Luxurious Bathing

reatises and disquisitions sufficient to form a library of no inconsiderable dimensions have been written during the last three centuries on the subject of baths: boiling, freezing, variously medicated including tar-water, steam, and spray; milk, whey, broth, mud, sand, and even earth baths in which the patient for hours together was buried up to his neck in a fallow field have all had their exponents and upholders; then there is the vapour-bath of the Russian, the dry, hot air or Turkish-bath, besides the cold air-bath recommended by Franklin, and those who like it may follow the example of the elder Pliny who used to indulge in a bath of sunshine. Nowa days it is a common practice, on the shores of the Mediterranean, for many of the inhabitants, during the hot months, to pass a considerable portion of their time sitting on chairs placed a few feet from the shore, the calm water, without even the nuance of a ripple, reaching to the neck, while the head is protected from the scorching sun by an immense grass hat. The inference may be too hastily drawn that what is advocated in this Sketch is unnecessary, being simply what everyone now a days practises in one form or another cleanliness; on consideration, however, this will be found to be hardly the fact. We are a cleanly nation, or at any rate more cleanly than we were, but bathing with hot or cold water as ordinarily practised is not so enjoyable and luxurious as it might be, and moreover, to the weakly, is often harmful in its action.