CHAPTER IX.

THE BATH IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS, ETC.

The bath for the hydropathic establishment will generally be required in connection with, and—what is of greater moment—in harmony with, other baths, such as medicated baths, Russian or vapour baths, and the ordinary douche, wave, spray, and needle baths, which, where the Turkish bath is included, may often be efficiently administered with the appliances usually provided in the shampooing and washing room. Moreover, if the establishment include the pumilio-pine treatment, or system of pine-therapeutics, there will be required rooms or halls for the inhalation of dry pine and pinal vapour. The nature of the communication between these different baths, as the medicated, Russian, &c., and the Turkish bath, and their relative positions, must be carefully studied. It should be compact and the various passages and corridors as short as possible, these passages and corridors being provided with means for maintaining them at a suitable, and uniformly equable, temperature. This latter point we do not find so carefully studied in hydropathic establishments as its importance would warrant. The consequence is that, in passing backwards and forwards to and from the different bath rooms, the delicate invalid contracts a serious chill.

Fig. 26.
Plan of the Baths at the Hôtel Mont Dore, Bournemouth.
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I give herewith, at Fig. 26, a plan of the baths at the Hôtel Mont Dore, at Bournemouth, which, though not confessedly a hydropathic institution, has yet a fine bathing establishment of the hydropathic type, as well as complete arrangements for the administration of the pine cure. These baths include a Turkish bath, with three hot rooms, a shampooing room, and cooling room, connected by an anteroom with the suite of miscellaneous bath rooms of the gentlemen's department. The latter comprise a room for the tonic water baths, such as the needle, douche, sitz, hip, and wave; a room or "hall" for the inhalation of pine vapour, whilst in a bath of condensed steam; and a room for the administration of the Mont Dore cure, consisting of the application of pulverised Mont Dore water, or spray, to the eye, nose, or ear, as may be required, this room being also used for the inhalation of dry pine. In addition are a range of slipper baths, in comfortably fitted bath rooms, for the purposes of electric and medicated baths, such as those of pine extract, sulphur, iodine, &c., &c., and for ordinary hot and cold spring-water and salt-water baths. In connection are arranged dressing and reposing rooms, besides necessary subsidiary apartments. A somewhat similar suite of rooms is arranged for ladies on the other side of the block. There is no separate Turkish bath, however; certain days of the week are set apart exclusively for ladies' use. The steam boilers, which supply the steam to the vapour baths and pine-vapour baths, and the water super heaters, as well as the hotel lift and pumping machinery, are arranged in a basement under the stairs, anteroom, tepidarium, and shampooing room.

It will be seen that the compact little Turkish bath, which was arranged under the direction of the late Mr. Charles Bartholomew, is in direct communication with the other baths, allowing the bather to pass from the hot rooms, or shampooing room, to medicated or pine bath, or vice versâ. In designing the plan of baths of the type of those at the Mont Dore, this intercommunication between the various baths is the point to be most carefully studied. Direct communication is required between the Turkish, and the Russian, bath, inhalation hall, and medicated baths, as some methods of treatment render this an absolute necessity.

In a small establishment the hydropathic appliances are movable, and used in ordinary bath rooms, the Turkish bath being the only feature requiring special design.

A true hydropathic establishment of any size should be provided with two Turkish baths, one for ladies and one for gentlemen, as the power and efficiency of the treatment may depend upon the regularity and persistency with which it is carried out. Where there is only one bath, it has to be set apart on different days for the use of ladies and gentlemen, and it is evident that the benefit of a course of baths may be greatly lessened by the occasional unreadiness of the bath. Two suites of rooms should, therefore, be provided. It may be that they will be most economically constructed and worked if arranged side by side, so that they may have their furnaces together, and be stoked with economy.