A lecture on the revival of the Turkish, or ancient Roman bath : delivered at the Grosvenor Place School of Medicine / by T. Spencer Wells.

  • Thomas Spencer Wells
Date:
[1860]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the revival of the Turkish, or ancient Roman bath : delivered at the Grosvenor Place School of Medicine / by T. Spencer Wells. 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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    their decline. So with the Turks. One author holds up these people as models of beauty and strength, and attributes their high physical con- dition to the bath. Another thinks the bath is used in excess and anti- cipates the decline and fall of the Turkish Empire as a direct consequence. And so people argue of the prolonged fasts of the Mahomedan religion, the abstinence from wine and spirits, the practice of polygamy and in- fanticide, and the use of tobacco and opium. Some find nothing but good in these things; some nothing but evil. Only the minority endeavour to ascertain what are the real facts of the case,—whether the real con- dition of the Turk is that of physical deterioration or the reverse, and what share each of the circumstances under which he lives may have on bis condition and future prospects. I hope you will not be led to take any such limited view, but will ascertain what are the real effects and uses of the bath ; what good it may do if proiDcrly used, and what evils its abuse might entail upon us. I have given you my reasons for be- lieving that it may become an important agent in the physical education of our nation, and an important aid to us in treating vai-ious forms of disease ; and I trust we may see before very long some public edifice arise worthy of the Metropolis of the greatest Empire the world has ever seen. PRmTED BY JOHN LANK, 49, KING STREET, WESTMINSTER.
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