CHAPTER IV. 



This is the purest exercise of health, 

 The kind refresher of the summer heats ; 



Even from the body's purity, the mind 

 Receives a secret sympathetic aid. 



THOMSON. 



ON SEA-BATHING. 



,WHE importance of bathing as a hygienic and therapeutic 

 " agent has been recognised by all nations, at all periods 

 of history ; its practice existed as well amongst nations 

 basking under the heat of a tropical sun, as amongst the 

 hardy inhabitants of the unthawed regions of the north. By 

 the former it was employed as a religious observance or mode 

 of luxury, by the latter with a view to health, or to counteract 

 the effects of intense cold. 



The histories of Greece and Rome furnish abundant 

 evidence of the extent to which bathing was practised by 

 these nations. So fascinating to them was the luxury of the 



