(b) Hot air baths, the chief of which is the Turkish (properly, the
Roman) bath, consisting of two or more chambers ranging in temperature
from 120° to 212° or higher, but mainly used at 150° for curative
purposes. Exposure is from twenty minutes up to two hours according to
the effect sought, and is followed by a general bath, and occasionally
by soaping and shampooing. It is stimulating, derivative, depurative,
sudorific and alterative, powerfully promoting tissue change by
increase of the natural waste and repair. It determines the blood to
the surface, reducing internal congestions, is a potent diaphoretic,
and, through the extremes of heat and cold, is an effective nervous
and vascular stimulant and tonic. Morbid growths and secretions, as
also the uraemic, gouty and rheumatic diathesis, are beneficially
influenced by it. The full pack and Turkish bath have between them
usurped the place and bettered the function of the once familiar hot
bath. The Russian or steam bath and the lamp bath are primitive and
inferior varieties of the modern Turkish bath, the atmosphere of which
cannot be too dry and pure.
(c) General baths comprise the rain (or needle), spray (or rose),
shower, shallow, plunge, douche, wave and common morning sponge baths,
with the dripping sheet, and hot and cold spongings, and are
combinations, as a rule, of hot and cold water. They are stimulating,
tonic, derivative and detergent.
(d) Local baths comprise the sitz (or sitting), douche (or spouting),
spinal, foot and head baths, of hot or cold water, singly or in
combination, successive or alternate. The sitz, head and foot baths
are used "flowing" on occasion. The application of cold by "Leiter's
tubes" is effective for reducing inflammation (e.g. in meningitis and
in sunstroke); in these a network of metal or indiarubber tubing is
fitted to the part affected, and cold water kept continuously flowing
through them. Rapid alternations of hot and cold water have a powerful
effect in vascular stasis and lethargy of the nervous system and
absorbents, yielding valuable results in local congestions and chronic
inflammations.
(e) Bandages (or compresses) are of two kinds,--_cooling_, of wet
material left exposed for evaporation, used in local inflammations and
fevers; and _heating_, of the same, covered with waterproof material,
used in congestion, external or internal, for short or long periods.
Poultices, warm, of bread, linseed, bran, &c., changed but twice in
twenty-four hours, are identical in action with the heating bandage,
and superior only in the greater warmth and consequent vital activity
their closer application to the skin ensures.
(f) Fomentations and poultices, hot or cold, sinapisms, stupes,
rubefacients, irritants, frictions, kneadings, calisthenics,
gymnastics, electricity, &c., are adjuncts largely employed.
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