The flue in Mr. Witt's bath is constructed of galvanized iron plate, and is square in form. This flue answers very well, but Mr. Witt does not approve of iron, because in a hot dry atmosphere particles of the metal are thrown off and mingle with the air. The best material for the construction of the flue is earthen tiles or bricks; probably pipes fitting end to end may, with some modification, be made to answer the purpose, but heretofore they have been found to split with the heat. Then, in the case of building a bath, the relative value of bricks, and especially of hollow bricks, and pierced bricks, and bricks with a surface finish, come under consideration.
Immediately over the fine passing around the floor of the Calidarium is a wooden seat; and over the masonry of the furnace, a wooden step and platform affording additional sitting room. On the platform is a wooden couch, shaped like a straddling letter W, called the dureta from the hardness of its material, but in reality forming a most pleasant and agreeable couch, as the angles of the couch correspond with the joints of the body when in a reclining position. The dureta was borrowed by the Emperor Augustus from Spain, or rather from Morocco through Spain,[15] and contributes greatly to the luxury of the bath.
It is a fault in Mr. Witt's bath that the flue entirely surrounds the floor of the Calidarium, and consequently crosses the entrance door, rendering it necessary to the bather to step down from the seat to the floor of the apartment in going in, and to step upwards in going out. This arrangement leads to occasional slips, particularly when the floor is wet; and although unimportant to persons in the full vigour of health, calls for caution in all, and especially on the part of those who are in any degree infirm; and becomes a serious impediment where it is necessary to lift an invalid into the bath. Fortunately the inconvenience admits of an easy remedy; the flue, when it reaches the jamb of the doorway, may be carried over the door and so onwards along the side of the room; or it may be doubled back upon itself and made to return to the line from which it started, and then carried to any point of exit that may be suitable. A better material for the flue is brickwork; and as the intention of the flue is to afford a large surface for the radiation of heat, the plan has been adopted of making flues of large size, for example, three or four feet in height. A short length of a flue of these dimensions is equivalent to three or four times the length of a flue of one foot square, and its course along two or three sides of the room affords as much heat as can be required. I visited lately a small bath in Bell-street, Edgeware-road, in which a flue of this construction, about three feet in height and nine inches in width, ran along three sides of the room, and gave out a temperature of 160°.
In the Turkish bath and in some of the modern British Thermæ the flues are carried under the floor, constituting a kind of Roman Hypocaustum, and are made to describe a series of parallel rows, which traverse from side to side and are connected at the ends. A very high degree of temperature is attained by this arrangement, as in the private bath of Mr. Stewart Rolland, of Victoria-street, Westminster; but it presents this manifest objection, namely, that the floor is so hot as to be unbearable to naked feet or to a naked skin, and is therefore not without danger to an invalid who may have accidentally fallen on the ground. Again, where very high temperatures are obtained, the woodwork of the seats becomes so hot as to render coverings of some kind necessary. The temperature of Mr. Stewart Rolland's Calidarium, when fully heated, ranges between 150° and 170°, while with the aid of a Laconicum he is able to carry his temperature twenty degrees higher; his couches and seats are, therefore, covered with cotton sheets having a thick pile; and in place of wood he uses fibrous slabs, which have a lower conducting power and are less influenced by the heat. Moreover, in the construction of his walls he employs felt, on account of its non-conducting and non-inflammable properties, as an intermediate layer, in place of the sawdust used by Mr. Witt.
From want of space, as I have before remarked, Mr. Witt's Calidarium becomes his Lavatorium at the conclusion of the sweating process; and no inconvenience results from this arrangement, because ample time can be spared for the drying up of the moisture before the bath is required for use a second time. But where the requisite extent of space exists, and, as a necessity in a public bath where a succession of bathers enter and depart, a separate apartment should be devoted to the purposes of a Lavatorium. And, as the Lavatorium should adjoin the Calidarium, a few feet of the flue may be introduced into the partition wall between the two, and made to warm the air of the Lavatorium, converting it, in fact, into a Tepidarium. The Tepidarium of the ancient Roman Thermæ was an apartment of an intermediate temperature between the Frigidarium and the Calidarium, and supplied a transition medium between the two extremes; warming and relaxing the body on its way from the Frigidarium to the Calidarium on the one hand, and qualifying the depression of the temperature from the Calidarium to the Frigidarium on the other.
Before its escape from the Calidarium, the flue is made to heat the water which is required for rinsing the body after thorough friction with soap. For this purpose a tank holding a few gallons of water (Mr. Witt's tank holds ten gallons) is fixed on a portion of the fine at the upper part of the bath, and a short descending pipe, with a horizontal arm fitted at the end with a rose, distributes a grateful shower of warm water over the bather. Another horizontal arm, with or without a rose, brings the cold water, with which the ablution is completed, into the Lavatorium, and is distributed either as a copious shower or as a descending douche, as the bather may desire. In Mr. Stewart Rolland's bath I was indulged with an alternate douche of hot and cold water, which was wonderfully delicious.
The third compartment of the bath (the Frigidarium) may be as large as convenient, but should be abundantly supplied with the means of procuring fresh air, and even a current of air; it is not only a cooling-room, but also a drying-room, for in it the moisture left on the body is thoroughly evaporated, and the skin becomes smooth and satiny. The Frigidarium should be furnished with a couch and a few easy chairs, and as it is intended to be trodden with naked feet, it should have a clean wooden floor or a mat. Moreover, it is here that fresh water may be kept for drinking, or the acidulated drinks, or the sherbet. It is here also that should be found the Columbarium, with its pigeon-holes for receiving the mantles, the sheets, the towels, the cummerbunds, the combs, together with any other appurtenances of the bath that may be in use.
Again, in the two or three-roomed bath, a portion of the Frigidarium may be devoted to the purpose of a dressing-room, Apodyterium, or Vestiarium. Here the clothes may be hung up on pegs as they are removed, and here shoes and boots should be left, the presence of shoes being strictly prohibited in the proper cooling part of the room. In this arrangement we are made aware that among the Romans the Frigidarium and the Vestiarium were separate apartments, and formed a portion of that series which Pliny conceived might, with the strictest economy of space, be comprehended in five or seven rooms, but would be more completely carried out in nine. The Frigidarium of the Romans, like the Mustaby of the Turks, was open to the vault of heaven.
Such is the Eastern bath, in reference to the question of construction; it is either a spare room with a partition, a furnace and chimney, and a small reservoir of water; or it is an outhouse with a similar arrangement; or it is five walls, with a roof, erected in a convenient spot; or it is an elegant "hothouse," pendent to a country villa; or it may be an architectural wonder of ancient Roman grandeur. In other words, it may come within the reach of the poor man, at the expenditure of a few shillings or pounds, or it may be the metamorphosis of hundreds and thousands of pounds into a palace of magnificence and luxury. But the poor man's bath will be essentially as perfect as that of Dives, and he will, if he be wise, carry the balance of cost to the education of his children. In a small society of neighbours, clubbing their means, the bath would cost less than the tobacco-pipe; and where the rules of the Bath are rigidly enforced, as they invariably should be, the Bath would become a school of moral discipline as well as physical health, and be a potent counterblast to the public-house.