300 Russian Vapor Bath. 



The vapor-bath resembles that already described, but is much 

 neater. 



The variety of shower-baths surprized me. They are of every 

 conceivable form, from the powerful stream to the minute drizzing of 

 water from orifices as fine as a needle, which jet tiny streams of 

 warm or cold water, at the option of the bather, in every possible di- 

 rection on her person. By means of polished brass arms, curved 

 so as to enclose the body, movable by universal joints, connected 

 with a cistern, and perforated with innumerable minute holes, a cross- 

 fire of jets (if I may be allowed the expression) is kept up on any 

 part of the body. If the bather inclines to sit, a perforated seat is 

 placed on a large flat trough, which collects and carries off the water, 

 jets of water play from the various movable arms from each side, 

 from above, and from below, so that every part of the surface is be- 

 dewed. A general stop-cock commands the whole flow of water, 

 while each brazen-reed is under the control of one appropriate to 

 itself. These are at the disposal of the bather ; and each trough 

 or bath is surrounded by curtains to skreen the person from the eyes 

 of the assistant. 



Similar shower-baths are appropriated to gentlemen. The whole 

 forms one of the most elegant and perfect establishments of the 

 kind I have ever seen, and is a source of emolument to the spirited 

 proprietor. 



I inquired anxiously into the medical efiicacy of the Russian va- 

 por-bath, and found that in chronic rheumatism, in the stiffness of 

 limbs consequent on gout, and other long continued inflammations, in 

 some cases of palsy, in various cutaneous diseases, it is a most power- 

 ful and valuable remedy. While in the establishment I saw an inva- 

 lid enter, who informed me, that, after severe acute rheumatism, of 

 several months' duration, he was so lame that he had been carried by 

 two persons into the bath ; but that, after five or six times undergo- 

 ing the discipline I have described, he could walk alone as well as 1 

 saw him (he had walked, aided by a stick, from his house to the bath), 

 and appeared confident that in a little time he should entirely recov- 

 er the power and flexibility of his limbs. 



From all that I could learn in Hamburgh, I am inclined to con- 

 sider the Russian vapor-bath as a most valuable remedy in some 

 chronic diseases, and regret that we have not a similar establishment 

 in any of our medical charitable institutions. 



February. 1832. 



