rican Continent, and in our own island. The universality of the the bath, therefore-its existence during thousands of years in every quarter of the globe, furnishes prima facie proof of its value far superior to any that mere abstract reasoning could supply.

It might have been imagined that such an institution would naturally commend itself to a medical profession conscious of its high moral obligations, if not suddenly at first, at least after some of the most eminent medical men of the day had tested its merits and certified to its great therapeutic power. But the Bath has experienced no appreciative welcome from the profession as a body, more particularly from the teachers and leaders of medical opinion.

"We ask ourselves," says Erasmus Wilson, one of the first authorities of the day, "not what disease will be benefitted by the therma? but what disease can resist its power? Yet, notwithstanding a "cloud of witnesses" have given similar testimony, those who control medical teaching, opinion, and practice, still remain obdurate, and Drug Medication still goes on in its old ways, and will continue to do so, as long as credulous patients are content to remain the passive victims of its malpractices.

CHAPTER IV.

The Bath in Britain after the departure of the Romans—Its subsequent destruction-The Baths of Europe during the Middle Ages-Early advocates of the revival of the Roman Bath Apathy of Medical men-The story of its ultimate revival and successful establishment Opposition of Drug practitioners— The Bath the perfection of Hydropathic practice.

Ir is now nearly fifteen hundred years since the last of the Roman legions departed from Britain, leaving behind them the Hot-air Bath as an established institution. From the numerous remains that have been discovered in various places it is evident there were Baths in all the towns and cities garrisoned by the Roman troops, who used it not so much as a luxury as for its undoubted sanitary and invigorating influences. But there is no evidence that the inhabitants of the country ever regarded it with favour; on the contrary, the probability is that, as a custom introduced by their conquerors, they looked upon it with suspicion, and were averse to its adoption. The civil commotions that disturbed the country, and rendered anarchy prevalent long after the retirement of the Romans, was also unfavourable to the permanence of any institution, however excellent in itself, that was introduced by them; and if the Bath did survive until the inhabitants generally embraced Christianity, it appears most probable that its use was then forbidden as sinful.

The Druids had their sacred springs, round which were centred popular superstitions, and the early Christian priests, who soon became adepts in the craft of their Pagan predecessors, made use of those superstitions, and gave them a new direction to augment their own influence. Churches were erected in the vicinity of the ancient sacred springs, which were associated, by dedication or otherwise, with the names of reputed martyrs

and saints, by whose intercession miraculous cures were procured, which cast into the shade all the marvels that had been effected by the waters while under the influence of Pagan divinities. Such pious frauds were first countenanced for the purpose of facilitating the transition of the ignorant and superstitious from their old to the new faith, and confirming them therein, while they were afterwards systematically encouraged. as affording a profitable source of income. In this way the impostures of Paganism were imitated, and Christians were taught that the Holy Waters had no healing powers for the ailing who resorted to them, unless they submitted, with an unreasoning obedience and an implicit faith, to all the rites and ceremonies prescribed for their use.

If, then, the Roman Bath survived for any length of time in Britain after the departure of its introducers, we may be satisfied that it utterly perished on the general conformity of the inhabitants to Christianity. We find no reference to it in any of the early Christian writers, and no trace of it in ancient chronicles, whereas there is ample evidence of the superstitions that were cherished concerning "Holy Wells"-superstitions, indeed, which thoroughly impregnated the popular mind, and have been preserved with a remarkable freshness down to our own times.

We have seen how the principle of the Roman Bath was preserved in various countries, however imperfectly it was carried out; but although warm, tepid, and vapour Baths existed in Italy, Germany, France, and Britain during the middle ages, still there was no effort to improve them after the ancient models. The thermal springs in Germany were brought into revived notice at the commencement of the ninth century by Charlemagne, who, having derived benefit from the use of the mineral springs of Aix-la-Chapelle, had a capacious bathing basin erected for his own use and that of his family. Courtly example is infectious, and attention was thus drawn to the thermal springs of Italy and France, as well as to those of Germany. It became fashionable to resort to them, and

gradually bathing attained such popularity that public Baths were constructed in the principal towns and cities. Grosley, in his Ephemerides Troyennes, says:

"The barbarism of the middle ages not being able to attain magnificence, confined itself to the convenience of the public baths and other establishments which were erected in Europe. The idea was due to the Arabs, among whom the arts and sciences had found an asylum. The Crusades and commerce had opened up to Europeans the countries which flourished under the rule of this people, and the natural taste for imitation did the rest. The Vapour and Public Baths were, for a long period, as much frequented in Europe as they were at the present day in the Levant. People were attracted to them for the sake of health and cleanliness; but above all, from the want of society felt by persons who saw little of each other except in these places. Some took Water Baths; others Vapour Baths; while several came only to gossip, comfortably protected from the cold. For these last, the Baths were what the stoves of Germany, the restaminets of Holland, and the cafés of Paris are to this day." See also Lagneau's Traité Complet des Bains.

In his France in the Sixteenth Century, Marchangy says, "It was only at the Baths, at Church, or in sickness that women ever saw each other. The men also assembled at the Bath, the barber's, the wine-shops, and the market-places. There were private baths in the hotels, and persons asked to dinner were, at the same time invited to bathe." In his Historical Essays on Paris, St. Foix states that "the use of Vapour Baths was formerly as common in France, even among the common people, as it is and always has been in Greece and Asia. They went to them almost daily. St. Rigobert caused baths to be built for the Canons of his Church, and supplied wood for heating them. Pope Adrian recommends. the clergy of each parish to go to bathe, in procession, every Thursday, singing psalms the while."

In the sixteenth century there was a marked decline over Western Europe in the public taste for warm bathing, which has been ascribed to the wearing of linen becoming generalthe supposition being that its use obviated the necessity for frequent ablutions as a matter of cleanliness; while for any other healthful purpose bathing does not appear to have been

generally appreciated, even by the medical profession. The practice was universally neglected; yet we find that occasionally intelligent minds sought to direct attention to the importance of the subject, and that the revival of the Roman Bath was advocated for more than two hundred years, before any one was found to practically appreciate its advantages and undertake its re-establishment.

In 1645, Laurence Joubert published at Frankfort a work on the Baths of the Greeks and Romans, and in 1673, Dr. John Archer published a work entitled Every Man his own Physician, which, says Dr. Hamilton, in his History of Medicine, “although little noticed, was a useful work in its day." Dr. Archer strongly recommended the Vapour Bath for rheumatism and other complaints. But the attempt to revive the Bath met with no encouragement, and this is largely attributable to the defective state of physiological knowledge, in consequence of which the grossest ignorance prevailed even among medical men concerning the action of heat and cold on the human system-an ignorance still too mischievously prevalent,—and not a college or learned society in Europe evinced the slightest disposition to undertake or encourage the rational investigation of the subject.

An effort was indeed made to introduce and popularise in medical practice the use of the Vapour Bath, but there was a sufficient reason for that in the fact of its being advocated as a means by which unfortunate patients could be more easily impregnated with poisonous medical substances, while in cases where the application of the heat of the Bath alone did exercise salutary influences, the happy results so produced could be readily enough ascribed to the action of the medicated vapour. Various publications appeared on the subject during the century that preceded the revival of the Roman Bath, and sulphur, mercurial, acid, and various other forms of medicated baths were advocated and employed; but any good that ever resulted from them was owing to the action of the heit, and not to that of the poisonous matter with which the vapour was surcharged.