Note 74 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
By the merest accident I made this discovery. A lady mentioned to me, “a practice of sweating,” which she had heard of in her childhood among the peasantry. I subjoin an extract of a letter written in reply to inquiries.
“With respect to the sweating-houses, as they are called, I remember about forty years ago, seeing one in the island of Rathlin, and shall try to give you a description of it:—It was built of basalt stones, very much in the shape of a bee-hive, with a row of stones inside, for the person to sit on when undergoing the operation. There was a hole at the top and one near the ground where the person crept in, and seated him or herself; the stones having been heated in the same way as an oven for baking bread is; the hole on the top being covered with a sod, while being heated; but, I suppose, removed to admit the person to breathe. Before entering, the patient was stripped quite naked, and on coming out, dressed again in the open air. The process was reckoned a sovereign cure for rheumatism and all sorts of pains and aches. They are fearful-looking things, as well as I remember.”