Personal hygiene and physical training for womenGalbraith, Anna M. (Anna Mary)
Science
Personal hygiene and physical training for women
Galbraith, Anna M. (Anna Mary)
Physical education and training; Women -- Health and hygiene
The bather, having disrobed, is enveloped in a sheet, and enters
the hot room, where she reclines on a steamer-chair. A towel wrung
out of cold water is placed on the forehead and changed as often
as it becomes hot. The bather should drink a glass of cold water
immediately before or on entering the hot room, and several glasses
should be taken at intervals during her stay in this room.
The skin is highly stimulated and profuse perspiration results. The
profuse sweating promotes absorption from the alimentary canal, and
so is a powerful stimulant to nutrition. It also emphasizes the
necessity for copious water-drinking.
Great harm often results from a too prolonged stay in this room.
Ordinarily, the bather should leave the room as soon as free
perspiration is established; that is, in from fifteen minutes to half
an hour.
From this room the bather next enters the Russian bath or steam
room. It is very much more agreeable to have very little steam
in the room on entering; when the steam is very dense, a feeling
of suffocation may occur. Any one with a weak heart should avoid
the steam room altogether, as it is apt to cause a sense of great
oppression. For the complexion, bronchitis, or laryngitis, it is
excellent.
From the hot room the bather goes to the shampoo-room, where, lying
upon a marble slab, she is first gone over from head to feet by the
wet hands of the attendant. This manipulation removes the layer of
cuticle which has been loosened by the free perspiration. These
rubbings and strokings are continued until the skin feels smooth and
polished.
The bather is next shampooed with soap and water, applied with a
bath-brush. This may in turn be followed by a salt rub. After this
comes a douche, given with a horizontal jet, at a temperature of 104°
to 106° F., followed by a cold douche.
If the bather is a strong woman, she may now enter the cold plunge.
The temperature of this should be from 70° to 60° F.; this must only
be a quick dip. She is then vigorously rubbed and dried. After this
she lies down in the cooling room and has an alcohol rub, which
completes the procedure. She should rest here for half an hour at
least before dressing. The pulse should be normal and the skin
perfectly dry before she dresses and goes out on the street.
In winter, instead of the ordinary alcohol rub which is given, it is
much better to have a thorough massage with cocoa-butter or almond
oil—the so-called Roman bath. Just following the Turkish bath much of
this oil will be absorbed, which is beneficial for thin people, and,
in any case, it will lessen the danger of getting chilled on going
out into the cold air.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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