Of the Salubrity of Warm Bathing. 589 



lightful, that I think it quite impossible to recommend 

 it too strongly, if we consider it merely as a rational 

 and elegant refinement. 



I am persuaded, however, that we are very far in this 

 country from understanding the best method of fitting 

 up warm baths, and of using them in the most com- 

 fortable and advantageous manner. It appears to me 

 to be quite evident that it is not the water, but the 

 warmth, to which most, if not all, the good effects 

 experienced from warm bathing ought to be as- 

 cribed. 



Among those nations where warm bathing has been 

 most generally practised, water has seldom been em- 

 ployed, except occasionally, and merely for washing 

 and cleaning the skin ; and though washing in warm 

 water is pleasant, and is, no doubt, very wholesome, 

 yet remaining with the whole body, except the head, 

 plunged and immersed in that liquid for so great a 

 length of time as is necessary, in order that a warm 

 bath may produce its proper salutary effects, is not 

 very agreeable, nor is it probably either necessary or 

 salutary. 



The manner in which a warm bath operates in pro- 

 ducing the pleasant and salutary effects which are 

 found to be derived from it appears to me to be so evi- 

 dent as to admit of no doubt or difference of opinion 

 on that subject. 



The genial warmth which is applied to the skin, in 

 the place of the cold air of the atmosphere by which 

 we are commonly surrounded, expands all those very 

 small vessels where the extremities of the arteries and 

 veins unite, and, by gently stimulating the whole frame, 

 produces a free and full circulation, which, if continued 



