The portable Turkish hot air and vapour bath, as a remedial agent in the treatment of disease / by C. Hunter.

  • Hunter, C.
Date:
[1870?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The portable Turkish hot air and vapour bath, as a remedial agent in the treatment of disease / by C. Hunter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    is shut up alike from light and air—treated at times to superficial ablutions, to soakings in warm water, and the application of chemicals in the form of soaps, to remove actual, visible dirt. Most curious, most questionable, must that civilisation be, which tries thus to effect a compromise with nature—which devotes enormous energy to curing disease, whereas one-half the power expended is capable of entirely preventing it. Has it never appeared to a reflecting mind how that the greatest modern discoveries in the successful treatment of disease, are but simple old- world ways pulled into life and use again ? There would be some show of reason for the multi¬ tude of experimental treatments of disease, if man’s nature had much altered or was continually changing ; but no, the beautiful economy and power of self¬ adjustment is given to each, the same now as in the beginning : disturb the one, or overload the other, and what wonder at disease making its appearance. It is to help the skin, to properly perform its natural functions, which is the removal of the waste of the body—to make it a more perfect means of eliminating from the system diseases, many of which may fairly be ascribed to its inertness—-that a due consideration of its office is urged upon the public, and to further assist this end a description is appended of an apparatus, called, for convenience, a Portable Turkish Bath, which, having been successfully used for some years, has established its efficiency as a curative agent of many diseases (by means of the skin) in such a manner as to require no further recommendation. ” Old age, or accident, not disease, should end our days.”