[THE BATHROOM.]
Bathing in general.
Bathing is of several kinds. There is the morning tub and the sea dip which are taken to brace up the system; then there is the hot bath, more for sanitary and cleansing purposes; and finally come hot-air and vapour baths which are generally of a more or less medicinal character. These will be considered in rotation.
Cold Bathing.—All persons in health and of average strength may use a cold bath daily, in summer at least. In winter, mornings of extreme frost try the strongest constitution, and few are likely to benefit by a plunge on these occasions. For the most part, individuals of moderate powers and free from disease may carry the cleanly practice of summer through the winter months. A word on the bath itself. Those who take it should begin in summer, not winter, and so become gradually accustomed to its lowest temperature. No one should linger over it; 3-4 minutes are ample. After immersion, the body should be quickly and well dried and rubbed before dressing. Light gymnastic, dumb-bell, or club exercise, may occupy the next few minutes, the clothes being partly on if the weather be cold, and breakfast, or a cup of warm tea or coffee, should shortly follow, to prevent chilling.
There are those whom a cold bath injures, instead of invigorating. The readiest test of benefit is the glow of free surface-circulation, or at least the absence of any decided sense of chill after immersion. Some do not experience this. Among these are the subjects of heart weakness, arising from whatever cause; it may be consequent on organic disease of the heart, on old gout or rheumatism, or on overwork and underfeeding, in which case it is a part of a general debility. Again, there is in some a tendency to engorgement of one or other deep-seated organ with blood, a kidney, the liver, &c. This is commonly the result of a previous inflammatory attack, or of visceral disease at the time existing. Surface-cold aggravates the congestive tendency. Obviously, therefore, such persons, if they bathe, ought to use tepid water; and, in renal disorders, this method is often advantageous. In slight cases, cold is not injurious if the ablutions be expeditiously gone through, and restricted to periods of summer weather. The aged should avoid cold baths, and commonly do. Infants, if ordinary despatch is used in bathing and in dressing, have no reason to fear them. Their powers of reaction are excellent.
Cold baths chill down the feeble circulation of the badly nourished, and provoke a physical torpor which is obstructive to the processes of nutrition. They drive the blood from the surface of the body in upon vascular organs, whose circulation is already sluggish from general weakness. They thus produce discomforts which aggravate existing languor, and enhance the feeling that food and drink ought not to and therefore cannot be taken. A bath described as one “from which the chill has been taken” is too cold for subjects under medical advice who are in need of extra feeding.
In any case it is unwise to bathe out of doors when copious perspiration has continued for some hour or more, unless the weather be excessive or the sweating has been induced by loading with clothes rather than by exertion. When much perspiration has been produced by muscular exercise, it is unsafe to bathe, because the body is so fatigued or exhausted that the reaction—that is, the return of the momentarily displaced blood to the surface—cannot be ensured, and the effect may be to congest the internal organs and notably the nerve centres. From congestion of the nervous centres comes cramp, so often fatal in bathing.
If the weather be “chilly,” or there be a cold wind so that the body may be rapidly cooled at the surface while undressing, it is not safe to bathe. Under such conditions the further chill of immersion in cold water will take place at the precise moment when the reaction consequent upon the chill of exposure by undressing ought to occur, and this second chill will not only delay or altogether prevent the reaction, but convert the bath from a mere stimulant to a depressant, ending in the abstraction of a large amount of animal heat and congestion of the internal organs and nerve centres. The actual temperature of the water does not affect the question so much as its relative temperature as compared with that of the surrounding air. Practically, there ought to be a good deal of difference between the two, the water being much lower than the air and the body being—without great or long persisting perspiration—much warmer than the water, of course, but not so much warmer than the atmosphere as to be chilled by undressing. In short, the aim must be to avoid two chills; first, from the air, and second, from the water, and to make sure that the body is in such a condition as to secure a quick reaction on emerging from the water, without relying too much on the possible effect of friction by rubbing. It will be obvious that both weather and wind must be carefully considered before bathing is commenced, and that the state of the organism as regards fatigue and the force of the circulation should also be considered, not merely as regards the general habit, but the special condition when a bath is to be taken. These precautions are eminently needful in the case of the young or weakly.
Sea bathing is regarded, naturally, as more bracing in its character than river bathing. The saltness of the water and the sharp air of the sea together tend to invigorate us. As a rule, the bather can remain longer, without injurious effect, in salt than in fresh water. The sudden shock which results from a plunge into river or sea may be attended by bad effects in the case of persons who are subject to fits of any kind or to disturbance of the heart’s action. Another highly important question in bathing has reference to the care of the ears. Wherever any tendency to ear-ache or inflammation of the ear exists, bathing must be cautiously indulged in. A dive has been known to be followed by rupture of the “drum” of the ear, owing to the sudden pressure to which this membrane has been subjected in passing from the air under the water. Again, persons who have suffered from discharges from the ears—common after scarlet fever, for example—and in whom the drum of the ear may be perforated or irritable, abscess of the brain may follow injury produced by the sudden dive or by plunging the head beneath the water. Placing cotton wool in the ears is a necessary precaution for any who have tender ears, and a safe practice for all. Further, do not dive too much and avoid swimming on the back, for from the position of the ears the water gets into them a great deal more than even in diving. When getting out, besides giving a good rub down with a rough towel, always carefully wipe the ear and the glands behind the ear dry.
No child under 2 years of age ought, under any circumstances, to be bathed in the open sea, and no one, child or adult, can enter the sea without danger while under the influence of emotional excitement. Under 2 years of age, a child’s body is too weak to gain any benefit from the shock of immersion in the open sea. Its nervous and circulating forces are too feeble for the development of that vigorous reaction, without which sea-bathing is either useless or hurtful. In the absence of strength for such reaction a sea-bath tends to chill an infant’s body, and predispose to internal congestion. At any age the shock of immersion in the sea brings risk of danger, and even of death, when the emotions are powerfully excited, and especially when the mind and body are dominated by that most depressing of human emotions—fear. Infants are not always bathed in the sea merely with the intention of making them strong. There is an old seaside tradition that babies diligently bathed become fearless in the water when they grow up. This notion is also false. Than that infants gain courage by being plunged in the sea, it is more probable that many a nervous child has acquired a dread of bathing which no after-experience could remove, because it was compelled in fear and trembling to plunge under water. If a child be sufficiently robust to develop a good reaction, if it be over 2 years of age, and, above all, if it be not afraid, it may be bathed in the sea with advantage. If any of these conditions be wanting, sea-bathing for children is likely to be positively injurious. (Brit. Med. Jour.)