Old Age and Death. 2? 



those, who become thin or emaciated with age, and who have a hard 

 and dry skin, with hardness of the coat of the arteries; which feels 

 under the finger like a cord ; the patient should sit in warm water 

 for half an hour every day, or alternate days, or twice a week; the 

 heat should be about ninety-eight degrees on Fahrenheit's scale, or of 

 such a warmth, as may be most agreeable to his sensation ; but on 

 leaving the bath he should always be kept so cool, whether he goes 

 into bed, or continues up, as not sensibly to perspire. 



There is a popular prejudice, that the warm bath relaxes people, 

 and that the cold bath braces them ; which are mechanical terms be- 

 longing to drums and fiddle-strings, but not applicable except meta- 

 phorically to animal bodies, and then commonly mean weakness and 

 strength: during the continuance in the bath the patient does not lose 

 weight, unless he goes in after a full meal, but generally weighs heavier 

 as the absorption is greater than the perspiration; but if he sufters 

 himself to sweat on his leaving the bath, he will undoubtedly be weak- 

 ened by the increased action of the system, and its exhaustion: the 

 same occurs to those who are heated by exercise, or by wine, or 

 spice, but not during their continuance in the warm bath: whence 

 we may conclude, that the warm bath is the most harmless of all those 

 stimuli, which are greater than our natural habits have accustomed us 

 to; and that it particularly counteracts the approach of old age in 

 emaciated people with dry skins. 



It may be here observed in favour of bathing, that some fish are 

 believed to continue to a great age, and continually to enlarge in 

 size, as they advance in life; and that long after their state of puberty. 

 I have seen perch full of spawn, which were less than two inches long; 

 and it is known, that they will grow to six or eight times that size; it 

 is said, that the whales, which have been caught of late years, are 

 much less iu size than those, which were caught, when first the whale- 

 fishery was established; as the large ones, which were supposed to have 

 been some hundred years old, are believed to be already destroyed. 



All cold-blooded amphibious animals more slowly waste their senso- 

 rial power; as they are accustomed to less stimulus from their respiring 

 less oxygen; and their movements in water are slower than those of 

 aerial animals from the greater resistance of the element. There besides 



