Part 5

A hot bath applied to the whole body, or a large portion of it, produces an acceleration of the pulse and an increase of animal heat proportionate to the temperature of the bath. A bath at 106° to 108° F. will increase the pulse from the normal standard to one hundred or one hundred and twenty beats in a minute, in a short time. A bath four or five degrees hotter has been known to increase the pulse to more than one hundred and fifty beats in a minute.

When a hot bath is prolonged, the face becomes flushed, and the whole skin very red; the head aches; sight is sometimes dimmed; ringing in the ears, faintness, a stinging pain in the skin, and intense desire to urinate are symptoms which are often present. Copious perspiration and intense congestion of the skin are constant effects. The cutaneous congestion, from relaxation of the blood-vessels, is apt to continue to exist after the bath, if it is greatly prolonged, to the serious injury of the subject.

The effects of the vapor bath are essentially the same as those described, though a somewhat higher degree of heat is tolerated without injury. In the hot-air bath, a still higher heat is borne with impunity.

Rationale of Effects of the Hot Bath.—It scarcely need be repeated that all of the effects noticed, as well as those of all other baths, are chiefly the results of modifications of vital action occasioned by the agent employed. The application of heat to the body occasions relaxation of the muscular coats of the small arteries, and increased action of those vessels. No doubt this is for the purpose of bringing moisture to the surface to protect the tissues against the unnatural heat. As is the case with cold baths, the causes which modify the heat are three; viz.,—

1. The increased quantity of blood circulating through the part brings to it an increased amount of heat;

2. Increased vital and chemical action increases the production of heat;

3. The body absorbs heat from the surrounding medium as any other colder object would do.

In the general application of hot water or vapor, effects similar to its local effects are produced upon the whole surface of the body, involving, also, to a considerable extent, the deeper structures. The pulse is accelerated because the small arteries are distended and more active, creating a demand for a greater quantity of blood, requiring an increase in the heart’s action. It is also quite probable that the action of the heart is somewhat quickened as the result of the influence of heat upon the pneumogastric nerve which controls it.

The cerebral symptoms, faintness, etc., which occur when heat is applied in excess, are the result of the diversion of so large a proportion of the blood into the superficial vessels. A prolonged hot foot bath or leg bath will often produce faintness.

There are few agents which will so rapidly produce such powerfully excitant and stimulant effects as the hot bath. The painful and undesirable results occasioned by its incautious use are evidences of its power.

The Warm Bath.—In this connection we apply the term warm to baths of a temperature between 85° and 98° F., though baths of a temperature between 85° and 92° would be more accurately termed tepid, which term is applied to baths of that temperature elsewhere than in this immediate connection.

The warm bath never exceeds the temperature of the body, and is usually below it. Its effect is uniformly to diminish the frequency of the pulse and of respiration, and to decrease animal heat. Its effects are the same as those of the cool or cold bath, in this respect, but they differ in several other particulars. Unlike the cold bath, the warm bath is not accompanied by an unpleasant shock, or chill, and, hence, is not followed by reaction. It promotes the action of the skin in a very marked degree, increasing both perspiration and absorption. When continued for an hour or two, the weight is appreciably increased by the absorption of water. Its general effects are very mild and soothing, often inclining the patient to sleep.

This bath seems to produce its effects not so much by exciting the vital energies to abnormal action or resistance, as by supplying the most favorable conditions for the performance of the natural and usual functions. This is doubtless on account of its close approximation to the temperature of the body. In this respect, if this supposition be true, it differs from baths of a temperature either much above or greatly below the normal temperature of the body.

The warm vapor bath produces effects quite analogous to those of the warm water bath. Its effect upon the processes of perspiration and absorption is a little more marked, even with the same degree of temperature. The results differ somewhat, according as the whole body is enveloped, so that the warm vapor is taken into the lungs, or the head excluded. A more equable effect is produced by including the whole body in the bath, and no harm can result if the temperature is not raised above that of the body, as it should not be, in the warm bath.

=Sympathetic Effects.=—There is scarcely room for doubt that many of the effects of the various kinds of water applications are wholly of a sympathetic character. All portions of the body are intimately associated together by a system of nerves called the sympathetic system, from their peculiar function. Certain portions, as the skin and mucous membrane, are particularly related. The large number of sensitive nerves which connect the skin with the brain, bring it in peculiarly close relations to that organ, and give additional potency to any agent applied to so extensive a surface. The well-known fact that burns of the skin are often the occasion of fatal ulceration of the mucous membrane of the intestines sufficiently attests the intimate relation between these two tissues; while the effects upon the skin of mental emotions, as of shame and of fear, are conclusive evidence of the peculiar closeness of relation between the cerebral and cutaneous organs. The condition of the mind has much to do with the effect of a bath.

