To the face and hands the temperature was for a moment almost scalding, but my body was sensible of no inconvenience. Had I been asked, before I made this experiment, what part of the body would have suffered most from the extreme heat, I should have said, the skin of the trunk of the body, because this is naturally the most sensitive from being covered and protected by clothing; but I was unprepared to find the real fact in the very reverse of this--to learn that the skin of the trunk of the body had lost its power of sensibility; in other words, had become partially paralysed from disuse of its proper functions. In a word, the habit of clothing the body, of keeping it shut in from the air and from the light, weakens the nerves of the skin and consequently the natural and healthy sensibility of the organ. Although I could not appreciate the extreme heat of Mr. Rolland's Laconicum, I should have suffered acutely from a scratch, a pinch, or a blow on the bare skin: but the habit of the bath would reverse this unnatural sensitiveness, the skin would learn to appreciate truly instead of mendaciously; and blows, or pinches, or external injury, unless very severe, would cease to be felt as an inconvenience or an annoyance. The little boy bred in the bath complains of no hurt when he is accidentally struck or when he tumbles; and that which would be punishment to another boy is none to him. This, we see, must be the natural state of the skin, otherwise the Indian could no more exist without clothes than the lobster without his shell. Another phenomenon of the bath shows the power of increased firmness and solidity and strength which the texture of the skin acquires by its use. A person unaccustomed to the bath bruises without any great force, and the discoloration of the bruise, occasioned by the escape of blood from its vessels and the dispersion of the blood in the texture of the skin, lasts for a considerable time. Indeed, we know of some skins that bruise upon the most moderate pressure, even without a blow. But the practised bather does not bruise, excepting from serious injury; and, when he does bruise, the discoloration is rapidly dissipated. The power of influencing the skin by education is also shown in the degree of facility with which perspiration is induced in the bather. In the practised bather the perspiration comes almost at call; it comes soon, freely, abundantly: but in the neophyte, the perspiratory fluid is slow to emerge from its pores; it comes unwillingly and in insufficient quantity. Each succeeding bath, however, exhibits an improvement; and, in time, the perspiration obeys the word of command in the pupil as well as in the master.