Life in a tub; with a description of the Turkish bathDiogenes [pseudonym]
Science
Life in a tub; with a description of the Turkish bath
Diogenes [pseudonym]
Baths, Turkish; Hydrotherapy
The perspirations so often attendant on consumption, are nature’s last
struggle to supply the system with oxygen, by opening the pores of the
skin, this additional source of supply being rendered necessary by the
diminished action of the lungs, consequent on their diseased condition;
the perspirations cease, however, on the patient having recourse to the
Turkish bath, as there nature’s efforts are superseded by an action,
similar in kind, but greater in degree, unattended by debilitating
effects. As an instance of nature’s efforts at self-relief, it may be
stated, that in several cases of chest disease, recovery has dated from
the commencement of the nightly perspirations.
The benefit of the bath in cases of consumption is undoubted, [30]
arising, as we believe, from better oxidation of the blood, consequent
on the improved action of the pores of the skin, which enables the
oxygen to enter and aerate it. As a result of this, the digestive
organs are strengthened, and healthy blood elaborated, the
non-formation of which is the cause of the disease.
“Second, after long and severe fatigue—that fatigue such as we
never know, successive days and nights on horseback—the bath
affords the most astonishing relief. Having performed long journeys
on horseback, even to the extent of ninety-four hours, without
taking rest, I know by experience its effects in the extremest
cases.”
Again he says:—
“Well can I recall the hâmam-doors which I have entered, scarcely
able to drag one limb after the other, and from which I have sprung
into my saddle again elastic as a sinew, and light as a feather....
You will see a hummal (porter), a man living only on rice, go out
of one of those baths, where he has been pouring with that
perspiration which we think must prostrate and weaken, and take up
his load of five hundred-weight, placing it unaided on his back.
“Third, the shampooers spend eight hours daily in the steam. They
undergo great labour there, shampooing perhaps, a dozen persons,
and are remarkably healthy. [31] They enter the bath at eight years
of age. The duties of the younger portion are light, and chiefly
outside in the hall, to which the bathers return after their bath.
Still there they are from that tender age exposed to the steam and
heat, so as to have their strength broken if the bath were
debilitating. The best shampooer under whose hands I have ever
been, was a man whose age was given me as ninety, and who, from
eight years of age, had been daily eight hours in the bath. I might
adduce, in like manner, the sugar-bakers in London, who, in a
temperature not less than that of the bath, undergo great fatigue,
and are also remarkably healthy.”
We have seen at Blarney the Turkish bath administered with equal
benefit to the child of only a few months old, and the man of eighty
summers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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