Manual of the Turkish bath : heat, a mode of cure and a source of strength for men and animals / from the writings of Mr. Urquhart ; edited by John Fife.

  • Urquhart, David, 1805-1877.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Manual of the Turkish bath : heat, a mode of cure and a source of strength for men and animals / from the writings of Mr. Urquhart ; edited by John Fife. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    28/460 (page 4)
    (Note read.) It will suffice to connect this still extant usage with the story of Medea, to establish an uninterrupted se- quence during more than thirty centuries of this prac- tice among primitive races in and surrounding the Caucasus, with whom the Greeks first, and subse- quently the Romans, came in contact. Mr. Wilson.—What could have first suggested to the mind of man the use of the bath ? Mr. Urquhart.—Will you allow me to substitute for bath heat? Mr. Wilson.—Yes. Mr. Urquhart.—I conceive heat to be the meaning in mythology of the negative and the positive prin- ciples. These pervade all religions; they are the groundwork of all ancient philosophy, whether in the Western or Eastern world. These are water and heat. The sun represents the one, the moon the other; for the moon was held to' be the emblem of water. This is the myth of the lotus. That plant dropping in a capsule its seed upon the lake Manaswara, expanding and growing without contact with the earth, nourished by the water and called up by the sun ; represents the conjunction of the two principles operating in the pro- creation, and for the development of the animal and vegetable worlds. They deified moisture and heat. Can there be a doubt, that having traced their action they had called in their aid ? Heat and moisture con- stitute the bath. The sun to the Egyptian was the performer of miracles. They distinguish between apparent heat and curative heat; that heat that we seek