CHAPTER III.
RATIONAL USE OF THE BATH.
Admitting the importance of the bath to the health and well-being of society, when properly employed, it becomes our duty to consider in what the propriety of its employment consists.
It consists in the selection of a temperature which is suitable to the constitution and idiosyncrasies of the individual; of a time of day most in accord with the constitution of the body; of a period of duration of the bath; of the frequency of repeating it.
Then we have to consider certain points of detail which come before us in the shape of objections to the bath: for example, the apprehension of taking cold after the bath; of causing disturbance of the nutritive functions; of inducing weakness. And, again, we may view it as a remedy against certain affections of a spasmodic type, in which its mode of action is so clear as to be intelligible to the unmedical understanding; and further, we have to regard it in its applicability to our fellow-creatures of the four-footed class, and especially to the horse.