OBSERVATIONS ON THE USE OE THE BATH.[19]
Reading edition
OBSERVATIONS ON THE USE OE THE BATH.[19]
A Bath is an aggregate of many parts, all more or less essential in forming the whole. To single out, therefore, any particular chamber, or any special contrivance used therein, and to call it the bath, is the same as singling out any room in a house, and calling it the house.
Bathing is a process; and that process is an elaborate one. It comes without thought to those accustomed to it, and no form of words can convey it to those who are not. The bath being the practice of a cleanly and polite people, habits of cleanliness and politeness must be observed by those who frequent it. No code of rules and instructions can teach the use of the bath: strangers must learn from the attendants how they are to conduct themselves, and not speculate upon what they do not understand. The following injunctions, however, may perhaps be of some service:—
I. The bath should be taken (especially by the uninitiated) before dinner: but if in the evening, a light repast may be taken in the middle of the day.
II. Habits of cleanliness, decorum and repose are imperative. The floors of the inner chambers of the bath must never be trodden with shoes; these, and all other ordinary articles of dress, are to be left in the outer room. The bathing dress is to be strictly worn throughout, and never laid aside, except when the bather may be the sole occupant of an apartment. To ensure the necessary quiet and repose, all noisy and exciting conversation is prohibited.
III. Where there is a tepid-chamber, the bather is to remain therein for a short time, or until a gentle moisture appears on the surface of the skin.
IV. He is then to proceed to the hot-chamber (having first twisted a piece of linen around the head, in the form of a turban), and if, at any time, the heat be found oppressive, the head may be wetted with warm, and the feet with cold water; and he should pass to and from a cooler room, until the system becomes habituated to the heat. When the skin shall hereafter acquire a more healthy condition, and copious perspiration speedily results from every bath, the feeling of oppression will cease.
V. Water may be drunk, if desired; but to drink without the desire sometimes produces sickness.
VI. Shampooing (where attainable) necessarily precedes the processes of ablution, for which object the bather returns for a time to the tepid-chamber. In the absence of better means, rough linen or hair gloves may be used to remove the softened cuticle.
VII. From the hot-chamber he proceeds to the washing-room, if this should form a separate apartment. After the whole surface of the body has been well soaped and rubbed, it is to be exposed to a shower of warm water; and this soaping and cleansing is to be repeated as often as may be required. In all washings care must be taken that the same water shall never touch the body twice.
VIII. Immediately following the final ablution with warm water, the whole body should be subjected for a few seconds to a stream of cold water; or the bather may take a plunge into a pool of cold water, where such convenience forms a part of the bath.
IX. If this application of cold be long continued, or if it take place in too cool a room, the bather should return to the hot-chamber for a few minutes, in order that the skin may regain its previous degree of warmth; generally, however (after having thrown aside the wet bathing garb), it will be sufficient to envelope the whole body quickly with a dry sheet, and to proceed at once to the—
X. Cooling-room, where the recumbent posture and perfect quietude are enjoined for a few minutes, until the accelerated action of the heart shall have quite subsided: the sheet is to be cast off by degrees, and its place supplied with a fresh bath garment.
XI. Plenty of time is to be devoted to this important department of the bath; the skin is to be exposed, as much as possible, to the vivifying action of the sun and air, and opportunity thus afforded to the newly-opened pores to absorb oxygen from the atmosphere. Where the cooling-room opens into a retired court, or garden, the open air is preferable.
XII. Before dressing, the whole surface of the body must be dry to the touch. If the cooling stage be hurried over, a secondary perspiration may break out; this may give cold, and this alone; but this is the result of mismanagement, not of the bath. Finally; the bather should "Dress deliberately, walk away slowly, and reflect properly on the blessing that he has enjoyed."
THE END.
LONDON: SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN.