Rhode Island American

FROM THE BOSTON MEDICAL INTELLIGENCER.

Disorders of Literary Men—No. IX.

On the use of the cold bath we shall say little, since for those to whom these numbers are dedicated, it can seldom be of any advantage.—That which is of a higher temperature is better suited to their necessities, and although there may be some who have been benefited by a shower-bath, or by plunging occasionally into their Tiber or Ilissus, yet those few will seldom be found among the most sedentary and studious.

On the other hand, it is by frequent tepid ablution, that both in the heat of summer and the coldest of winters, the habitual student will be refreshed and invigorated. Bruce, in his account of his travels in Africa, remarks, that when burning beneath the scorching rays of that desert country, and almost fainting with weakness from continual perspiration, a warm bath immediately restored him to strength, especially upon first rising in the morning: and one of our particular friends, who has recently experienced all the rigours of a Canadian winter, assures us that in the coldest weather, a warm bath was the greatest luxury.

In order that this healthful luxury may be managed in the manner best suited to the habits of our literary friends, we beg leave to offer them the following rules.

1st. Frequency. The bath should be taken by sedentary men about once a week in the winter, and once a fortnight in the summer season.

2d. Temperature. In the coldest weather the temperature of the bath should not be below 90 degrees, and in the hottest, not higher than 97 1/2—which is the natural temperature of the human body. Hippocrates recommended a bath of a temperature a little below that of the body, which in the highest and lowest latitudes, in the heat of summer and the depths of winter, is always and invariably the same.—Notwithstanding these facts, we are certain that the state of the external air has a degree of influence on our ability to bear a hot bath, and the temperature of the weather and the bath should increase together in a regular arithmetical progression, the terms of which and the excesses should be as follows.

0 90

When the

30 the bath should

92

weather is at

60 be at

94

90

96

From these two rules individuals should vary a little according to their constitutions. Those who are corpulent, or who have been troubled with any cutaneous complaint or scrofulous affection, require a warmer and more frequent bath than those whose habit is more spare, and whose blood is of greater purity.

3d. Time. The best time for taking a warm bath is in the latter part of the forenoon, or late in the evening; it should never be taken when the stomach is full of aliment, nor within at least three hours after the most temperate meal.

4th. Combinations. After having been immersed about ten minutes, the whole body should be rubbed with a hard brush or coarse crash, and permitted to remain in the bath ten minutes longer; the skin should now be wiped dry, and rubbed with crash till the whole surface is red and glowing. With ordinary caution, there will be little danger of taking cold after such management, and all the benefits of the warm bath will be obtained, and all its evils avoided. It is the habit of many to use soap—eau-de-cologne, &c. in combination with the water, but friction unites all their advantages and many others, without altering the nature or properties of the element—it cleanses by mechanical operation, and whilst the warmth of the bath destroys that determination of the blood to the brain which intense study so generally produces, friction excites to more vigorous action the nervous emunctories which are the seat of cerebral excretion;—thus do they both tend immediately to relieve the brain, to encourage its development, and to enliven its peculiar operations, as well as to strengthen the powers of the understanding in a secondary manner, by increasing the strength and vigour of the body.