Baths and bathing : a description of all the various kinds of baths, both simple and medicated, administered at the Argyll Baths (established 1817) : 10A, Argyll Place, Regent Street, W. (near Oxford Circus), and 5, New Broad Street, City, E.C. (near the North London Railway station).

Date:
[1885]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Baths and bathing : a description of all the various kinds of baths, both simple and medicated, administered at the Argyll Baths (established 1817) : 10A, Argyll Place, Regent Street, W. (near Oxford Circus), and 5, New Broad Street, City, E.C. (near the North London Railway station). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Witli the previous simple baths, their effect is depen- dent on the temperature of the water in which the bather is immersed, and the water itself comes into contact with the body without any force or movement worthy of account. When, however, water is projected against the- body with various power and in various amount, specific effects are produced. There are several well-accepted methods of bringing water into more or less forcible contact with the body, and the various appliances for administering both in which this is a principal point have been most carefully perfected at the Argyll Baths. The Shower Bath. In this bath the water is allowed to drop by its own weight from some height on to the surface of the body. By means of a rose the water is divided in passage into rain of greater or less fineness, and does not therefore strike the body in bulk ; further it comes into contact with the skin by forcible impact and the impression produced is much greater than in the case of ordinary quiet immersion. The farther the distance through which the water falls and the larger the rain which composes it, the greater is the effect pi-oduced.. The shower bath is usually given at a low temperature, and what has been said about the cold bath applies to the cold shower, only that all the effects of the latter are more pronounced and exaggerated. The shower bath, although described as a separate bath process, is rarely given per se, but generally in conjunction with some other form of bath; as after a warm bath, a vapour bath, or a hot-air bath. The fact that the body has been previously sub- jected to a high temperature before being exposed to shock of a cold shower, renders the latter process more tolerable, while it by no means detracts from its tonic and bracing effects. The shower bath will be more fully referred to in this respect later on, when that combination
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