_Ancient Greek and Roman Baths_.--From the earliest historic times the necessity for frequent and thorough ablution has been recognized by artificial provisions for this purpose. The Greeks had "steaming baths" and "fragrant anointing oils," as far back as Homer's time, a thousand years before Christ, but the Romans surpassed all preceding and subsequent nations by their magnificent and luxuriously equipped Thermæ, in which a bath cost less than a cent, and was often free. A full Roman bath included hot air, dry rubbing, hot, tepid, and cold water immersions, scraping with bronze instruments, and anointing with precious perfumes. _The Modern Russian_ and _Turkish baths_ are the nearest approaches we have to the Roman bath. These are found in nearly all our larger cities. _The Turkish Bath_ is conducted in a modified form in this country, generally with hot air instead of steam. Its frequent use not only tends to keep the body in a state of perfect cleanliness, but it imparts a clear, fresh color to the complexion which is hardly attained by other means. "Its most important effect," says a writer in the _Popular Science Monthly_, "is the stimulation of the emunctory action of the skin. By this means we are enabled to wash as it were the solid and fluid tissues, and especially the blood and skin, by passing water through them from within outward to the surface of the body. Hence, in practice, one of the most essential requisites is copious draughts of water during the sweating." During the operation of a Turkish bath, the novice is often astonished at the amount of effete matter eliminated from the pores of the skin. "A surprising quantity of scarfskin, which no washing could remove, peels off, especially if a glove of camel's-hair or goat's-hair be used, as they are in the East, where also the soles of the feet are scraped with pumice. The deposit of this skin of only a week's date, when collected, is often as large as one's fist. Much more solid matter is contained in the perspiration of those who take the bath for the first time, or after a long interval. Nothing escapes through the skin, save what is noxious if retained. This bath should never be used in case of advanced lung diseases, great debility, acute inflammations, or persons who labor under any form of heart disease; but I think its influence is directly curative in rheumatic, gouty, and scrofulous affections, some skin diseases, and the earlier stages of feverish colds and ague. It is said to have calming effects in the treatment of insanity, and the use of it was suggested from the heavy smell the skin of persons thus afflicted often has."--MAPOTHER'S _Lectures on Public Health_.