Part 2

Some bathers with tough cuticles affect the use of towels bearing to the touch a strong resemblance to rasps or wire brushes, and affirm that everyone ought to use the very roughest that can be procured: there are others, on the contrary, possessing an outer epidermis so delicately soft and velvet-like, that very rough towels would, if used, cause insufferable agony, and almost flay them alive; what would be thought a rough towel by one, producing after use a full glow, would have no effect upon another.

The use of the flesh-brush, after a thorough rub down with towels, is to be commended for producing a more vigorous reaction; there are many persons, however, whose skins are too delicate to allow of the application of the flesh-brush, but this is of little moment, as a moderately rough towel will with them produce as strong a reaction, or as great a glow, as the flesh-brush would with those possessing less sensitive skins.

AFTER THE BATH.

A Bath-Room, if possible should certainly receive the benefit of the sun, and in warm and genial weather the enjoyment of the bath will be heightened if the window be opened wide at the top.

When, however, the thermometer is in the neighbourhood of freezing point, the atmosphere of the bath-room is to many intolerably cold, and one may perhaps be sometimes tempted to raise the temperature of the cold water in the bath too high to produce the necessary shock with its pleasant and health-promoting reaction. It is better, by some means, in cold weather, to warm the bath-room and to keep the temperature of the cold water sufficiently low to produce the desired reaction. Drying and dressing may be comfortably gone through in front of a fire, the use of which for this purpose is a positive advantage, and will by no means, as might perhaps be imagined, tend to enervate or enfeeble, or in any way lessen the pleasure and benefits to be derived from the bath; a good fire on the contrary, will act as a help in laying in an agreeable and valuable supply of warmth, the advantage of which will be felt during the whole day.

Only a very weakly person should take the bath in the bed-room, as the air of the sleeping chamber must necessarily be more or less vitiated. Still, better there than not at all, and very likely, after a few trials, sufficient courage and energy will be found to enable the bather to get into fresher air.

The surface of the human body is protected by an oily film deposited by innumerable vessels, so that after a dip into water the skin is not thoroughly wetted, most of the water running from the body as from a duck’s back. After a Soap-bath, the bather will find himself thoroughly wet all over, the skin being apparently saturated as if it were blotting paper; both natural secretions and foreign matter will have yielded to the warm and cleansing bath of yellow soap and the after-application of cold water.

In conjunction with the Soap-bath, daily exercise after breakfast is not only desirable but necessary: half-an-hour’s ride, a brisk walk, or an open air game helps to circulate the blood and raise the spirits for the day. If the accumulated effects of three hundred and sixty-five morning walks could be seen and judged, perhaps business men would not be in quite so great a hurry, after bolting their breakfast, to rush into the omnibus or train. Half-an-hour apparently thus wasted is gained twice over during the day in better work more easily done.

A celebrated physician was once heard to say that he did not much care what atmosphere his patients lived in during the day so long as they breathed pure air at night; but whether one resides in town or country, it is impossible to breathe fresh air if the bed-room window be kept closed. Many people appear to be afraid of taking cold if they sleep with the bed-room window open: never was a greater mistake. The most delicately constituted maiden may, with ordinary precaution, and without the slightest fear of injury, sleep with the bed-room window open almost all the year round, and with the certainty of health and vigour being materially improved. Even this uncertain climate is seldom bad enough to compel complete closing up of the windows: the bed must of course not be placed in a direct draught: i.e. between the open window and the fireplace.

SPONGE & SHOWER BATHS.

Many persons have to content themselves with a Sponge-bath, and although its invigorating effects are great, and cold water daily applied externally—no matter how—hardens the body, and keeps the system up to that high condition which makes the mere sense of living enjoyable, the application of cold water—sometimes nearly freezing—by fits and starts as it were, is not the most comfortable method of taking a bath, and the preference will generally be given to that which enables one to dip overhead at once.

However, after a long continued course of the Plunge, the Sponge-bath will sometimes be found a positive relief, and, like a change of food, will act as a whet to the appetite. In taking such a bath it is desirable that the sponge be of large size, and it should be placed in the bath, charged with water, ready for immediate use.

To obtain the fullest benefit in the most agreeable manner, the charged sponge, as the bather steps into the bath, should be lifted and carried quickly to the back of the head, which should be slightly inclined forward, so that the bulk of the water will run down the spine and back; the next spongeful should be almost instantaneously applied, leaning forward, to the top of the head, and the third, standing quite upright, to the chest; the arms and legs may then be separately treated: and if desire be felt for more, the application may be repeated to the back of the head and chest.

The species of cold bath following the hot is really of little moment, it is simply a matter of taste and convenience; and whether a plunge, shower, hip, sitz, or sponge-bath be used, the pleasurable and beneficial results will be very much the same.

There are bathers who prefer a Shower-bath, and, to those able to stand it, nothing can be more agreeable and refreshing, but it may be safely questioned whether a Shower-bath taken on a cold wintry morning, with the water all but freezing, can possibly prove salutary even to the most robust.

