Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/679

BATH. only did the rich erect splendid baths in their houses: and gardens, but bath-houses for the people in general were established in every town in which there was a mosque. The public baths of the Turks of the present day are a copy of those ancient Arabian baths. The construction of those Oriental baths, imitations of which are now to be found in most cities, is as follows: The building is of stone: the bathrooms have a floor of marble, which is heated from below, and tubes in the walls conduct the heat in all directions. The bather undresses, wraps himself in a sheet, puts on wooden slippers, to protect him from the heat of the floor, and enters the bathroom. Here a general perspiration soon breaks through the skin, which is washed off with cold water. The body is then rubbed with woolen cloths, and smeared with a soap or salve beneficial to the skin. This is generally accompanied by the operation of 'kneading.' The bath attendant stretches the bather on a table, pours warm water over him, and manipulates and scrubs his whole body. He then dries the body with a haircloth, rubs off the hard skin of the feet with pumice-stone, anoints the bather with soap and perfumes, and finishes by cutting his hair and beard. This treatment lasts some three-quarters of an hour. After bathing, people repose in a cooler room, stretched on couches, and finally partake of coffee, sherbet, or lemonade.

. In England, France, and Germany, public establishments for bathing were long unknown. It was during the Crusades, which brought the East and the West into contact, that Europeans first became acquainted with the baths of the Asiatics; and the want of such institutions came to be more sensibly felt from the leprosy and other skin-diseases which intercourse with Asia introduced into Western Europe. The evil was at first sought to be met by establishing hospitals, but as these were found insufficient, baths and bathrooms were erected, which gradually became public establishments. Still, very little has been done to bring back the antique millennium until this century. It was not until the Eighteenth Century that the custom of sea-bathing and mineral-water bathing began in England, followed by (Germany at the close of the century, and by Italy and France early in the Nineteenth Century. Even then nothing was done for the general public. It was not until c. 1840 that private associations first established public baths with a small admission fee in England. Success was followed by legislative encouragement and regulation. In 1846 and 1847, and again in 1878, facilities were afforded by law to municipalities and rural parishes throughout Great Britain to establish public baths with three classes of bathers, at 2, 4, and 8 pence. It is interesting to note that the financial subsidy annually offered by the French Government from 1851 to 1862, in rivalry of England, to the communes throughout France that would establish public baths, met with no response whatever, and had to be withdrawn. Italy is even worse provided than France with baths available to the public in the cities. It is only in the largest and most expensive sanitariums, or in the foremost watering-places, that the advantages formerly available to every Roman can be secured by the wealthy few.

. Besides the kinds of baths already described, there are now to be found in the larger cities of Europe and America, generally in connection with water-baths, an improvement upon the vapor-baths which have been long in common use in Russia. The Russian bath consists of a small apartment built of wood, with broad benches running round it, on which the people lie undressed. By throwing water upon glowing hot pebbles, a dense hot steam is produced which envelops the bathers, and throws them into such a heat that the perspiration breaks out over the whole body. In this atmosphere of steam, the thermometer often rises to 112°-140° F. After they have sweated for some time, and from time to time cooled themselves again, by having cold water poured over them, the skin is rubbed with soap, and with towels made of inner bark, or with brushes; they are flogged with softened birch-twigs, and then washed with tepid, and afterwards with cold water; and at last have cold water dashed over them. A bather will also go direct from the sweating-bath and plunge into a river or a pond, or roll himself in the snow. These baths are a necessity in Russia, and are to be found in every village. The German vapor-bath differs in this, that the steam is produced in a boiler, and that the bather remains for some time in an adjoining room of moderate temperature, wrapped in blankets, to allow the perspiration to go on, and the blood to become calm. A ruder kind of sweating-bath, in a hole in the earth, or in a baking-oven, is practiced among many nations; among the Finns, the natives of Mexico and South America, and others.

As regards detergence, the Vapor Bath is the only kind of bath that is really effectual. If the skin is exposed to the action of hot water-vapor, the scurf becomes softened and loosened, and is more easy to remove by simple rubbing. In the vapor-bath, as in the Turkish bath, in which dry heat is used, the person is cooled by having tepid or cold water dashed upon him. The vapor-bath is useful in certain diseases of the skin and kidneys, as well as in chronic rheumatism. Its temperature is usually over 99° F.

The cold sponge-bath is useful as a daily tonic to most people. It is a stimulant to nutrition, circulation, and nerve-action. It should be brief and followed by brisk friction with the towel. By exhausted, and generally by aged, as well as by thin, nervous, and sensitive persons, cold baths should be avoided, and tepid ones taken instead. A bath in the sea is productive of good in most cases in persons of good physique. In typhoid the cold bath has lowered the mortality from about 18 per cent. to about 5 per cent. Wrapping a patient in a wet sheet, and then covering with a blanket (the 'wet pack'), is sometimes substituted for the cold bath. The hot bath is stimulant, relieving pain and limiting inflammation, controlling convulsions, and inducing sleep. It is useful also in some diseases by causing sweating. At sanitariums and bathing establishments, salt-rubs, electro-chemical, electro-thermal, and other baths are given. The Roman Bath consists of an application of oil or vaseline, with massage.

A Medicated Bath is one in which some substance intended to act as a medicine has been mixed with the liquid. This is an ancient and almost obsolete method of bringing remedies to bear upon the system. The mineral substances