Bathing : how to do it, when to do it, and where to do it / by Edgar Sheppard.

  • Edgar Sheppard
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bathing : how to do it, when to do it, and where to do it / by Edgar Sheppard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the West. Greece now knows it not; when the Romans began to decline they, too, lost it, although Agrippa alone had built more than one hundred and fifty bath-houses in the capital, and there was once no Roman camp without abundant provision for the daily bathing of the soldiers in g’arrison. Mr. Urquhart is of opinion that the bath is now dying out in Turkey, where it has been preserved in sloppy impurity until the present day. Shall it find a permanent home, under more improved conditions, in a sea-girt island where the Romans themselves have left so many monuments of their greatness, where the climate is as variable (though not more so) as that of Turkey, where the inhabitants are prone alike to the diseases of luxurious indolence and grinding* poverty ? Now let us inquire what are the great purposes to which the bath is subservient, and what are likely to be its effects when permanently established and generally utilized amongst us. In the first place, the bath, properly understood, and used with the precaution arising from its being understood, is one of the best preservatives against disease. It anticipates evil. “ Comme agent preventif ye ne crois pas qu’aucun autre puis se egaler le bain twee judicieusement dirige.33 * And in this crowd¬ ing, pressing, business-like age of ours, when men will not find time for exercise, save at uncertain periods; when day by day are accumulated from excessive good living the poisons which afterwards manifest themselves in dyspepsia and gout, it is hardly possible to over-estimate the value of a process by which alone man is taught the true “ dignity of the skin.-” Look at the shoals of “ City men ” who pour into London every morning by rail, and omnibus, and steamer, and leave again in the evening, utterly worn by the fatigues of the day. What is their daily round ? Out of bed early, of necessity, though tired and sleepy; a cold sponge-bath—capital in its way, but not a true bath ; meat-breakfast—rush to rail or omnibus—whirl up to Babylon; letters to write, business of various kinds to transact. Between one and two o'clock a sense of exhaustion, met by a hot lunch—in many cases a real and heavy dinner, with ale and stout, two or three glasses of sherry, and then again to business. At five or six o'clock there is a great exodus. Back again to their country residences go our mercantile community; many arms are open to embrace the well-fed citizens, and many choice dishes (a second dinner) tempt them to an indulgence of a most prejudicial kind. Per¬ haps on a Saturday our younger friends get a row on the river * “ Du Bain Turc,” p. 67. B
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