Hot-air baths.

  • Haughton, E. (Edward)
Date:
[1860]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hot-air baths. 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.

    1/4
    ^0gal gxrMht %ua£t$. oo}<K<x> A Sectional Meeting of the Society was held last Evening in the Board-Room of the Society House. Dr. Waller in the Chair. HOT-AIR BATHS. Mr. Edward Haughton, M.D., read an interesting paper on the above subject, of which the following is an abstract:— The baths specially alluded to were the Spartan, Roman, Turkish, and native Irish; each of which is distinct from the other; but all agree in placing the summum-bonum of bathing in the production of free perspiration as the real cleansing agent; whilst ablution (whether in hot or cold water), is merely accessory, and incapable of removing any but superficial im- purities. A marked distinction was drawn between vapour baths, properly so called, and the Oriental Hammam, in which latter the presence of vapour is rather tolerated than purposely induced. The objections to which warm water bathing is liable were applied to steam baths, although in a less degree; they consist chiefly in the fact of these mediums parting with their heat suddenly, and being thus liable to raise injuriously the temperature of the body, whilst cooling by evaporation is totally prevented, and cutaneous action seriously interfered with. Objections against hot-air baths, on the score of climate, were combatted by showing that such baths are not only now in operation in this island, but are of great antiquity, having