Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Baths and bathing. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![allusion to Ptisan is interesting, as showing how some of our commonest domestic remedies come to us from a remote antiquity. The Greek word Trncravy] signifies peeled (or pearl) barley, and the drink made from it, the barley-water of to-day. As we have before mentioned incidentally, the proper ventilation of the bathroom is a matter of prime import- ance ; for since the respiration is quickened by the act of bathing, it is evident that a foul atmosphere in the bath- room is very liable to produce an ill-effect upon the bather. Many of the swimming baths in London are very defective in this respect, and we have been forcibly struck, in more than one of them, by the ammoniacal odour proceeding from those sanitary offices which are a necessary adjunct to every bathing establishment. It is a very common custom in private houses to place the bath and the water-closet in the same apartment. That this is an undesirable arrangement is evident, for the water-closet is, of all places in a house, that in which a foul atmo- sphere is most likely to be encountered. Although a bathroom should be well ventilated, it should certainly not be draughty, for currents of cold air blowing upon the moist skin of the bather are likely to give cold, and produce internal congestions of various kinds. In summer there is no difficulty in providing a sufficiency of fresh air, but in winter it is not so easy. The best way,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21040242_0050.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
