In the sultry and oppressive weather of summer the hot bath is of all others most cooling. No matter how heated the system, water as hot as possible is the safest and most efficient relief. One wants to remain in it long enough to give every part of the body a thorough scrubbing with soap and a mohair wash-cloth, which cleanses the skin more thoroughly than a brush. The hot water dissolves every particle of matter that clogs the pores, the rough cloth and soap remove it searchingly, and the towel is hardly laid aside before a delicious coolness and freshness passes upon one, like that of a dewy summer morning. The dangers resulting from a sudden check of perspiration by plunging into cold water when overheated, or by sitting in a draught to cool, are avoided, and a greater sense of coolness follows. People who suffer much in warm weather should reckon this a daily solace. All enervating effects are warded off by an instant’s plunge into cool water of, say, seventy degrees. I say cool, for it certainly will feel as if iced after a bath of nearly a hundred and fifty degrees. In a common bath-room, by this means, one may experience much of the real benefit of a Russian vapor-bath. The bath lasts fifteen minutes, when the vapor is turned off. When the steam in the box has had time to condense, the cover is unjointed, and the bather treated to a scrubbing with soap and warm water, which gradually cools and cleanses the body. Then cooler water is poured over the body, and, after wiping, one is wrapped in a fresh sheet and lies down to pleasant dreams. It is hard that such a necessary requisite to the highest vigor should rank, as it does, among luxuries. One can hardly imagine an addition to a fine house more desirable than a bathing-hall, such as Roman patricians added to their palaces, where any form of vapor or hot bath was at command. Many improvements are needed in our public baths. There should be small dressing-closets, as there are at swimming-baths, where one’s clothes may be kept from contact with beds on which a thousand people rest in the course of a year. The reposing-hall should be well lighted, and paved with tiles, instead of being spread with bits of carpet to be tossed about; and there should be ample space between the couches. Every thing should convey the impression of space and repose--of sunshine, for the sake of its reviving power, and of refinement, for the soothing it always brings the nerves. Usually the bath-house is built in a court-yard, where high walls on every side shut out the sunlight. The basement dressing-room is filled with narrow couches covered with light rubber sheets, suggestive of nothing more pleasant than cast-off clothing, and rest measured by the bath clock, when one’s pillow must be given up to a new-comer.