This is entirely analogous to the hot-air bath, though on a much more elaborate plan. The patient is gradually conducted from a temperature of 120° to that of 160° or even much more than 200°. The bath is concluded by shampooing, rubbing, cooling baths, and gradual cooling in a room maintained at a temperature of 70°.
The uses of this bath are the same as those of the hot-air bath. It has no advantages over it of very great importance, and is much more liable to produce injury by prolonged and frequent application. It generally occupies an hour, and by those who resort to it as a luxury, as did the ancient Romans, it is often prolonged to several hours.
The long-continued application of excessive heat to the body is a very unnatural process. It tends to produce permanent relaxation and debility of the cutaneous tissues, and the manner in which this bath is administered in Turkish bath establishments is productive of great harm. It is often presented to invalids as almost a panacea; and is given alike to the strong and vigorous, and the weak and debilitated.
The bath is certainly good in its place, but it is decidedly bad when abused. Many consider the hot-air bath greatly preferable since it obviates the necessity of inhaling superheated air, the effects of which upon the lungs are said to be injurious. The hot-air bath is doubtless safer.
ELECTRIC BATH.
Electricity may be more efficiently applied in connection with water than by itself. Water is a better conductor of electricity than the dry skin, and hence facilitates its communication to the body. The ordinary method of applying electricity is by attaching one pole of the battery to a metallic plate, placed in contact with some part of the body, while the circuit is completed by the application to the patient of a moist sponge connected with the other pole. The operator often holds one pole in his hand and applies the other hand, moistened, to the part to be treated. He is in this way enabled to judge very accurately of the strength of the current applied. The metallic plate is frequently placed at the feet of the patient, sometimes in a foot bath. The sponge may be applied to various parts of the body while the patient is in a sitz bath. For a general application of electricity the full bath is most convenient.
This bath is applicable to a very large variety of conditions. To describe them all would be to give nearly all the uses of electricity as a remedial agent, which does not come within the scope of this work. The electric full bath has been strongly recommended for the removal of mineral poisons from the body. Just how efficacious it is in this respect, we cannot confidently affirm. Probably its value has been somewhat exaggerated. Only the primary or galvanic current could be of any service in this direction.
Electricity is generally acknowledged to be a powerful remedial agent; but its use requires costly apparatus and much skill in application. It is necessary that the operator should not only understand the nature of diseases and the proper methods of applying electricity in treating them, but he must also thoroughly understand the general laws of electricity. The electric bath is as badly abused by quacks and charlatans as the Turkish bath. It should not be employed by unskillful persons; and for this and other reasons given, it is not well adapted to home use.
ELECTRO-VAPOR BATH.
This is a combination of the electric and the vapor bath, the electricity being applied to the body by means of the sponge, and metallic plates covered with moistened cloths. It is a valuable appliance if carefully used; but, like all effective modes of treatment, it is very liable to excessive use, which becomes abuse. It has been very highly lauded by certain specialists, and doubtless its value has been unstintedly exaggerated. It is perhaps not well proven that its effects are greatly superior to the effects of the vapor bath and electric bath administered separately; and the latter mode would be more convenient, though consuming a little more time.