The uses and abuses of the Turkish bath / by Edward Haughton.

  • Haughton, E. (Edward)
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The uses and abuses of the Turkish bath / 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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    Vapour Bath; the quantity of watery vapour is small, and does not affect the transpiration of water by the skin. Of course a profuse sweating is induced, and the skin is thoroughly softened. It is a hot hath without water, or rather with the aid of very little water. From this chamber ho passes to another, the caUdarium, where, freely perspiring, he is rubbed with towels or goat’s hair gloves, and so great is the effect of the prior treatment that the softened cuticle rolls off in thick flakes, and a new skin is found beneath of which the subject of the operation little dreamed. No one who takes a Turkish Bath for the flrst time but must be astonished at the quantity of unnecessary cuticle which he carries about with him. Adepts tell you that ‘ it requires great dexterity to perform this well, without rubbing some places too much and others too little.’ Now comes a drenching with warm water and soap, which is not the most agreeable part of the bath, and may be considered partially unnecessary. Then the bather passes back to the tepidarium, where he is dried and clothed in warm towels, and, after a pause, then to the frigidarium, or cool chamber, where, still clothed in warm towels, he sips coffee, smokes a narghile, and indulges in beatiflc sensations which only those can know who have passed through the three purgatories of the bath. The Turldsh Bath is an agent of such great power in restoring the active func- tions of the skin, and the ordinary results of its application are so peculiarly agreeable and invigorating, that it will probably excite the attention of medical practitioners in its relations to disease. It is a powerful agent, of which the idrtues are apparent; but, incautiously employed by persons liable to congestion of the head or organs of the chest, is not free from danger, as some unfortunate circumstances have already proved.”—Lancet. [The author begs to say that he does not claim to himself the credit of the construction of the Irish Baths, (as mentioned above,) but simply priority in bringing the subject before scientific bodies.] “ BATHS OB THE EAST. “ Dr. Haughton, of Dublin, delivered, last evening, at the Concert-haU, Lord Nelson-street, a lecture on the ‘Baths of the East.’ Amongst those present were—Mr. Titherington, Mr. Peter Maxwell, Mr. David Stuart, Mr. George Swainson, Mr. VV. G. kLalcomson, Mr. A. Malcomson, Dr. Drysdale, Mr. Councillor Wagstaff, (Chairman of the Corporation Baths Committee,) Mr. Hay, Mr. Treffry, Mr. Capper, &c. “ Mr. Titherington presided, and, before introducing Dr. Haughton, said that so much importance was attached in the East to baths, that the Orientals considered bathing a matter of as great importance as the ob- servances of religious rites, the veiy lowest orders of society even being taught to avail themselves of the luxury and iimilege of the bath at certain periods of the day. The chairman then road an extract from Chambers' Journal, relative to a paper read by Dr. Haughton before the Boyal Dublin Society, which showed tlio talents and e.xpericnce, in con- nection with Turkish Baths, of the lecturer. “Dr. Haughton, who was received with hearty applause, then addressed the assembly. He first gave an accoimt of the Kussian, IMoorish, Egjqitian, Turkish, Koinan, and old Irish Bath, with the distinctive features of each, and then dwelt upon what he styled tlio <7/.s-improved Turkish Baths which are now employed in various parts of the country. The Russian Bath, lie explained, had the greatest amount of vapour, the latter, in fact, being so dense that little or nothing else could bo seen in the bathing chambers.