Nearly freezing water from a shower-bath produces a feeling something akin to what might be imagined to result from a shower of red-hot lead; the shock is tremendous, and the shower, if continued for any length of time, would assuredly cause asphyxia. Professor Jamin shews conclusively that although ice is always at an uniform temperature of 32°, water may remain liquid at a very much lower temperature if guarded from external disturbance.

The nerves must be thoroughly braced up to take such a bath: the writer has a lively recollection of stepping into a shower-bath one intensely cold morning, when, the string being pulled, not a drop of water descended; the connections were all frozen, and the bath was empty; the shock resulting on that occasion from the absence of the water, though of a negative and totally different description, was really greater than would have been produced by the cold shower itself.

The Shower-bath should be taken warmer than the ordinary cold bath; the water may be advantageously placed in the bath on the previous evening, and, if necessary, a little warm water added in the morning.

If headache follow, or reaction be slow, accompanied by shivering, the shower must be discontinued, and a milder bath resorted to.

SEA-BATHING & SWIMMING.

Sea-bathing—at least in these islands—is generally believed in and largely practised, and some persons, by means of salts sold for that purpose, produce a close imitation of sea-water for their daily tubbing. A Salt-bath thus prepared, when its use conduces to the enjoyment and health of the bather, is by no means to be discouraged, and may advantageously follow the soap application in place of fresh water.

Most of us must have noticed how renovating to enfeebled constitutions is the effect of even a short course of sea-bathing, but it is equally patent that the good effects quickly wear off, the physique returning shortly to its perhaps normal condition of relaxation and lassitude. The daily use of the Soap-bath keeps the constitution permanently braced up to that delightful condition experienced by so few, that makes mere existence an absolute pleasure. A preliminary course of Sea-bathing is by no means necessary to bring about this pleasant condition of things.

Salt-water is more energetic in its action on the skin than fresh, and, after a dip in the sea, there is not the same liability to take cold from insufficient drying as after a fresh-water bath. Some bathers go so far as to habitually only half-dry themselves, the saline particles left on the skin further exciting its action, and producing a healthy and more vigorous glow. Children at the sea-side may safely be allowed, without the slightest fear of taking cold, to dabble and patter about in the little pools left by the receding tide: their constitutions will be positively invigorated and improved.

A love of cold-water bathing can perhaps be carried to excess, as in the case of those self-devoted Spartan swimmers, who, every morning, even in winter, assemble on the banks of the Serpentine, and audaciously defying their own instinct, plunge into the freezing water, even though they have first to break through the icy covering under which it is concealed by nature: the strongest constitution must suffer sooner or later from this treatment.

Boys and girls ought to be taught swimming at school as they are taught gymnastics and calisthenics—as a matter of course. We ought, as islanders, to be swimmers, and it is to be regretted that we are not: swimmers are of necessity bathers, but bathers are not always, as they should be, swimmers. The percentage of swimmers in this country is perhaps considerably less than might be expected by those who have not given any thought to the subject, and yet the art itself is a necessary one, easy to acquire, healthy, and sometimes of the greatest possible service.

When once learned the action of swimming comes as naturally as walking, and doubtless man in a state of nature, would, like a dog, swim at once if thrown into the water. Swimming is an art which seems to incorporate itself into the physique, and become part of one’s being—at any rate, it can never be forgotten, and a person finding himself unexpectedly in deep water, after a twenty years’ rest from swimming, will strike out as naturally and surely, and with little more effort, than if the practice had never been given up.

Rowing-men are usually swimmers, or they ought to be. To appreciate river life one must go to bed early and get up early; ten o’clock should be the latest hour at which to turn in, but after an extra hard day’s pull the sheets will be welcome by nine. To enjoy thorough fatigue one must do a hard day’s work in the open air. Up in the morning betimes, garments hastily donned, a sharp pull to the nearest bathing place, where one can dive in and have a few minutes delicious swim, and back to breakfast—and such a breakfast! Or possibly the way lies through the fields where the grass is knee-deep and saturated with refreshing dew: then off come shoes and socks, the trousers are well tucked-up, and one gets what a hydropath would possibly term a leg-bath—in reality a delicious, fragrant dew-bath, which, though more than cool, is mightily enjoyable and never seems to give cold.

Small-boned and fleshy persons naturally make the best swimmers, but it must not be supposed that thin people cannot learn to swim, and swim well. The writer well remembers seeing one morning at Brill’s swimming baths, Brighton, a young fellow who had just stepped from his dressing-box ready for a plunge. He was standing where the water is deepest, and judging by his appearance he literally could not have had an ounce of flesh to spare. It was absurd to suppose that so thin a man could swim, and his movements were curiously watched. After hesitating an instant, apparently measuring the size of the bath, he shot into the water head first as if propelled from a catapult, and shortly reappeared half-way across the bath, having swum the distance under water; he proved himself a thorough master of the element. It appeared that although passionately fond of the water he could only keep himself afloat by constant muscular exertion of both arms and legs; he was too thin to float naturally, and could not venture to swim out a greater distance than he felt sure of covering on his return.