As a cleanser, however, the cold bath is, we regret to say, hopelessly incompetent. For to clean the skin properly it is not sufficient to clean the mere surface of the skin. The pores have to be opened and the dirt and waste products, ordinarily invisible to the eye, taken from them. Now cold water cannot do this, since one of its main effects is to close the pores. But if anyone wants to see what happens when the pores are thoroughly opened and cleaned, let him take a Turkish bath and be well rubbed afterwards. What was ordinarily invisible becomes offensively visible, and though much of what comes away is skin itself, it is skin anyhow of a certain colour, and that colour is neither white nor pink, nor brown, but black. And the colouring matter of that is--dirt. Now very hot water has in one respect the same immediate function as very cold water; it tightens and closes the skin, and a short very hot bath is as invigorating and bracing as a cold one, and may be used with pleasure and effect by those who are not naturally suited to the cold. But after a very short time, if one remains in a hot bath, the opposite effect begins. The heat will now open the pores of the skin, and, as the water soaks in, the skin is again relaxed, and the hot bath becomes the cleanser. For the first few moments, however, the opposite effect takes place; the skin is braced and tightened, and thus we find that many of the Japanese, for instance, and some athletes in America, use a short hot bath as we naturally use a cold bath, for an invigorator and hardener, and to close the pores of the skin. It is this use of it that we recommend to those who cannot stand a cold bath. The hot bath, then, will supply the invigorating functions of the cold, if it is really hot and is not too long. In the same way both it and warm baths supply the cleansing functions which are wanting in the cold bath, and the combination of the two--_i.e._, a hot or warm bath for purposes of cleansing followed by a cold douche or cold sponging, is perhaps the most perfect application of water in all its uses that we know, and contains the same principles as the Turkish bath. Those who have bathrooms will, of course, find this method easy enough to manage, but those who have not can get a perfectly adequate substitute in a large basin of cold water with which they will sponge themselves after the ordinary hip-bath or sponging-tin in their rooms and while still standing in it. Those, however, whom the cold bath does not suit, would be wise to use only cool, not cold water, after the hot bath. A further benefit of this combination of hot and cold water lies in the hardening effect which the change of temperature produces on the skin, for it accustoms it to sudden changes of temperature, and renders it far less liable to catch cold. This, in view of the number of colds that people certainly catch by getting chilled after being hot, is a great advantage.