Good Health and How We Won It, With an Account of the New Hygiene

by Upton Sinclair; Michael Williams

The daily cold bath is one of the best ways of keeping the doctor at a distance. Cold water has the property of increasing vital work of all kinds. When it is applied to the skin “impulses are sent inward that awaken every organ of the body,” says Kellogg. Let us see what takes place: when a person dips his body into cold water, as in sea bathing, or when he steps into the bath at home, the first thing he does, which in fact he finds himself doing involuntarily, is to draw in a deep breath.

“Oooh-h-h!” he says, but he says it with an indrawing breath. The lungs swell out, the heart begins to pound away with unusually increased vigor and strength, and every part of the system is stimulated. Cold bathing and deep breathing are two valuable things which go inseparably together. The deep breathing increases lung activity, and the lungs bring in more oxygen; the heart circulates the blood with greater force, and hence more and better blood is carried to every tissue of the body. The result is a stirring up of the bodily forces, and a distribution throughout the system of a larger amount of highly vitalized and oxygenated blood.

It has been shown definitely that cold bathing increases enormously the number of white blood corpuscles in the blood. Whether this result is accomplished by the birth of new cells, or by the calling forward of cells from remote parts of the body into the general stream of the blood, is not generally known; but the fact remains that counts of the blood cells taken just before and just after the body has been stimulated by cold water show a decided increase in the army of the warrior cells.

The benefit of sea bathing comes not from the salt in the air or in the water, as some people suppose, but simply from the cold water. The reaction from the dip into the cold water, which is brought about by the blood rushing to the surface to supply the heat which has been taken from it by the application of the water, is one of the most valuable of all curative processes. It is this reaction that sends the blood cells scurrying actively throughout the whole fortress of the body.

HOW COLD BATHING AIDS NUTRITION

Another way in which the application of cold water promotes the functions of life is by the stimulation of the secretion of gastric juice which it accomplishes. It thus helps on actively the digestive processes by which food is absorbed and taken into the blood. The liver and the salivary glands are stimulated in the same way.

When applied to the face, cold water stirs up the flagging energies of the brain, by invigorating the blood. A dash of cold water upon the chest produces a stimulation of all the bodily forces, which a tired person will find more valuable than any pick-me-up or tonic or cup of tea, or nip of whisky or other alleged stimulant could possibly be. Applied over the heart, this organ is made to beat with greater steadiness and vigor. Application to the stomach causes increased production of pepsin and acid or gastric juices. Over the bowels it stimulates intestinal activity; over the loins it increases the action of the kidneys. A cold compress, or a douch over the liver will cause increased liver activity. Every organ in the interior of the body may be thus aroused to increased activity by a simple application of cold water upon the skin overlying the organ, for thus a rush of blood will be caused to that particular portion. It is necessary that the application should be brief, three or four seconds to as many minutes. These short cold applications of water to the skin will increase immediately the activity of any sluggish part, or of any organ whose function we wish to increase as a means of aiding the body in its battle against the causes of disease.

The whole nervous system derives benefit from the stimulation of brief cold baths. This is one of the most valuable functions of water. Hydrotherapy has come to be a most valuable adjunct to the treatment of all nervous diseases. A slow stomach may be wakened up and set to doing effective work by a general cold bath taken daily, or by a local application of cold water. A cold water bag over the stomach for half an hour just before meal time is a wonderful appetite awakener, which may be used by persons whose circumstances preclude them from the general cold bath and the exercises which cause a natural desire for food.

The best of all prescriptions for cold feet is to stand in very cold water a half inch deep and rub one foot with the other in alternation for five minutes. Hydrotherapy is the principal curative agent employed in the great Battle Creek Sanitarium, and its branches throughout the world, and in his book “Rational Hydrotherapy,” Dr. Kellogg has presented in a shape that makes the knowledge available to everybody the modes of treatment which may be employed at home. “A good way,” says Dr. Kellogg, upon whom we draw for information in the preparation of this chapter, “is to stand in the bath tub with the cold water faucet open and the plug out.” It will not be long before the feet will be red and will fairly burn with the afflux of fresh, warm blood which will rush to the feet.

Hot water can be used in conjunction with cold water, since heat tends to lessen vital work, and so heat may be employed when it is desired to diminish organic activity. Pain is one direct evidence of excessive activity. Heat is nature’s great remedy for internal pain. Heat cuts off the influence of cold and at the same time diverts the blood to the surface of the body. Cold, on the contrary, usually increases pain when the seat of it is some internal organ. Sometimes heat and cold are applied at the same time, as for a toothache, for instance, when a hot fomentation is applied to the cheek and an ice bag to the neck under the jaw. Pain in the pelvis is almost always relieved by a very hot foot bath or leg bath, which relieves the congestion by diverting the blood into the legs, and thus removes the condition which was responsible for the pain.