Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/210

186] Without expatiating, either on the history, or the sensible effects of the Cold Bath, we shall proceed:

I. To a general enumeration of those cases, in which it cannot be resorted to with advantage and safety;

II. To lay down the necessary rules and directions for the use of this heroic remedy.

With respect to the former, we must be concise, and shall chiefly point out, by negative propositions, those particular states of the body, in which cold bathing must not be attempted: namely, 1. In a full habit of body, or what is called general , on account of the frequent febrile disposition attending such individuals; 2. In hemorrhages or fluxes of blood, open wounds or ulcers, and every kind of inflammation, whether external or internal; 3. In obstructions of the intestines, or habitual costiveness; 4. In affections of the breast and lungs, such as difficult respiration, short and dry coughs, &c. 5. When the whole mass of the fluids appears to be vitiated, or tainted with a peculiar acrimony, which cannot be easily defined, but is obvious from a sallow colour of the face, slow healing of the flesh when cut or bruised, and from a scorbutic tendency of the whole body; 6. In gouty and rheumatic paroxysms; though Sir asserts, that "Podagries sometimes have kept their fits off with it;" 7. In cutaneous eruptions, which tend to promote a critical discharge of humours by the pores (yet the celebrated physician just mentioned, informs us, that great cures have been effected in the , by bathing in what he calls "Cold Sulphur Water.") 8. During pregnancy; and 9. In a distorted or deformed state of the body, except in particular cases to be ascertained by professional men.—Sir farther recommends, but too indiscriminately, the dipping of ricketty children one year old, every morning in cold water; and he is of opinion that, in adults, it prevents the infection of fevers, by making the body less sensible of the changes of air; that, in old women, it stops violent hemorrhages from the uterus; that it has contributed to cure canine madness, poisonous bites of animals, and obstinate agues, by going in previously to the return of the fit, and after all the evacuations of the body have been properly attended to; and, lastly, that the  Bath has been of eminent service in dropsies, and defective hearing; in which last case, he knew a deaf person who could hear perfectly well, on the day he bathed in the sea.

Experience, however, has but too often evinced, that this excellent remedy, whether by fresh or salt-water, cannot be implicitly relied upon in those complaints; nor will it be productive of any good effects, unless our conduct, in general, be accommodated to the following rules:

1. It is a vulgar error, that it is safer to enter the water when the body is cool, and that persons heated by exercise, and beginning to perspire, should wait till they are perfectly cooled. Thus, by plunging into it, in this state, an alarming and dangerous chilness frequently seizes them, and the injury sustained is generally ascribed to their going into it too warm; while it doubtless arises from the contrary practice.—Dr. J., of Liverpool, in his valuable "Treatise on the effects of Water in Fevers," (edit.