Decidedly unpleasant feelings, in some cases amounting to a positive loathing, occasionally follow the preliminary wetting of the feet on stepping into cold water: it may be taken for granted that such antipathy is by no means imaginary, but simply nature’s protest. The use is recommended, in conjunction with the Sponge-bath, of a broad stool (heavily weighted at the bottom, to prevent risk of upsetting) covered loosely with carpet, and high enough to reach above the level of the water when placed in the middle of the bath: the piece of carpet may be dried each day after use; or a Sponge-bath may be readily constructed with a fixed raised centre of metal forming a portion of the bath, the bather standing as it were on an island: the feet may thus at first be kept dry, and the preliminary shock received on the head and shoulders; persons who in despair had almost given up the Soap-bath, are by this means enabled to enjoy it without discomfort.
The temperature of the warm water with the soap application may vary from 75 to 95, or even 100°; it ought to be hot enough for the bather to feel it thoroughly grateful and comforting. The cold may vary from 30 to 70°, and it may be borne in mind that as great a shock will be produced with the higher temperature on an enfeebled or weakly constitution, as with the lower on a strong and robust: the bather must be guided by his own feelings. As a rough guide for those in moderate health, 90° for the warm and 60° for the cold may be taken as convenient.
Cyprus—ware sharks.
The necessity of getting quickly over the second or cold application must be strongly urged: in and out again must be the rule and not the exception. Any one may observe what takes place when the body is immersed in cold water: first comes the sharp, half-pleasing, half-painful sensation of cold, almost immediately followed by a consciousness of internal warmth, the duration of which will be in proportion to the power of the organization to keep up this counteraction. The cold water slowly but surely absorbs and extracts the vital heat; if the bath be unduly prolonged, chilliness, shivering, numbness, and exhaustion follow, and although the unpleasant symptoms will probably shortly disappear, the bather will have lost rather than gained in point of health.
No notion of “getting used to it,” or of cultivating hardiness and endurance, should induce one to venture near the stage commencing with chilliness; by so doing the stock of health is wasted instead of increased: the mere patient endurance of cold cannot possibly do good, although it may unquestionably do a great deal of harm.
Many persons suffer severely in winter from cold feet, with the attendant penalties of chilblains, colds, sore throat, and personal discomfort. It is well known to medical men that, when the feet are cold, the system is far more readily accessible to the attacks of disease, and to keep them warm, more especially during the early hours of the morning and after the bath, is, with some persons, almost an impossibility. Singers—both amateur and professional—suffer, certainly in this climate, more or less severely from affections—difficult to guard against—of the throat, induced in the majority of cases by cold, which first attacks the extremities. In lately consulting Dr. Llewelyn Thomas, he suggested as a future safeguard the wearing of shoes or slippers (made by Whiteley, of Westbourne Grove) of a description calculated not only to retain the natural heat of the body but to absolutely exclude cold and draughts. The material is a dark felt, lined with thick white fur; the shoes are open down the sides, but the openings are heavily covered with a dark fur, effectually excluding draughts. There are no laces or fastenings of any kind, and the shoes are slipped on or off in a moment.
It need not be imagined that because the daily application of cold water in the luxurious form of the Soap-bath be strongly urged, it is desirable to inure the body in the manner advocated at the early part of this century, when bare-kneed little children—robust or weakly—were exposed insufficiently clothed to the inclemency of the weather under the mistaken idea of hardening them—hardening some, no doubt, but killing a great many more. The power to resist cold means the power to resist disease, and to be proof against intense cold, one must not only be well fed, and warmly clad, but thoroughly warm before exposure to the cold atmosphere out of doors. Protected by sufficient clothing, the body acts as a sort of store-house of heat, and a sufficiently large stock of warmth absorbed in the morning will last all day, and fresh supplies will be drawn from the heat-producing food consumed. A shivering child sent out of doors for violent exercise may certainly get warm, but it does so at the expense of its own vital energy.
The essential that must not only be looked for, but positively and rapidly attained, is the reaction from the shock produced by the cold water: the heart is actively excited, and the blood propelled with unusual force through the system; the temperature of the body rapidly rises, and a general glow supervenes, accompanied with mixed feelings of increased vitality, buoyancy and exhilaration, difficult to describe. With the non-robust the stay in the cold water can hardly be made too short: the principal shock is produced from the first application, and the endeavour ought rather to be to get out as quickly as possible, than to stay in under the mistaken notion of deriving increased benefit.
Should the stay be even a trifle too prolonged, the reaction will be proportionately slow, and by no means so pleasant; or proper reaction may be made almost impossible, with the result of coldness, shivering, violent headache, slow pulse and probable sickness. It must, however, never be lost sight of that these unpleasantnesses are absolutely under the control of the bather, and never arise except with the very ignorant or very foolish: speedy reaction must be attained and can invariably be secured, even by the most feeble, provided the unpardonable and suicidal sin of too long a stay in the cold water be avoided.