HOT AND COLD BATHS.
The application of cold or hot water to the skin, produces two effects,—a primary and a secondary,—action and reaction.
If the water be cold, the primary effect is to make the skin cold. When the secondary effect or reaction comes on, the skin becomes warm. If hot water be applied to the skin, the primary effect is to make the skin hot; the secondary effect, or reaction, leaves it cold.
The first effect is a momentary one; the second effect, or reaction, continues a long time.
Timid girls exclaim:—
"Cold water! of course you don't mean cold water! What, cold water, right on me and all over me? Why, Doctor, I couldn't stand it! it would kill me!"
"Do you think you could take a hot bath?"
"Oh, certainly; I could take a hot bath easy enough." This conversation occurs in January.
My dear child, you are entirely mistaken. Everybody can take a cold bath, if properly managed, every day of the year; but, during the cold weather, it takes a strong constitution to bear a hot bath; for although the first, or momentary effect, is to make the skin warm and comfortable, the secondary effect, or reaction, which comes on very soon and lasts a long time, is to make the surface very cold.
During the warm weather, the hot bath is a great luxury. For the moment it makes you warm, but the secondary effect, or reaction, which will continue for a long time, leaves you in a cool, comfortable state.
Foot baths afford a happy illustration of this Homoeopathic law, "Similia Similibus Curantur,"—"like are cured by like."
You are troubled with cold feet. Dip the bottoms of your feet in cold water. Let the water be half an inch deep. Hold the feet there four or five minutes, and then give them a good rubbing. Perhaps stand on the carpet with your naked feet, and twist from side to side, until your feet are burning. Not only will your feet remain warm all night, but after practicing this two or three weeks, unless your digestion is very weak, your feet will become warm as a habit.
On the contrary, if you are troubled with burning feet, a frequent hot foot bath will cure you.
But in every case the employment of hot foot baths will give tendency to cold in the head.
But you say again that you like cold baths well enough in warm weather; but if you use the cold bath in the winter, it makes you cold and shivery, it gives you headache and depresses you.
Ah, I see you haven't taken the bath in the right way. If you take it in the way I suggest, no such effects will follow. Apply soap to every part of your skin rapidly with your bathing mittens. That is the most important part of the bath. Now put on just as much or just as little water as your comfort may suggest. If you can bear a good deal, you may put it on; but if you are sensitive to the cold, manage in the way I have suggested,—put on the soap, follow with a damp mitten, and do it all just as rapidly as your hands can move, so that from the time you take off your night dress, until the soap has been applied to every part of the body, and followed by the damp mitten and dry towels, will not be more than one to two minutes. If this is done in your bedroom, instead of a cold bath-room, you will hardly be chilled or depressed by it. If you are so exceedingly sensitive that even this momentary exposure with a moist skin produces an unpleasant chilliness, then follow the soap bath by the most vigorous use of a pair of hair gloves.