=Modes of Administration.=—There are numerous modes of administering baths of all temperatures, each of which produces some modification of the general effect of the given temperature. For example, such baths as the douche, the spray, and the shower bath, are much more cooling in their effects than a full bath at the same temperature; since, in the latter case, nearly the whole body would be submerged in a medium of equable temperature, while in the case of the spray, etc., the body would be additionally cooled by the rapid evaporation taking place upon its surface. Many other peculiar effects are obtained by particular modes of administration, which will be described in their proper place.

HISTORY OF WATER CURE.

The utility of water as an agent in the treatment of disease is not a modern discovery, as the pretensions of some aspirants for notoriety have led many to believe. A very cursory glance at the history of various ancient nations furnishes sufficient evidence that the use of the bath as a curative agent was of very remote origin. The works of the oldest medical authors contain numerous references to the bath, recommendations of its use in cases of disease, and testimonials of its good effects when properly employed. As this is a matter of some interest to many of those who employ and advocate the use of water as a remedial agent, as well as to those who are investigating its merits, we shall devote a little space to a sketch of the use and estimation of the bath by various nations and tribes—civilized and barbarous—and regular and irregular physicians, from the remote ages of antiquity down to modern times. For several of the facts presented we are indebted to a valuable work by Dr. Bell, long out of print and now somewhat rare.

=The Bath in Egypt.=—That bathing was practiced to a considerable extent by the Egyptians at a very early period, is evinced by both sacred and profane history. It was through obedience to this custom that Moses was discovered among the rushes by Pharaoh’s daughter as she went down to the river side to bathe. Pictures discovered in ancient Egyptian tombs represent persons preparing for the bath. We have no expression of the estimate which was placed upon the bath as a remedial agent; but it is hardly possible to believe that an agent held in such high esteem as a preventive of disease should not be valued as a useful remedy.

=Bathing among the Jews.=—The code of laws prepared by Moses, under divine instruction, for the government of the Hebrew nation after its departure from Egypt, made bathing a prominent feature. The connection of the bath with the treatment of leprosy would naturally lead to the conclusion that it was employed for its curative effects.

=Persian Baths.=—The ancient Persians held the bath in such high esteem that they erected magnificent public structures devoted to bathing. The baths of Darius are spoken of as especially remarkable.

=The Bath among the Greeks.=—The cold bath was employed among the Greeks. Lycurgus, the famous Spartan legislator, prescribed its daily use for all his subjects, not excepting the tendered infants. In later times, the warm bath was introduced, and stately buildings were erected for the accommodation of bathers.

The learned Greek, Hippocrates, the father of medical literature, and a very acute observer of disease and the effects of various agents upon the body, highly recommended the use of water in many diseases, describing with great care the proper mode of administering a simple bath. He laid great stress upon the careful and skillful use of the bath, asserting that, when improperly applied, it, “instead of doing good, may rather prove injurious.” His directions for the employment of the bath were very discreet. He very wisely remarks that those patients whose symptoms are such as would be benefited by bathing should be bathed, even though some of the requisite conveniences may be wanting; while those whose symptoms do not indicate the need of this remedy, should not employ it, though all the necessary appliances are at hand. He made great use of water as a beverage in treating disease.

=Roman Baths.=—The Romans excelled all other nations in the sumptuousness of their bathing arrangements. Their public baths were among their greatest works of architecture, and were supplied with every convenience for increasing the utility and luxury of the bath. Kings and emperors vied with each other in perfecting and enlarging these sanitary institutions. Accommodations were provided, in some cases, for nearly 20,000 bathers employing the baths simultaneously; and at one time the number of public baths in Rome was nearly one thousand. Even Nero, whose name has come down to us covered with infamy, has the credit of doing at least one good act in erecting a magnificent public bath, though even the detergent effects of such an act can hardly cleanse his character of the many foul blots by which it is rendered odious.

Celsus and Galen, two noted Latin physicians, extolled the bath as an invaluable remedy, almost two thousand years ago. The latter pronounced the bath to be one of the essential features of a system of perfect cure which he termed apotheraphia, exercise and friction being the other essentials. If the regular physicians of half a century ago had followed the practice of Galen, as described in his works, they would have refreshed their languishing fever patients with cold water as a beverage instead of leaving them to be consumed by the pent-up fires which parched their lips, disorganized their blood, and finally ended their sufferings with their lives. Celsus was proud to boast of employing the bath more frequently and systematically than others had done before his time.

The Emperor Augustus was cured, by the bath, of a disease which had baffled all other remedies.

=Testimony of Arabian Physicians.= — Although the Arabians are at the present day looked upon, and justly, as a horde of wandering wild-men, a thousand years ago their physicians were among the most learned of the age; and they were as sensible as learned, we judge, for they were most enthusiastic advocates of the efficiency of the bath. Rhazes, one of the most eminent of them, describes a plan of treating small-pox and measles which would scarcely be modified by the most zealous advocate of water treatment at the present day. Avicenna and Meshnes, with others, may be mentioned as holding similar views.

The bath was much used in pestilences by this nation, and was largely employed in Constantinople in the fifteenth century.