BAT 



32 



B A T 



is deserving of much praise. The system of education 

 adoptel in this institution is of the moct approved kind, and 

 the m-.inncr in which it is oondurlcd reflect* great credit on 

 the rector and other teacher*. Instruction, in all the useful 

 nd learned branches, is obtained gralii ; ample funds, for 

 paying the teachers' salaries, being placed by Mr. Newlands 

 in his trustees' hands for that benevolent purpose. All the 

 youths of the parish, with the exception of such as have 

 not been three years resident, enjoy the benefit of it. The 

 railway, between Edinburgh and Glasgow, is to pass i-l..-.- t . 

 the town, and will, when completed, be of incalculable ad- 

 vantage to the district. The population of the town in 1831 

 was 2492, and it has increased since; the population of the 

 parish was 3593. Under the Reform Act, the voters in the 

 burgh join those in the county in electing a representative in 

 ]<:irliament. Tins circumstance has tended much to raise 

 the place into importance. 



Buthgate has been a ' free burgh of barony ' since 1 663, 

 in which year King Charles II. granted its charter ; anil in 

 1824 an act of Parliament was obtained, erecting it into a 

 free and independent burgh,' and vesting the magistracy 

 in a provost, three bailies, a treasurer, twelve councillors, 

 town clerk, and procurator fiscal. These are chosen by the 

 free votes of the burgesses : the qualification is less than 

 that fixed by the Reform Act. Nowhere, in so short a 

 (ten years), have the benefits of popular and annual 

 election of magistrates been so well exemplified. At a small 

 expense to the inhabitants, the streets and wells are now 

 kept in the best order, and the police of the town properly 

 preserved. Bathgatr has been a sherifidom from a remote 

 period. In 1530-1 Sir James Hamilton, of Pinnart, ob- 

 tained a charter of the office of sheriff of Renfrew, within 

 the parish and barony of Bathgatc, on the resignation of 

 William Lord Sempil, hereditary sheriff of Renfrewshire ; 

 and in June, 1663, King Charles II. granted the barony to 

 Thomas Hamilton of Bathgate, with the oflice of sheriff of 

 Bathgate. In 1 747, when the heritable jurisdictions were 

 lit up, the sheriffship of Bathgate was hereditary in 

 the noble family of Hope of Hopctoun, heritable sheriff of 

 the shire of Linlithgow : and since the Jurisdiction Act 

 the two shires have been under the same sheriffs, whose 

 commission from the Crown styles him ' Sheriff of the 

 Sheriffdom of Linlithgow and Bathgate.' In the immediate 

 vicinity, and near to the new academy, is the site of an 

 antient castle, traditionally said to have been given by King 

 Robert the Bruce to his daughter Marjory, along with ex- 

 ten-ive possessions in the neighbourhood, as part of her 

 dowry, upon her marriage with Walter, the Great Steward 

 of Scotland. From these illustrious persons the Stuart race 

 sprung ; and from them the present royal family of Great 

 Britain. (Communication from Hathgate.) 



(Further particulars will be found in Sir John Sinclair's 

 Statistical Account nf Scotland; Penney's Linlilhgoto- 

 shire ; Chambers's tiazetleer, <Jr., <<:.) 



BATHING, means the temporary surrounding of the 

 body, or a part of it, with a medium different from that in wliii-h 

 it is usually placed. The means employed for this purpose 

 are generally water, watery vapour, or air of a temperature 

 different from that of the common atmosphere. The objects 

 for which these are employed are usually the prevention of 

 disease, the cure of disease, or the pleasure derived from 

 the operation. To understand in what way those ends are 

 accomplished, we must observe that the human frame is 

 endowed with a power of maintaining, \uthin certain limits, 

 a nearly uniform temperature in whatever circumstances it 

 is placed. The general temperature of an adult in a state 

 of perfect health is from 97 to 98 of Fahrenheit's thermo- 

 meter; that of a new-born infant about 94. In some cases 

 of disease the temperature rises far above this standard, 

 even to 106, while in others it links far below it. The 

 power by which the body maintains a uniformity of tempe- 

 rature is the property of developing animal heat, the perfec- 

 tion of which function is intimately connected with the state 

 of the nervous system, and through that, with the circulation. 

 When the body is well nourished and the circulation vigorous, 

 the- temperature is high, and nearly equal over all parts of the 

 body, provided the supply of nervous energ)' be adequate. 

 If anything impairs the vigour of the circulation generally, 

 or of an artery going to a particular limb fas when it 

 in the operation of aneurism), the temperature of the whole 

 or of the part will be low. On the other h.ind, if the whole 

 nervous system be impaired, a lower temperature will ] 

 generally, and especially at the extremities : or if a particular 



limb, such as a paralysed limb, have an imperfect share of 

 nervous energy, a lower temperature of the part will c\i-t. 

