[THE BATH.]
The eager step with which I always walked towards the strong steel bath, is almost indescribable. Health is such an inestimable blessing; it colours so highly the little picture of life; it sweetens so exquisitely the small cup of our existence; it is so like sunshine, in the absence of which the world, with all its beauties, would be, as it once was, without form and void, that I can conceive nothing which a man ought more eagerly to do than get between the stones of that mill which is to grind him young again, particularly when, as in my case, the operation was to be attended with no pain. When, therefore, I had once left my hof to walk to the bath, I felt as if no power on earth could arrest my progress.
The oblong slated building, which contains the famous waters of Langen-Schwalbach, is plain and unassuming in its elevation, and very sensibly adapted to its purpose. The outside walls are plastered, and coloured a very light red. There are five-and-twenty windows in front, with an arcade or covered walk beneath them, supported by an equal number of pilasters, connected together by Saxon arches. On entering the main door, which is in the centre, the great staircase is immediately in front, and close to it, on the left, there sits a man, from whom the person about to bathe purchases his ticket, for which he pays forty-eight kreuzers, about sixteen pence.
The Pauline spring is conducted to the baths on the upper story; the Wein brunnen supplies those below on the left of the staircase; the strong Stahl, or steel brunnen, those on the right; all these baths opening into passages, which, in both stories, extend the whole length of the building. At the commencement of each hour, there was always a great bustle between the people about to be washed, and those who had just undergone the operation. A man and woman attend above and below, and, quite regardless of their sex, every person was trying to prevail upon either of these attendants to let the old water out of the bath, and to turn the hot and cold cocks which were to replenish it. Restlessness and anxiety were depicted in every countenance; however, in a few minutes, a calm having ensued, the water was heard rushing into fifteen or sixteen baths on each floor. Soon again the poor pair were badgered and tormented by various voices, from trebles down to contra-bassos, all calling to them to stop the cocks. With a thermometer in one hand, a great wooden shovel in the other, and a face as wet as if it had just emerged from the bath, each servant hurried from one bath to another, adjusting them all to about 25° of Reaumur. Door after door was then heard to shut, and in a few minutes the passage became once again silent. A sort of wicker basket, containing a pan of burning embers, was afterwards given to any person who, for the sake of having warm towels, was willing to breathe carbonic acid gas.
As soon as the patient was ready to enter his bath, the first feeling which crossed his mind, as he stood shivering on the brink, was a disinclination to dip even the foot into a mixture which looked about as thick as a horse-pond, and about the colour of mullagitawny soup. However, having come as far as Langen-Schwalbach, there was nothing to say, but “en avant,” and so, descending the steps, I got into stuff so deeply coloured with the red oxide of iron, that the body, when a couple of inches below the surface, was invisible. The temperature of the water felt neither hot nor cold; but I was no sooner immersed in it, than I felt it was evidently of a strengthening, bracing nature, and I could almost have fancied myself lying with a set of hides in a tan-pit. The half-hour, which every day I was sentenced to spend in this red decoction, was by far the longest in the twenty-four hours; and I was always very glad when my chronometer, which I always hung on a nail before my eyes, pointed permission to me to extricate myself from the mess. While the body was floating, hardly knowing whether to sink or swim, I found it was very difficult for the mind to enjoy any sort of recreation, or to reflect for two minutes on any one subject; and as half shivering I lay watching the minute hand of the dial, it appeared the slowest traveller in existence.
These baths are said to be very apt to produce head-ache, sleepiness, and other slightly apoplectic symptoms; but surely such effects must proceed from the silly habit of not immersing the head? The frame of man has beneficently been made capable of existing under the line, or near either of the poles of the earth. We know it can even live in an oven in which meat is baking; but, surely, if it were possible to send one half of the body to Iceland while the other was reclining on the banks of Fernando Po, the trial would be exceedingly severe; in as much as nature, never having contemplated such a vagary, has not thought it necessary to provide against it. In a less degree, the same argument applies to bathing, particularly in mineral waters; for even the common pressure of water on the portion of the body which is immersed in it, tends mechanically to push or force the blood towards that part (the head) enjoying a rarer medium; but when it is taken into calculation that the mineral mixture of Schwalbach acts on the body not only mechanically, by pressure, but medicinally, being a very strong astringent, there needs no wizard to account for the unpleasant sensations so often complained of.
For the above reason, I resolved that my head should fare alike with the rest of my system; in short, that it deserved to be strengthened as much as my limbs. It was equally old—had accompanied them in all their little troubles; and, moreover, often and often, when they had sunk down to rest, had it been forced to contemplate and provide for the dangers and vicissitudes of the next day. I, therefore, applied no half remedy—submitted to no partial operation—but resolved that, if the waters of Langen-Schwalbach were to make me invulnerable, the box which held my brains should humbly, but equally, partake of the blessing.
The way in which I bathed, with the reasons which induced me to do so, were mentioned to Dr. Fenner. He made no objection, but in silence shrugged up his shoulders. However, the fact is, in this instance, as well as in many others, he is obliged to prescribe no more than human nature is willing to comply with. And as Germans are not much in the habit of washing their heads,—and even if they were, as they would certainly refuse to dip their sculls into a mixture which stains the hair a deep-red-colour, upon which common soap has not the slightest detergent effect,—the doctor probably feels that he would only lose his influence were he publicly to undergo the defeat of being driven from a system which all men would agree to abominate; indeed, one has only to look at the ladies’ flannel dresses which hang in the yard to dry, to read the truth of the above assertion.
These garments having been several times immersed in the bath, are stained as deep a red as if they had been rubbed with ochre or brickdust; yet the upper part of the flannel is quite as white, and, indeed, by comparison, appears infinitely whiter than ever: in short, without asking to see the owners, it is quite evident that, at Schwalbach, young ladies, and even old ones, cannot make up their minds to stain any part of their fabric which towers above their evening gowns; and, though the rest of their lovely persons are as red as the limbs of the American Indian, yet their faces and cheeks bloom like the roses of York and Lancaster; but the effect of these waters on the skin is so singular, that one has only to witness it to understand that it would be useless for the poor doctor to prescribe to ladies more than a pie-bald application of the remedy.
Although, of course, in coming out of the bath, the patient rubs himself dry, and apparently perfectly clean, yet the rust, by exercise, comes out so profusely, that not only is the linen of those people who bathe stained, but even their sheets are similarly discoloured; the dandy’s neckcloth becomes red; and when the head has been immersed, the pillow in the morning looks as if a rusty thirteen-inch shell had been reposing on it.