COMMENTARY. We think ourselves called upon in the first place to give some account of the Thermæ, or Public Baths, of the ancients, as an acquaintance with their construction and many matters relating to them is indispensably necessary in order to understand the subject now in hand. We need scarcely mention that the Romans surpassed any nation that has ever existed in the magnificence of their public baths. An ancient Therma consisted of four distinct apartments for as many different purposes: 1, Tepidaria; 2, Laconicum; 3, Calidaria; 4, Frigidaria. The 1st, or Tepidaria, called also Apodyterium, derived its former name from its being filled with tepid air, and the latter from its being the place in which the bathers undressed. The 2d, or Laconicum, called also Sudatorium, was an apartment filled either with heated air or steam, that is to say, it was, according to different usages, an air-bath or a vapour-bath. The 3d, or Calidaria, was a cistern for containing warm water. The 4th, or Frigidaria, was a cistern for cold water. The mode in which the ancients went through the process of bathing was as follows. First they went into the Tepidaria, where they left their clothes, and proceeded to the Laconicum, and there they were carefully scrubbed with the flour of beans, soda, &c., and then went into the hot bath, where they remained for some time, and coming out of it, they took a plunge into the cold-water bath, and then returned to the Tepidaria, where they underwent the Restorative friction, that is to say, were rubbed with oils or ointments, and sprinkled with fragrant powders, and then they resumed their clothes. That the order in which the ancients took the different baths was that which we have described may be inferred from the construction of those now remaining, from a passage in Galen’s works (t. iv, p. 146, ed. Basil), and from Stephanus (Comment. p. 259, t. i, ed. Dietz.) See also Auctores de Balniis pluries, Baccius de Thermis pluries, and Robertellus Lacon. explic. Pisanæ urbis. In the public baths the ancients always made use of common water. The ordinary hour for the bath was about two o’clock in the afternoon, but no one was restricted to any hour from the dawn to sunset. Galen approves of taking the bath in the morning, provided one had supped sparingly. (De Sanit. tuendâ, vi.) All agreed in condemning the use of the bath after a full meal. (Persius, Sat. iii; Juvenal, Sat. i, 143; Horat. Epist. vi, 61; Avicenna, Libel, &c). The ancients had also various other modes of practising the bath in private, some of which we shall briefly notice. The Clibanus, mentioned by Celsus (ii, 17), was probably a portable stove. The Pensiles Balneæ were small baths suspended by ropes from the ceiling of the house, in which luxurious persons were rocked. (Pliny, xxvi, 3.) Hip-baths, either of plain water, or water medicated with herbs, or of oil and water, are repeatedly mentioned by all the medical authors, and are particularly