An essay on the Oriental bath : read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, on the 29th August, 1857 / by Edward Haughton.

  • Haughton, E. (Edward)
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the Oriental bath : read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, on the 29th August, 1857 / by Edward Haughton. 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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    may be counterfeited by the starched linen which so often covers a multitude of impurities. But the attainment of the reality is necessarily accompanied by self-respect, and dignity of mind. In the bath we have a pleasure which is not a vice,—a luxury which does not tend to shorten life ;—which may become universally obtainable; and which, as soon as there is sufficient demand for the article, to give encourage- ment to capital, must inevitably become cheap. It is the best purifier of the blood ; for even poisons can be thus eliminated in large quantities, and for this reason, it is difficult to produce inebriation in one who makes frequent use of the bath. It is the best of all cosmetics, for the Mussulman scarcely knows of the existence of those loathsome skin diseases which are here so prevalent. In Turkey, rheuma- tism never reaches the chronic incurable stage which it does with us; and gout itself is known only as a disease of the Franks. It would be easy to mention other diseases from which it produces immunity; but it may be sufficient to remark, that the Turks, whose other habits are (almost without exception) unfavour- able to health, are very seldom ill; and longevity would appear to be more common with them than amongst us. Is it an unfair or overdrawn con- clusion, to attribute this to the great attention which they bestow upon the functions of the skin, when no ofcher explanation is obtainable to account for it? But this is not all; physiology informs us, that the lungs are not the only organs of respiration, but that the skin has a vicarious action which assists them, and to a great extent supplies their place in certain cases. I quote again from Professor Berard's work on Phy- siology: II se fait au contact de Pair avec la peau, un
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