HOT-AIE BATH. 107 



cess, and how to do it, as well as other questions regarding 

 the ill effects of bad management of feet, trainers are unable 

 to help themselves, however willing they may be, and how- 

 ever much they may deplore existing evils. 



" The question remains will hot-air baths prove a substi- 

 tute for all these drawbacks? I say, no. We have not yet 

 sufficient practical data upon which to make the answer in 

 the affirmative, and for my own part I doubt whether ma- 

 tured experience will prove the effect of the bath to be so 

 rapid or so universal as to justify the sweeping statements 

 in the Admiral's essay." 



As a therapeutic agent the hot-air chamber holds an 

 intermediate position between evacuants and stimulants. It 

 is undoubtedly a general tonic, because it fits important 

 organs for the free and healthy exercise of their functions, 

 and this operates beneficially on the blood, on the function 

 of nutrition, and hence invigorates, the body. That it is 

 evacuant no one can doubt, who has witnessed the kind and 

 quantity of cutaneous secretion, whether in man or animals. 



With regard to the action of a thermal temperature 

 applied to the skin, Dr Erasmus Wilson has summed up 

 that it induces 



I. An improvement of organic structure. 

 II. An improvement of secreting functions. 



III. An improvement in circulation and respiratory power. 



IV. An improvement of innervation and sensation. 



Dr Wilson has very wisely said " that the thermaB is not 

 to be trifled with ; it is a medicine a great and a powerful 

 medicine ; and can only be applied with safety and advan- 

 tage by those whose vocation it is to study the physiology of 

 man (or animals, I may say), and to treat its diseases." So 

 sanguine is this orthodox and learned physician of the advan- 

 tage of the hot-air bath, that he says "In the judicious 



