The Turkish bath in health and disease : being the substance of a lecture delivered at Sheffield on the 10th of December, 1858 / by John le Gay Brereton.

  • Brereton, J. le Gay (John le Gay), 1827-1886.
Date:
[1860]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Turkish bath in health and disease : being the substance of a lecture delivered at Sheffield on the 10th of December, 1858 / by John le Gay Brereton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    substance of a Lecture delivered at Sheffield on the 10th of December, 1858, by John Le Gay Brereton, M.D., M.R.C.S.E., late of Bradford, and now of Sydney, New South Wales. Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen,—Our worthy chairman has told you that since I last had the pleasure of lecturing to you, he has tested the merits of the Turkish Bath by an experiment upon himself. That, of course, is the only method by which the truth of any statement can be tested. I ■wish you all to try the Bath, not that it will benefit me in any way, nor have I any iaterest in lecturing to you further than that I am actuated by a desire to see you happier men and women than you are ;—and I assure you that I am fully convinced, from practical knowledge and experience of the Bath,, that it is the only means by which perfect health can be maintained, and disease in many forms be eradicatednor is it necessary for me to inform you th&t health is essential to happiness. Cleanliness is unattainable except by the Bath, and health without cleanliness is impossi- ble ; none of you who have not taken the Bath can know what absolute cleanliness is. As many of you are ignorant of what constitutes the Turkish Bath, I will briefly describe the process. You, perhaps, all associate the term Bath with ablution—washing in some form or other. I do not wish you to infer that I consider washing with water unnecessary ; on tlie contrary, it is very important in its place, and constitutes an essential portion of the Bath. The medium into which man is born, that which is most agreeable to hira, and which imparts health and vigour to his frame, which is the life of his blood, and the stimulus of all power, is the Air we breathe. Water is not the element for man to live in, and it alone cannot effectually cleanse the system of its impurities. Water can do no more than remove tilth which is deposited on the surface. Now, the Turkish Bath is a hot-aiV Bath, into which water is only incidentally introduced. It consists of five processes. First, having divested yourself of your clothing, save some slight covering, you enter a tepid room through which air is passed at the temperature of about 100 degrees. You can sit, lie down, or walk about at pleasure. In this room