When a full Turkish bath is talcen the fol lowing is the usual course: The bather un dresses in one of the curtained recesses of the dressing-room, girds a towel or similar cloth round his loins, and carrying a bath-towel over the arm passes into the warm room. Here he stays only long enough to wet the hair with cold water, and perhaps drink of it, and then passes on through the hot room, into the hottest room. Spreading his towel over a chair he reclines on it, wets his head with cold water, and drinks at his pleasure, but not too copiously, of cold water, which the attendant will bring him. Here he remains five or 10 minutes. By this dine the whole body will be bedewed with perspiration; and the bather passes out info the room next in temperature, the hot room, where he reclines for another 10 or 15 minutes. Then he passes to the warm room, lower in temperature than the former, and here he re clines till the attendant is ready for him, when he proceeds to the washing room. Here he lies on a table and the attendant goes over the whole body, rubbing the surface, and thus re moving all loose effete skin, grasping and kneading the muscles, bending joints and so on. He is then rubbed over with soap, scrubbed and washed down, and lastly douched with warm and then tepid and cold water. From this room the bather passes out quickly, plunges through a cold bath, and regains the dressing-room, where he is quickly dried down with warm dry towels. He is then enveloped in a dry bath-towel, and so attired he lies down on his couch in the dressing-room, covered over with a light rug or blanket, till his skin assumes its natural degree of warmth. When the skin is cool and dry, usually in 15 or 20 minutes, the bather dresses deliberately, and may then go out. The ordinary duration of the full bath, from the flue room to the washing room, is from 40 minutes to an hour. The full bath, however, is suited chiefly for those accustomed to it, for the healthy and robust.
The vapor bath acts upon the body much as the hot-water bath does, but it acts more powerfully, though the effect of the heat is not so quick since vapor is a slower conductor of heat than water. This bath can, therefore, be borne hotter than a water bath, but the high temperature cannot be borne long, for the vapor does not permit of the loss of heat from the body as hot air does. The temperature of the vapor bath cannot be comfortably endured above 120° F. The vapor bath is characteristic of the Russian baths. It is taken in a chamber filled with vapor, which is thus not only ap plied to the surface of the body but also inhaled. This makes it still more oppressive. It may be used, however, in a simple form, in which the vapor is not breathed, by the person sitting on a chair, surrounded from the neck downward by blankets, which envelop the chair also and hang to the ground. Under the chair is placed a shallow earthenware or metal dish, containing boiling water to the depth of three or four inches. In the water are placed a couple of
red-hot bricks. Or under the- chair may be placed a spirit-lamp, supported above it being a shallow pan containing boiling water. Such baths are very useful for catarrh, for rheumatic and neuralgic pains, sciatica, etc., as well as for cases where excessive action of the skin is desired to relieve deeper organs, for example the kidneys. Ten to 15 minutes are long enough for exposure in the vapor bath.
Sea-Bathing.— Ordinary sea-bathing is of course cold, and produces the stimulating effects described in regard to the cold bath. There is besides the additional stimulus due to the salt, so that sea-bathing acts as an invigorating tonic. It is not, however, suited for everyone, and is taken much too indiscriminately. It is also indulged in without due precaution. It is a very common error for persons to remain in the sea too long, the result being shivering, blueness of the skin, difficulty in recovering warmth, headache, etc. Persons who are anannic,—that is, of deficient quality of blood,— ought not to indulge in sea-bathing without advice, and failing advice had better try first a salt-water bath at home. Persons who have suffered from any internal complaint ought also to The best time for sea-bathing is in the morning. It should never be indulged in immediately after a meal, when the business of digestion is going actively forward. A good time is before lunch or early dinner, for which the brisk walk home after the bath will prove an excellent appetizer. Neither should sea bathing be engaged in immediately after very active exercise, when the body is in a state of very active perspiration or in a condition of fatigue. At the same time, moderate exercise before the bath is unobjectionable, and the body ought to be comfortably warm. The per son should undress quickly and plunge in bodily, wetting the whole body at once. During the bath exercise should be active, as in continued swimming. Children, because of the little re sisting power of their bodies, are readily de pressed by sea-bathing. They may be gradually accustomed to it; but they ought not to be forcibly immersed to their aversion and terror. Sea-baths may be imitated at home by the addi tion of common salt or sea salt to water. The benefits of open-air bathing,— sea or river,— are not limited, of course, to the action of the water, but are increased by the action of the fresh air, the respiration of which is stimulated by the bath, and by the exercise in the open air invariably indulged in afterward.
Thera are many kinds of mediCated baths, which have, or are supposed to have, special properties, valuable for diseased conditions, be cause of containing various saline substances dissolved in them. Such baths may be arti ficially prepared by the addition of the salts to the water, or natural mineral waters may be used for the purpose. Mud-baths are recom mended for special reasons.