Bathing considered as a means of promoting health : a lecture delivered in the Bath Saloon, Victoria Street, Glossop-Road, Sheffield, on Monday evening, May 8, 1837 / by Charles F. Favell.

  • Favell, Charles F.
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bathing considered as a means of promoting health : a lecture delivered in the Bath Saloon, Victoria Street, Glossop-Road, Sheffield, on Monday evening, May 8, 1837 / by Charles F. Favell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    the bodily health is deranged, and it is by attending to this, most commonly, that persons are restored to cheer- fulness and society. No disorders are less generally un- derstood than those to which I am referring: none are so bad to bear, and yet excite so little sympathy. And though, to a sensitive mind, it is painful to see a fellow- creature thus suffering, it is yet delightful to be able to “ Minister to a mind diseased— Pluck from the memoryxa rooted sorrow— Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And, with some sweet oblivious antidote— Cleanse the full bosom of that perilous stuff, That weighs upon the heart.” The connexion between the mind and the body, we know, is most intimate : the one cannot be affected without the other to some extent suffering with it. What the nature of this connexion is, it is not my intention to investigate ; it is sufficient for me at present to know that it exists. I must beg you to bear this relation constantly in remem- brance, and, at the same time, to recollect that the various parts of the body are most wonderfully, but at the same time most beautifully, associated together. Every indivi- dual part is the centre of a circle of sympathies, and the whole animal economy is but a circle of still larger dimen- sions, within which all the smaller circles are contained. The heart and the stomach—the stomach and the brain— the brain and the lungs—the lungs and the skin, are all most intimately linked together, and we constantly see the functions of one impaired when another is disordered. It cannot, therefore, excite the astonishment of a reflecting mind, when I affirm that many of those who are occasion- ally subject to lowness of spirits, would most likely be spared the bitterness of many a weary hour, by a judicious use of Baths. I might greatly extend my remarks and illustrations on this part of my subject, but I forbear. I think I have already said enough to show, that very nume- rous and very serious maladies may arise from a want of attention to the skin—from a neglect of general ablu- tion ; and that some persons will suffer from one kind of o