It will be well to close the chapter by offering a few hints to bathers, and by laying down a few rules for their guidance. Bathing, in all its forms, increases the internal work of the body; it increases the action of the heart, the rate of respiration, the rapidity of circulation, the rate of tissue change, and, in the case of hot baths, the rate of perspiration through the skin. This necessarily makes a call upon the vital forces, and causes a certain amount of exhaustion. From this it follows that baths are best not taken at a time when the body is much exhausted, and that exhausting exercise should not be indulged in after a bath until a considerable period of time has elapsed. Again, since bathing invariably affects the distribution of the blood, causing, as the case may be, either a degree of bloodlessness in internal organs, or, if the bath be cold, an undue congestion of them, it is important not to overtax those organs during the period of bathing. It is, therefore, never advisable to bathe directly before or directly after a meal, since in both cases a want of digestion of the material in the stomach is likely to result. Ancient writers are most explicit in their directions for bathers. Thus Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, writing some four centuries before the Christian era, says: “The person who takes the bath should be orderly and reserved in his manner, should do nothing for himself, but others should pour the water upon him and rub him; and plenty of water, of various temperatures, should be in readiness for the _douche_, and the affusions quickly made; and sponges should be used instead of the strigil, and the body should be anointed when not quite dry.... And a man should not be washed immediately after he has taken a draught of Ptisan, or a drink; neither should he take Ptisan as a drink immediately after the bath.” These directions are for the use of invalids, such as are acutely ill, and the writer seems fully to recognise that bathing in itself is an exhausting process. This allusion to Ptisan is interesting, as showing how some of our commonest domestic remedies come to us from a remote antiquity. The Greek word πτισάνη signifies peeled (or “pearl”) barley, and the drink made from it, the barley-water of to-day.