 The respiratory functi intimately eonm-eted with 



the development of animal hc.it, anil the s'.-.in assists in re- 

 gulating it, especially in reducing it u: ii. Whon 

 the body is placed in a medium of a temperature much 

 lowerthan itself, the heat is abstracted from ' with 

 more or less rapidity, according to the difference of tempera- 

 ture, and, if the medium he air. accord mm to its state of 

 humidity or dryness; the effect of which would he a reduction 

 of the temperature of the whole body, were it notcountri 

 by an increased development oi animal heat. Again, when 

 the body is surrounded by a medium much higher than 

 itself, the exhalation from the surface. Kith of the skin and 

 lungs, is gn-atly augmented: that from the former being 

 thrown off in the form of perspiration, that of the latter in 

 the form of vapour. The evaporation attending these pro- 

 cesses causes a reduction of temperature. As illusti,. 

 of the truth of these two positions, we need not do more 

 than allude to the nearly equal temperature of the body 

 maintained by Sir Joseph 'Banks, Sir Charles Blagden. l>rs. 

 Fordyce and Solandcr, in their experiments, when the heat 

 of the room was 260 of Fahrenheit (see Animal Phy*i<}!ny, 

 Library of Useful Knuu-tfilfr, part i. p. 3), anil that main- 

 tained during the winter by the members of the expeditions 

 under Captains Ross, Parry, and Franklin, when the ther- 

 mometer frequently fell to 51" below zero of Fahrenheit. 



In a moderate temperature the animal heat is generally 

 prevented from rising too high by means of the irufnfible 

 ]>crspiration, the quantity of which varies with circums:.. 

 According to the experiments of Seguin, the largo--! quan- 

 tity from the skin and lungs together amounted to thirty-two 

 grains per minute, or three ounces and a quarter per hour, 

 or five pounds per day. The medium quantity was fifteen 

 grains per minute, or thirty-three ounces in twenty-four 

 hours. The quantity exhaled increases after meals, during 

 sleep, in dry warm weather, and by friction, or whatcvri 

 stimulates the skin ; and it diminishes when digestion is 

 impaired, and the body is in a moist atmosphere. These 

 last-mentioned circumstances prove the sympathy which 

 subsists between the skin and the internal organs. The skin 

 must not, therefore, he regarded as a mere covering of the 

 body, but as an organ, the healthy condition of which is of 

 vast importance to the well-being of the whole frame, but 

 especially of the stomach and lining membrane of the lungs, 

 with which, as raucous membranes, it has the closest sym- 

 pathy. It also sympathizes with the kidneys, the quantity 

 of discharge from which is regulated by the action of the 

 skin. Hence in summer, when the perspiration from the 

 skin is abundant, the secretion from the kidneys is less : and 

 when, in winter, the secretion from the skin is diminished, 

 that from the kidneys is increased. 



The perspiration is the channel by which salts and other 

 principles, no longer useful in the system, are removed from 

 it. According to Thenard, it consists of a large quantity of 

 water, a small quantity of an acid, which according to cir- 

 cumstances may be either the acetic, lactic, or phosphoric; 

 and some salts, chiefly hydro-chlorates of soda and j 

 Taking the lowc.st estimate of Lavoisier, the skin appears to 

 be endowed with the power of removing from the system, in 

 the space of twenty-four hours, twenty ounces of waste ; the 

 retention of this in the system is productive of great injury, 

 and tin- inconvenience is only lessened by the inrr 

 action of some internal organ, which becomes oppressed by 

 the double load thus cast upon it Even the retention , -f 

 the pcr-pii-cd matter close to the skin, from i 

 ( hanging the clothes, is the source of many cutanoou 

 eases, particularly in spring and summer. 



The gnu; \avuhuity of the skin, and the manner in 

 which the vessels of this part are influenced by affections of 

 tho mind, as in blushing, when it becomes red from more 

 blood being sent to it, and during fear when less blood <j: 

 it. and more to the vicarious organs, as the kidneys, point out 

 how an exposure to a cold and damp atmosphere and how 

 mental emotions are concerned in producing morbid action of 

 this organ. The skin must also be regarded as a net-work of 

 nervous filaments, and the ir,.-t extensive organ of sensa- 

 tion : in thin w.iy it enables us to judge of heat and cold, 

 though not with absolute certainty, a^ the sensation con- 

 .\ ill depend upon the temperature of the medium in 

 which the body or any of the limbs may have been placed 

 immediately before. To understand this doctrine, it is ne- 

 cessary to be acquainted with the action of heat and cold on 



