of the Natives of Ruffia. 635 
laft although never covered, yet coughs and fore throats 
are feldpm heard of: nay, they are disorders that we 
fhould alntoit forget to treat, if foreigners did not keep 
us in ufe. 
Their religion happily eonfpires with the unavoidable 
bodily dirtinefs attached to their fituation to fend them 
to their vapour baths once or twice a week : here they 
wafh away with aqueous vapour, and afterwards with 
water in its condenfed ftate, the dirt that by obftructing 
the pores is fo well known to promote putrid difeafes, at 
the fame time that they moft effectually open the cuti- 
cular emun&ories, and throw off any obftm&ed perfpi- 
ration that might have otherwife a&ed as a fames to begin 
the feptic procefs in the body ; and laftly, they undergo 
nightly, as I mentioned in the introduction, a degree of 
perfpiration that enables our coach-men, for example, to 
fit the whole day and fevere winter evening on the box, 
or at leaf: out of doors, without once dreaming of what 
we call catching cold, as they throw off every night what 
may have been retained in the day, and, to ufe a vulgar 
phrafe, may be faid to clear out as they go; but keep 
them from the noCturnal luxury of their oven, and you 
kill them in a week. 
I muft here obferve, that, excepting the judicious fea- 
man Captain cook, I have not in my reading met with 
4 I a any 
