Some of the most efficacious medicated bath in common use are:—
1. THE BORAX BATH.—This is soothing and calmative in many irritable forms of skin disease. It is made in the proportion of four ounces of borax and three of glycerine, to thirty gallons of hot water.
2. THE AMMONIA BATH, used as a skin stimulant and derivative. The following is Mr Grantham’s formula:—Two ounces of strong hartshorn in two gallons of water, used in a hip bath. An excellent hip bath, very useful for people to whom stooping is objectionable is that made by the Messrs Allen (Plate Eight). One glance at the figure will show its many advantages, and we strongly recommend it.
People who suffer from cutaneous eruptions ought to take skilled advice before using a course of baths, but the following sentences excerpted from E. Wilson’s “Diseases of the Skin” may be read with profit by all.
“Aqueous remedies,” says the dermatologist, “present themselves in the form of simple water in its various states of cold, tepid, warm, hot and steam; water impregnated with saline matter as in the sea-bath, and saline solutions; in lotions, fomentations and poultices. Water may be sedative, emollient, or stimulant, according to the manner in which it is employed. As a tepid bath or fomentation it is sedative, and its sedative action is increased by the addition of various substances, such as oatmeal, starch, gelatine, and soda in small quantities. It is emollient when used as a water dressing or in the condition of steam, and it is stimulant when cold or hot. When hot it is the best means known of relieving pruritus (itching), and in its cold state it refreshes and gives vigour to the skin; hence, the morning bath, the sea-bath, and daily ablutions with soap. On this principle it is that we advise daily cold ablutions with soap of the face in cases of acne (pimples), and to other parts of the body, particularly the axilla and perinaeum in chronic eczema or chronic pruritus. Aqueous lotions of liquor plumbi (sugar of lead) are refrigerant and sedative, while lotions of carbolic acid, sulphurate of potash, acetate of ammonia, and bicarbonate of ammonia are anti-pruritic. Warm fomentations are sedative and anodyne, and their properties are increased by the addition of poppy heads. Poultices are emollient and sedative, but their protracted use, as of all aqueous applications, macerates and weakens the skin, and tends to perpetuate the disease or cause boils. As a rule, all aqueous applications except simple bathing, must be employed with great caution in skin diseases. Saponaceous ablutions generally aggravate eczematous affections; but certain forms and stages of that disease are benefitted by their use.”
As a means of using the hip bath, whether medicated or otherwise, and for female complaints and irregularities, there is nothing to equal the bidet herewith figured (Plate Nine).
3. FOMENTATIONS are simply local baths and are used to relieve pain and reduce inflammation, as in the poppy head or laudanum fomentation to painful swellings, or the turpentine fomentation to redden the chest in severe colds. The water must be very hot, and two pieces of flannel must be used, wrung from the water, time about. These may be sprinkled with laudanum or turpentine as the case may demand.