16 /. Lawrence Smith on the Thermal Waters of Asia Minor. 



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First; a large hall, with an elevated platform all around two 

 feet high, and sometimes galleries attached- It is on the platform 

 that one disrobes himself prior to entering the bath, and it is also 

 here that the bather reposes on a couch in retiring from the bath. 

 This apartment is frequently ornamented with considerable lux- 

 ury; it is well lighted, and there is sometimes in the middle a 

 fountain, the falling of whose waters in the basin produces a 

 freshness, and at the same time invites to slumber. This apart- 

 ment is called by the Turks Djamekian (Vestiarium). 



The next division in the bath is the Soonklovk^ where one 

 begins to experience the temperature of the inner bath, and where 

 he reclines on a marble slab, and is either shampooed or places 

 himself in the hands of the barber to be shaved, cupped or bled. 



The third division is the Hamrnam, or bath properly speaking, 

 where there is an atmosphere of 105^ to 110° Fah., filled with 

 the vapor of water arising from the heated marble floor. Here 

 there are various recesses with small marble basins in which 

 streams of hot and cold waters are allowed to flow; and once 

 seated by one of them^ an attendant of the bath takes possession 

 of you, and puis you through a series of operations that can be 

 better felt than described. The baths at Broosa have usually in 



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by thirty in diameter. 



There is in some of these baths a small room called the Bo<^- 

 honlouk (Sudatorium), where the temperature is from 120° to 

 130^ Fah. Once through the various operations of the bath one 

 returns to the first room, reclines on a bed and indulges for a half 

 hour or more in the Eastern luxuries of smoking and drinking 

 coffee or sherbet. 



This is a hasty sketch of the operations that the bather usually 

 undergoes at these baths; but as numbers of inx^alids visit them, 

 arrangements are made by which they can bathe in whatsoever 

 way ihey may think best or the physician prescribe^ for there 

 are private apartments attached. 



These thermal Avaters are in great repute in Turkey, and their 

 effects are said to be most marked on chronic irritation of the 

 abdominal organs; chronic rheumatism; gouts; chronic irritation 

 of the mucus membrane of the intestines ; diseases of the bladder, 

 of ihe skin, and of the eyes, &c. These waters are also recom- 

 mended to be taken internally when cold. 



In the calcareous incrustation of three of these springs that 

 were examined, 1 found the remains of two or three varieties of 

 silicious infusoria after the lime had been dissolved out by an acid. 



Some few remarks that I have to make with reference to the 

 chemical analysis of these waters will be deferred until the publi- 

 cation of the second part of this paper. 



New Orleans, March 14 th. 1851. 



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