Baths and bathing : a description of all the various kinds of baths, both simple and medicated, administered at the Argyll Baths (established 1817) : 10A, Argyll Place, Regent Street, W. (near Oxford Circus), and 5, New Broad Street, City, E.C. (near the North London Railway station).

Date:
[1885]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Baths and bathing : a description of all the various kinds of baths, both simple and medicated, administered at the Argyll Baths (established 1817) : 10A, Argyll Place, Regent Street, W. (near Oxford Circus), and 5, New Broad Street, City, E.C. (near the North London Railway station). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    SECTION II. BATHS AND BATHING. If there is one thing that we English pride ourselves npon more than another, it is upon the fact that we do more bathing than any other nation in the world. When we go abroad, the diminutive quart of washing water is a matter of no mild complaint, and plays its part in furnish- ing another opportunity for the virtuous Englishman to plume himself upon the fact that the soap statistics prove his countrymen use more soap annually per head than any other nation living. Casually looked at, the subject is certainly one in which the indulgence in such pride may be pardonable, but if we examine our present position somewhat more thoroughly we shall see that our self-satis- faction is a little premature. After centuries of a total disregard of cleanliness we have awakened from a slumber as deep as that of Eip Van Winkle, to find everything changed, hot air and vapour baths reintroduced, and sanitarians urging the use of appropriate bathing in every city and village in the realm. But have we yet, as a nation, realised anything like the real uses of the bath as it was known to the great nations of antiquity ? Have we really even as yet grasped its significance as a health factor, as it can and should bo apart from mere purposes of cleanliness ? The best answer to this is found in a slight survey of the prevalence and universality of bathing from the remotest ages, and the lessons to be learnt therdfrom.