BATHS AND BATHING 



623 



BATHS AND BATHING 



greater amount spent in any other way, and the 

 Boston Bath Commission has reported that the 

 greatest single agency in decreasing the number 

 of juvenile arrests in Boston, during a specified 

 decade, was the people's bath. It is this hu- 

 manitarian feature of the modern public bath 

 that sets it apart from public bathing of the 

 Roman age. 



Modern Public Baths. These may be grouped 

 into two general classes open-air baths and 

 baths in buildings. The former are represented 

 by bathing beaches, which arc maintained by 

 all large cities that have sea or lake water 

 fronts, by bathing pools in city parks and by 

 the less familiar floating baths. Enclosed bath 

 houses have all the well-known devices for pro- 

 moting cleanliness and providing recreation 

 bath tubs, shower baths and swimming pools 

 though not all of these are always found in one 

 establishment. 



During the warm season public bathing 

 beaches are a wonderful boon to those city- 

 dwellers whose bathing facilities are limited. 

 Municipal beaches are sometimes operated 

 free, but more often a fee of a few cents is 

 charged for the use of bathing suit, locker and 

 towel. As social workers have pointed out, 

 these beaches not only provide wholesome 

 recreation, but they have an educational value 

 in that they encourage the bathing habit. 

 Many persons who have patronized the beaches 

 for the element of fun have learned the beauty 

 and comfort of cleanliness. 



Floating baths are most successful in towns 

 on unpolluted bodies of water. Such a bath 

 consists of a platform placed upon floats, and 

 having in the center a pool surrounded by 

 dressing rooms. By means of an ingenious 

 arrangement of slats, the water circulates freely 

 through the sides and bottom of the pool, and 

 the bath may be moored at any suitable point 

 along the water front. In cities where the 

 rivers are polluted by sewage these bath- 

 not desirable. 



Indoor bathing is practiced both for recrea- 

 tion and for cleanliness. In tl,. 1,,-t-i M Dipped 

 b:ith houses there arc shower or tub baths for 

 cle.-msing tin- body, and a large pool for swim- 

 ming. It is perhaps unnecessary to state that 

 an enclosed swimming pool used for any pur- 

 poses other than recn-atiou couM not be 



sanitary condition. Patrons of these pools 



' (1 to wash the body in a tub or under 



a .-': OR plunging in for the -v ,:, \ 



model swimming pool has the walla and floor 



finished in marble slabs, glazed tiles or otlur 



washable materials, a scum gutter runs along 

 the sides at the water level to catch floating 

 impurities, and there is a continuous inflow of 

 pure water into the pool. 



Considering its importance, the modern pub- 

 lic bath movement was late in starting. The 

 first bath house provided with hot and cold- 

 water equipment to be established by a modern 

 European city was one opened in Liverpool in 

 1842. At the present time every borough in 

 Great Britain with a population of over 50,000 

 has municipally-owned bath houses, and the 

 smaller cities are gradually adopting the idea. 

 Germany, France, Austria, Norway and Sweden 

 maintain them in the larger cities, and they are 

 found throughout Russia, even in the small 

 villages. In the latter country, however, sani- 

 tary conditions in connection with the public 

 baths are often unsatisfactory. 



In America public bath houses are less com- 

 mon than in Europe, because of the prevalence 

 of bath tubs in private houses. In modern 

 building, even the little cottage or apartment 

 is provided with bathing facilities. In the 

 crowded tenement districts of the larger cities, 

 however, the provisions for keeping clean are 

 woefully inadequate, and for this reason public 

 bath houses, located as nearly as possible in the 

 center of thickly-populated districts, should be 

 found in every town where such conditions 

 prevail. 



In a recent survey of the progress of the pub- 

 lic bath in the United States, it was found that 

 New York, Chicago, Boston and Baltimore 

 have done the most in the matter of establi.-h- 

 ing such baths; that a large number of manu- 

 facturing cities have taken no steps whatever 

 to provide free or cheap baths for their work- 

 ing population; and that this is true of some 

 cities having between 300,000 and 500,000 in- 

 habitants. In a few instances baths have been 

 installed in public schools; the first of these 

 v.. iv provided in 1900 by the Paul Revere 

 School of Boston. NYw York was the first 

 state to pass a law making the erection of pub- 

 lic bath houses compulsory. In 1895 all 

 of more than 50,0(X) inhabitants were required 

 to erect such establish men to, to be open four- 

 teen hours a day, and be provi.l. ,1 with hot 

 and cold water. Buffalo, in 1897, opened the 

 first public bath house under thai ! 



The Turkish Bath. This is one of the most 



using baths known. In me<i 

 times the religion of the Arabians made bathing 

 j'ulsory. and the cleaning process which 



I has developed into a form of 



