The eastern or Turkish bath

by Sir Erasmus Wilson

The bath is a cure for disease when the latter state is already established, and is a powerful and effective medicine.

These are a general summary of the nature and attributes of the Eastern bath, which I shall now endeavour to illustrate with more exactness and in greater detail.

It is an interesting and important feature in connexion with the revival of the bath in Britain, after a lapse of fifteen hundred years, that it should have been so eagerly taken up and adopted by the working classes. Several baths, founded and maintained by working men, have been established in our great manufacturing towns—among others, in Bradford, Barnsley, Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, Staleybridge, Rotherham, and Rochdale; and this fact, together with the general popularity of the bath among the artisan class, will doubtless lead the thinking man to recognise in the institution attributes of sterling value and prospective public utility.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE BATH.

The processes which constitute the Eastern bath—in other words, the stages of the bath—are three in number, namely:—1. Exposure of the naked body to hot dry air; 2. Ablution with warm and cold water; and, 3. Cooling and drying of the skin.—The bath, or thermæ, should therefore consist of three apartments devoted especially to the three processes—namely, the hot room, or Calidarium; the washing room, or Lavatorium; and the cooling room, or Frigidarium. Or, for private use, two rooms; or one room divided into two compartments, Calidarium and Frigidarium, would be sufficient; the Calidarium being used as a Lavatorium after the sweating process is completed.

My friend, Mr. George Witt, of Prince's Terrace, Hyde Park, to whom I am indebted for my first introduction to the bath, possesses a bath of the simple construction to which I am now alluding; and as it fulfils very satisfactorily all the purposes of the bath, I shall proceed to describe it, by way of illustration of one of the simplest forms of bath for private use. On the ground-floor of his house he had a room twenty feet long by ten feet in breadth, and twelve feet high, with a window looking out upon a lead flat. To convert this room into a thermæ he divided it into two compartments, by means of a wall which crossed it at about one-third from its further end. He had thus two apartments—an outer one, the Frigidarium; and an inner one, entered by two small doors, outer and inner, in the partition wall, the Calidarium. To preserve the heat of the Calidarium a lath and plaster lining was placed inside and at the distance of a few inches from the wall, and the space between the lining and the wall filled in with sawdust. The same was done to the ceiling, and the floor was paved with earthen tiles set on concrete. On the side corresponding with the exterior of the house a square of thick glass was let into the wall, and, above and below, were four circular holes three inches in diameter, and fitted with plugs for the purpose of ventilation. Further, in the partition wall was a small square of glass through which a thermometer could be seen from the outside, and a gas-burner from the inside, enabling the bather to ascertain the temperature of the Calidarium from the outside without opening the doors, and supplying a light exterior to the Calidarium when the bath is used in the evening.

Following this description, it will be seen that the Calidarium or Sudatorium is simply a closed chamber, with an area of sixty-five superficial feet, and containing seven hundred and fifteen cubic feet of atmospheric air, the actual measurements being ten feet long by six feet and a half wide, and eleven feet high; this chamber being provided with sufficient means of ventilation through the agency of the imperfectly-fitting doors, and also the occasional opening of the doors on one side, and the four holes, already described as existing in the exterior wall, on the other; and also, supposing the doors to be more closely shut, between an ingoing current of cold air through the two lower holes, and an outgoing current of hot air through the upper holes. Ten persons can take the bath without discomfort, and without being overcrowded in Mr. Witt's thermæ; I have myself formed one of nine, but with six or seven the space is more than ample.

Let me now turn to the means of heating the Calidarium. In the exterior wall, near its bottom, and opening on the lead flat, is a furnace of the commonest possible construction, and capable, from its free draught, of burning the commonest combustible material—such as inferior coal, coal screenings, coke, cinders, and sawdust. This furnace, encased in brickwork, is carried obliquely for a distance of four or five feet into the Calidarium; and its flue, following the angle of the floor, makes the circuit of the apartment. The flue next ascends perpendicularly for a few feet, crosses the wall above the brickwork which encloses the furnace, and then makes its way up the angle of the room to the ceiling, where it escapes by means of a chimney. The flue, in its course around the room, is raised from the level of the floor, and separated from the wall by the breadth of a brick, and consequently presents a free surface on all sides for the radiation of heat. Its radiating surface is about one foot square, and its length thirty-five feet. The common temperature maintained in Mr. Witt's Calidarium is 130° to 140° of Fahrenheit. Mr. Witt tells me that he has had it as high as 180°; and I have myself been in it, in company with my friend Mr. Chadwick, at 150° of Fahrenheit.

As the British thermæ is at present in a state of infancy, the question of construction, in reference to the threefold condition, of size of apartment, degree of ventilation and temperature, and materials, is before us for inquiry and research. The common plaster walls of Mr. Witt's Calidarium answer perfectly: they are not too hot for the naked skin, as a glazed or polished material would be; and they admit of cleansing by water, whenever necessary. The red and blue earthen tiles of his bath give a pleasant holding to the soles of the feet on account of their roughness, and with the intramural position of the flue never become too hot. Glazed tiles, although more elegant in appearance, are too hot for contact with the skin, and require, consequently, to be trodden on with wooden clogs; moreover, when at all moistened, they are slippery and dangerous. Therefore, so far as our present means of information go, it would appear that the more economical materials of construction answer in every way the best. We are, however, still open to instruction on these points, as well as in many others appertaining to the bath, and we shall probably be doing best to adhere as closely as possible to the Turkish model. Can the furnace, as at present described, be improved? What combustible material would be the most economical; taking into consideration the questions of price, of rapidity of combustion and of deposition of soot in the flue, requiring more or less frequent cleansing?