Note 267 — SECOND SECTION. Influences which served to hinder to a greater or less degree the inception of Diseases consequent upon the Use or Misuse of the Genital Organs.

Seneca, Epist. 86. says, speaking of the bath of Scipio: Balneolum angustum, tenebricosum ex consuetudine antiqua; non videbatur maioribus nostris caldum nisi obscurum. (A little narrow bath-chamber, dim and gloomy after the antique fashion; our fathers could not believe a bath warm unless it was dark too).—Next he describes explicitly the luxury of the Roman Baths, and then goes on,—In hoc balneo Scipionis minimae sunt rimae magis quam fenestrae, muro lapideo exsectae, ut sine iniuria munimenti lumen admitterent. At nunc blattaria vocant balnea, si qua non ita aptata sunt, ut totius diei solem fenestris amplissimis recipiant; nisi et lavantur et colorantur; nisi ex solio agros et maria prospiciant.... Imo si scias, non quotidie lavabatur. Nam ut aiunt, qui priscos mores urbis tradiderunt, brachia et crura quotidie abluebant, quae scilicit sordes opere collegerant: ceterum toti nundinis lavabantur. Hoc loco dicet aliquis, liquet mihi immundissimos fuisse. Quid putas illos oluisse? militiam, laborem, virum. Postquam munda balnea inventa sunt, spurciores sunt. (In this bath of Scipio there are tiny chinks rather than windows, cut through the stone wall, so as to admit light without detriment to the shelter afforded. But nowadays men call them Baths for night-moths, any that are not disposed in such a way as to let the sunlight enter all day long by immense windows; if they are not washed and sun-burned at once; if they cannot look out on fields and sea from the pavement.... If you must know the truth, he did not bathe every day. For we are told by those who have handed down accounts of the primitive manners of the City, our ancestors would wash daily arms and legs, for these had grown soiled with the dust of toil: but they washed all over only on market-days. Hearing this, it will be said, “It appears to me they must have very filthy people.” Well! what think you it was they smelt of? Of fighting, and honest work, and manly vigour. Sweet, clean Baths have been introduced; but the population is only more foul). Comp. Plutarch, Quaest. convival. VIII. 9. Sidonius Apollinaris bk. II. Epist. 11. Pliny, Hist. nat. XXX. 54.