HEAT AS A REMEDIAL AGENT IN DISEASE. 289 



HYGIENE. 



HEAT AS A REMEDIAL AGENT IN DISEASE. 

 BY PROF. GEO. HALLET, M. D. 



The use of heat in one form or another in the treatment of diseased pro- 

 cesses, is almost as old as the history of our race. And jet, with all the 

 accumulated lore of this nineteenth century, we find men styling themselves 

 scientists, scouting at the very idea of there being any remedial qualities 

 in it. 



In every advanced forra of civilization in the past, we find one or other 

 forms of heat used as a means to combat, or as an agent to cure ailments to 

 which the human body is subject. 



The history of the bath in the city of Damascus is contemporaneous with 

 the history of the city itself. So, also, among the Greeks, Carthagenians and 

 Egyptians. Bat not till Eome had donned the plume of Empire do we find 

 anything like a well systematized form of the bath in use. The great and 

 patriotic minds of the day, as well as the popular panderors to the desires 

 and tastes of the people, so fully recognized their utility that they had pub- 

 lic free baths erected for those who could not j^ay for them, even though the 

 bath at that time only cost a small fraction of a cent. Thus demonstrating 

 that in their far seeing and jDatriotic policy, they recognized greater econ- 

 omy in preventing disease or checking it in its incipiency, than in curing 

 it after it was fully established. 



But not only as a remedial or preventive agency was it used, but as a 

 luxury. They regarded it as a promoter of digestion, and so used it before 

 meals to increase appetite, or even for purposes of gluttony and sensual in- 

 dulgence, evidently showing they regarded it as a promoter of vital activitv. 

 It was on account of the licentiousness connected with the bath, or from the 

 early Christians being excluded from them, that they almost entirely fell into 

 disuse, after the fall of the Eoman Empire — superstition in the name of 

 Christianity taking the place of Pagan scientific Hygiene. 



But among nations and tribes removed from that influence, we find it 

 still used to a very large extent. Not only among nations with a history 

 and a written language, but among barbarous tribes, such as inhabited this 

 country. DeWolf, writing of the Mandin tribe of Indians, says, "When they 

 became infected with small pox, they treated them with the hot bath, (hot 

 air and hot vapor), with the effect of almost entirely stamping them out of 

 existence as a tribe. But the fault is not in the agent, nor so much in the 

 form in which it is used, but in not knowing when or how to properly use 

 such a potent agent. It is indeed a "Damascus" blade, which in the skillful 

 hand is j^owerful for good, while if used ignorantly, as it often is, becomes 



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