. The temperature of the medium, as it is warm, hot, or cold, modifies powerfully the effect of the bath. In the present article we shall confine our attention to the effects of the ordinary water bath, and of the hot air and vapor baths. The temperature at which the water bath may be taken varies from 32 to 112 or even 120 F., and baths are ordinarily divided into cold, warm, and hot, according to the sensation they communicate to the bather. These sensations, it must be recollected, are no very accurate measure of the true temperature ; the water which to one person seems warm, to another feeling cool. Systematic writers have further multiplied these divisions; perhaps the most convenient among them is that proposed by Dr. John Forbes. He divides the water baths into the cold bath, from 32 to 60 F. ; the cool, 60 to 75 ; the temperate, 75 to 85 ; the tepid, 85 to 92 ; the warm, 92 to 98 ; the hot, 98 to 112. On plunging into cold water the bather experiences a shock attended with a sensation of cold that may amount to rigor, and with a sudden catching of the breath, caused by the contact of the cold fluid with the surface of the face and trunk ; in some per- sons this spasmodic anhelation is so great as entirely to prevent speech. The surface ap- pears contracted and shrunken, the superficial veins become smaller or disappear, the color assumes a bluish tint. After a short time, the duration of which depends partly upon the coldness of the water, partly upon the consti- tutional vigor of the bather, reaction takes place ; the chilliness and rigor disappear, and are succeeded by a sensation of warmth, which diffuses itself over the whole surface ; the res- piration becomes tranquil, and there is a gen- eral feeling of lightness and vigor. After a variable period the bather again begins to suf- fer from the cold, trembling and rigor super- vene, the movements become impaired and feeble, the pulse is smaller and less frequent, the breathing is oppressed, and the whole body is languid and powerless. If he leave the water before the occurrence of the second period of chill, there is a renewal of the reaction, a glow pervades the surface, the color returns and is heightened, the pulse is fuller and stronger than before the immersion, and there is a general feeling of buoyancy and vigor. M. Begin, ex- perimenting upon the cold bath, took nine baths in the Moselle under the ramparts of Metz, toward the end of October, the ther- mometer in the open air standing at from 2 to 6 Reaumur (36 to 45$ F.). At the moment of immersion there was a sensation as if the