My friend Mr. Goodwin, of Hampton Court, who has had much and the best kind of experience in the management of horses, tells me that for more than twenty-five years he has been in the habit of having his horses washed whenever they returned to the stable in a state of perspiration, and with the result that his stable was remarkable for the health and condition of the animals. His process was as follows:—the horses were thoroughly sponged over with warm water; then with tepid water; and, lastly, with cold; the water was then scraped out of their coats with a scraper (strigillum), and they were well wiped down with a leather. After this they were covered with a cotton sheet, and their legs were bandaged with cotton rollers. In fifteen or twenty minutes the sheet was raised gradually, first at one corner, then at another, until it was completely removed; the uncovered portion being thoroughly wiped before the next was proceeded with, and the process being continued until the animal was completely dry. After this treatment, there was no fear of any subsequent breaking out, and however sharply the horses had been worked, frequently after a run at the rate of twenty miles an hour, they were ready and willing for a double feed of oats.
How different this picture from that of the common condition of horses under similar circumstances; breaking out into a profuse, and often a succession of profuse perspirations after being put into the stable, and unable to eat their corn from faintness and exhaustion. But how curious the parallel with the stages of the Turkish Bath: the exercise is the sudatorium; then the operations of the lavatorium; firstly, the warm affusion, then the cold douche and the strigil; and, lastly, the frigidarium and the sheet. Nay, the parallel permits of being pushed even one stage further. My friend W. says:—"I have no objection to see a friend in the bath, or invite him to dinner; but not both on the same day, for the bath makes him so hungry, that my cook threatens to give me warning."
Mr. Urquhart, in a note to "The Pillars of Hercules" observes:—"A plan has recently been successfully adopted for drying horses after hunting. Two men, one on each side, throw over him buckets of water as hot as he can bear it; he is then scraped, and rubbed with chamois leather, the head and ears carefully dried with a rubber, and his clothing put on. In twenty minutes he is perfectly dry, and there is no fear of his breaking out again: the old plan of rubbing him dry took from one to two hours of very hard work, and he generally broke out once or twice, and would often be found in a profuse sweat at twelve or one o'clock at night. The bath might be adopted for horses." "At present we shampoo our horses and clear off the epidermis, while we bestow no such care on our own bodies."
On the application of the Turkish Bath to the management and training of horses, the following letter, addressed by Mr. Goodwin to the Editor of Bell's Life, is especially important and interesting:—
"Mr. Editor,—I hope your insertion of Mr. Erasmus Wilson's observations upon the advantages to be derived from the Turkish Bath may be the means of inducing owners of horses and their trainers to try its effects. It is obvious that in the racing stables such an adjunct must be found of great use to horses whose limbs are defective, and not capable of sustaining the exercise necessary to reduce their superfluous flesh, and also in cases where the constitutional powers of the animals in preparation will not admit of their doing the strong work required of them.
"Mr. Wilson's remarks upon the system of washing horses after their work allude to a practice which was introduced, and successfully carried out, under my direction for many years in the Royal stables. The following narrative in relation to it may be some testimony in its favour:—When the late Earl of Jersey became Master of the Horse his lordship sent for me on one occasion hastily, to express his horror at seeing the stablemen wash a set of horses which had just come in from a sharp run on the Windsor road; and so great was his lordship's prejudice to the innovation that I was afraid I should not be able to persuade him to permit its continuance, to give him an opportunity of observing its effects. His lordship, however, at my earnest request, came back to the mews in two hours' time to look at those horses, and not only found them quite dry and well dressed, but all of them eating their corn with good appetites. This induced his lordship to pay particular attention, whenever the opportunity occurred, to the horses so treated, and he became such a convert to this method, so new to him, that he often brought his friends to witness the beneficial effects of it; and, amongst others, the late Mr. Assheton Smith came, and immediately adopted it in his hunting stables, and, I have heard, with great success.
"I know not whether jockeys have ever tried the hot-air bath for reducing themselves; but as they are compelled often to undergo such killing fatigue and privation as to impair their strength and endanger their health, they may, I hope, now that it is brought to their notice, be persuaded to make early trial of that which seems to offer them so much comfort. And as Mr. Wilson remarks that the skin of the accustomed bather perspires more readily and freely than in those whose pores have not been trained to its operation, jockeys may anticipate the acquisition of some very acceptable information.
"The expense of converting a loose box into a hot-air bath is so trifling that the experiment may be made at no great cost. London has already many Turkish Baths for bipeds, and I hope Newmarket will not be without one for quadrupeds. Col. Knox has testified to its beneficial results upon horses in Ireland; and Col. Towneley has one at his training stables at Middleham, which, I believe, has answered every expectation.
"In the treatment of disease I have often experienced the benefit of hot air; for in former days, when maladies in the horse were more rapid and acute than we now usually meet with them, and were generally ushered in by a cold shivering fit, it was my constant practice at Carlton House stables, when such a case occurred, to take the horse at once into the men's kitchen, and put him before the large fire which always kept it at a high temperature. By the heat, with the help of constant friction, I generally succeeded in cutting short the duration of the cold, clammy sweat, which is always indicative of mischief more or less serious. Were it for the treating of disease only, if I had a stable of valuable horses under my care, I would soon have also a hot-air bath.
"Yours, &c., W. J. Goodwin.