Russian Vapor Bath. 295 



Art. XL — Account of the Russian Vapor Bath; by T. S. Traill, 



M. D. Communicated by the Author.* 



From the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal. 



The existence in Hamburgh of two establishments where the 

 Russian Vapor-Bath is used, brought to my recollection the descrip- 

 tions given by Acerbi, and other travellers, of the intense heat and 

 sudden transition to cold, so much relished by the nations of North- 

 ern Europe, and raised my curiosity to experience in my own per- 

 son the effects of this singular species of bathing. I was further in- 

 duced to take this step from finding myself suddenly oppressed with 

 a violent feverish cold, which raised my pulse considerably above 

 100°, and rendered me little able to join the public dinner-table in 

 the Apollo Saal. 



Accompanied by two friends who wished to make the same ex- 

 periment, I repaired to the Alexanderbad, which is under the di- 

 rection of its proprietor, a Jewish physician, who had liberally opened 

 it gratuitously to the members of the Society . of JYaturforscher, 

 then assembled at Hamburgh. We were ushered into a very neat 

 saloon, provided with six couches, beside each of which stood a 

 dressing table, and a convenient apparatus for suspending the clothes of 

 the bather. Here we undressed, and were furnished with long flannel 

 dressing-gowns and warm slippers, after which we were all conducted 

 into a small hot apartment, where we were desired to lay aside our 

 gowns and slippers, and were immediately introduced into the room 

 called the bath, in which the dim light admitted through a single win- 

 dow of three panes, just sufficed to shew us that there were in it two 

 persons, like ourselves in puris naturalibus ; one of whom was an 

 essential personage, the operator, the other a gentleman just finish- 

 ing the process by a copious affusion of cold water over his body. 

 This sudden introduction into an atmosphere of hot steam was so 

 oppressive, that I was forced to cover my face with my hands, to 

 moderate the painful impression on the lips and nostrils, and was com- 

 pelled to withdraw my head, as much as possible, from the most 

 heated part of the atmosphere, by sitting down on a low bench which 

 ran along two sides of the bath. 



* Read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool. 



