A new, plain and rational treatise on the true nature and uses of the Bath waters / [James Graham].

  • Graham, James, 1745-1794
Date:
1789
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new, plain and rational treatise on the true nature and uses of the Bath waters / [James Graham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/56 (page 14)
    That even fuddenly alfefnating hot bathing and cold wafhing, is both fafe and falutary, is evinced by the conftant praftice of the largefl empire on the face of this globe. For in RufTia the people are enjoined or compelled by cuf- fom, or by their religion frequently to bathe in hot baths, and immediately to run out and rub themfelves with the fnow in winter, and in fummer to go out of the hot bath into the river, with a little pail in their hand for pouring the cold water upon their head, body, and limbs. This I faw with my own eyes when I was at St. Peterfburgh. And it is W’^elf known to perfons of fortune and obfet'vation who have tra* veiled, that there are no fuch great cures done by thefe hot waters at Bath, in pains, palfies, fpafms, contra61;ions, wall- ings, dead-hanging helplelfnefs oi the limbs, and other lame- nclfes, &c. as are every year performed by the moll jultly- celebrated mud-baths in France. ■ I was lately told by a^*ery refpeflable and fenfible man who was difcharged uncured, and as. incurable, from the Bath General Hofpital, that, from his obfervation in the five long months he was in that Hofpital a patient,—it was his opinion, that not one real confirmed palfy of five hundred wns there cured. And how is it polTible for them to cure more, or indee<l any great or confirmed difeafe of that clafs, by the means and methods wdiich I am told they in general employ. Few medicines or applications are ufed. They depend chiefly or folely on the Bathwater: and their w’ay of ufing it is very far from being likely to cure any great or confirmed paralytic malady. The patients in general drink a glafs or two of the water every morning only;—and they bathe twice a w^cek, and only for a quarter, or at moll for j^alf an hour at a time. WTicn. inllead of general bathing,