Part 16

This is a very valuable remedy for the same class of diseases for which the vapor bath is recommended. It is of very great service in cases of dropsy, Bright’s disease with poisoning from retained urea, and all cases in which a vigorous elimination by the skin is desired. It should not be continued longer than the vapor bath, and much harm may result from its too frequent employment. Like the vapor bath, this may be conducted in a suitable box with an opening for the head.

TURKISH BATH.

This is entirely analogous to the hot-air bath, though on a much more elaborate plan. The patient is gradually conducted from a temperature of 120° to that of 160° or even much more than 200°. The bath is concluded by shampooing, rubbing, cooling baths, and gradual cooling in a room maintained at a temperature of 70°.

The uses of this bath are the same as those of the hot-air bath. It has no advantages over it of very great importance, and is much more liable to produce injury by prolonged and frequent application. It generally occupies an hour, and by those who resort to it as a luxury, as did the ancient Romans, it is often prolonged to several hours.

The long-continued application of excessive heat to the body is a very unnatural process. It tends to produce permanent relaxation and debility of the cutaneous tissues, and the manner in which this bath is administered in Turkish bath establishments is productive of great harm. It is often presented to invalids as almost a panacea; and is given alike to the strong and vigorous, and the weak and debilitated.

The bath is certainly good in its place, but it is decidedly bad when abused. Many consider the hot-air bath greatly preferable since it obviates the necessity of inhaling superheated air, the effects of which upon the lungs are said to be injurious. The hot-air bath is doubtless safer.

ELECTRIC BATH.

Electricity may be more efficiently applied in connection with water than by itself. Water is a better conductor of electricity than the dry skin, and hence facilitates its communication to the body. The ordinary method of applying electricity is by attaching one pole of the battery to a metallic plate, placed in contact with some part of the body, while the circuit is completed by the application to the patient of a moist sponge connected with the other pole. The operator often holds one pole in his hand and applies the other hand, moistened, to the part to be treated. He is in this way enabled to judge very accurately of the strength of the current applied. The metallic plate is frequently placed at the feet of the patient, sometimes in a foot bath. The sponge may be applied to various parts of the body while the patient is in a sitz bath. For a general application of electricity the full bath is most convenient.

This bath is applicable to a very large variety of conditions. To describe them all would be to give nearly all the uses of electricity as a remedial agent, which does not come within the scope of this work. The electric full bath has been strongly recommended for the removal of mineral poisons from the body. Just how efficacious it is in this respect, we cannot confidently affirm. Probably its value has been somewhat exaggerated. Only the primary or galvanic current could be of any service in this direction.

Electricity is generally acknowledged to be a powerful remedial agent; but its use requires costly apparatus and much skill in application. It is necessary that the operator should not only understand the nature of diseases and the proper methods of applying electricity in treating them, but he must also thoroughly understand the general laws of electricity. The electric bath is as badly abused by quacks and charlatans as the Turkish bath. It should not be employed by unskillful persons; and for this and other reasons given, it is not well adapted to home use.

ELECTRO-VAPOR BATH.

This is a combination of the electric and the vapor bath, the electricity being applied to the body by means of the sponge, and metallic plates covered with moistened cloths. It is a valuable appliance if carefully used; but, like all effective modes of treatment, it is very liable to excessive use, which becomes abuse. It has been very highly lauded by certain specialists, and doubtless its value has been unstintedly exaggerated. It is perhaps not well proven that its effects are greatly superior to the effects of the vapor bath and electric bath administered separately; and the latter mode would be more convenient, though consuming a little more time.

DRY RUBBING-SHEET.

Cover the patient with a soft, dry sheet in the same manner as directed for applying the wet sheet in the rubbing wet-sheet bath. Then rub lightly but briskly upon the outside of the sheet with the flat hand. Do not rub with the sheet, but over it. Continue the rubbing ten or fifteen minutes, going over the whole body several times, and not neglecting the arms, the hands, and the feet. This application may be administered daily with profit to nearly all patients. It should always follow any form of general bath in which water is employed, as a means of drying the body. It promotes activity of the skin, and equalizes the circulation.

DRY HAND-RUBBING.

This application is much the same in effect as the preceding, though a little more soothing, and hence better adapted to nervous patients. It consists in rubbing the body gently with the palm of the dry hand. The force of the rubbing should be nicely graduated to the condition of the patient. When employed to excite considerable activity of the skin, the rubbing may be accompanied with kneading of the abdomen, and light percussion of the surface.

Gentle rubbing of the skin is a very soothing process. It will frequently induce sleep when other means are ineffectual. Rubbing the back and limbs downward, and gentle rubbing of the temples, are very soothing to children and nervous invalids.

AIR BATH.

The air has a very soothing effect upon the body when allowed to come in contact with the entire surface. It answers a very valuable purpose when a water bath is impossible, or when the patient is too feeble to endure the application of water. A sleepless person will often fall into a sound and refreshing slumber after walking a few minutes in his room with the whole body exposed to the air. The effects of night labor upon literary people may be partially counteracted by the air bath. Benjamin Franklin was accustomed to pursue his writing to a late hour after divesting himself of his clothing, and he recommends the practice to others compelled to labor late with the pen.

SUN BATH.

The value of sunlight as a hygienic agent is so universally recognized—theoretically if not practically—that we need not devote space to its consideration in this connection. Sunlight is essential to the healthy performance of the vital functions, and must be equally important as an aid to remedial processes. This fact has been amply demonstrated by hospital experience, which shows a much larger percentage of recoveries in rooms abundantly exposed to the sun than in those secluded from its rays.

That the sun has a powerful influence upon the skin is shown by the great increase of pigment in that structure when freely exposed to the sunlight. This results from an increased activity of the cutaneous tissues.

Experience has shown that the sun bath can be employed to advantage in most chronic diseases. The patient simply lies in a position in which the naked skin can be freely exposed to the rays of the sun. The head should be shaded. The bath should not be continued so long as to produce unpleasant effects either upon the skin or the general system. It may be accompanied and followed with the dry hand-rubbing.

SEA-BATHING.

Bathing in the sea is much practiced by fashionable people who make annual visits to the sea-coast for this purpose. It is no doubt useful, though many who participate in it would doubtless receive quite as much benefit if they took as many baths at home during the whole year as they take at the fashionable watering-places in a single week. It is a fine thing to be well washed once a year, however, if not more often.

As generally conducted, sea-bathing is not more beneficial than harmful. The dissipation accompanying it more than counterbalances what good might be gained. It is rather absurd to attribute any specific virtues to sea-water, as many do. Quite a large business is carried on in the evaporation of sea-water and the sale of the dirty residue, which is again dissolved in water and used in bathing by those who live too far inland to enjoy the benefits of bathing in the sea, or who prefer to take their sea-bath in their own private bath-room. Everything must have a counterfeit, and so this seasalt is imitated by base swindlers who prepare a mixture of chemicals just as powerful, but not quite so complicated, and less dirty, though certainly equally good. All of this trouble and swindling might be saved if people would only consider for a moment the fact that all the benefit they obtain from bathing is derived from the exercise, the temperature, and pure water, and not from any impurities which the water may chance to contain.

Sea-bathing is usually overdone. More benefit will be gained by one or two daily baths than by a half-dozen. Fifty baths in a single week are not equivalent to a single bath each in fifty weeks.

MEDICATED BATHS.