Note 4 — THE TURKISH BATH.1

It may be observed that, cæteris paribus, the strength of each person’s constitution is directly proportional to the quantity of oxygen which his system is capable of imbibing, for on this the vitality of his system and the purity of his blood, and therefore his health, depends. Hence arises the importance of supplying the system with an abundance of pure air, and the absolute necessity, when the lungs are by nature small and deficient, of increasing that supply of air through the only other medium open to us, viz., the skin4—(the great supplementary organ to the lungs)—the necessity for improving and developing the absorptive powers of which is in exact proportion to the lungs’ diminished capacity. It is in this lies the great therapeutic value of the Turkish bath, viz., in its opening the pores of the skin5, and so improving that medium for the access of oxygen to the blood. Let two individuals, one with large lungs, the other with small, pursue the same habits of living; the individual with large lungs indulging himself to the furthest extent, consistent with the continuance of his health, and it will be found, that his small-lunged companion, in trying to keep pace with him, will utterly break down, his blood becoming diseased, and his health failing him from want of a sufficient supply of oxygen to purify his blood by burning off the carbonaceous matter which poisons it and depresses his vitality. The individual with large lungs will indulge in alcoholic beverages with impunity, to an extent which would entail consumption or some other miserable disease on his narrow-chested companion; it was the great exercise, constant exposure to, and rapid passage through, the air, (by which a large quantity of oxygen was supplied to the system through the lungs) that enabled our fox-hunting ancestors of old to live a life which their more sedentary descendants of the present day dare not attempt to practise.