heat on the skin surface would become unbearable, and if the atmosphere was so charged with moisture that it could contain no more, the transuded perspiration could not, of course, be evaporated, and consequently, as vapour scalds at 120°, death by scalding would result.

Thus, for example, water boils at 2120, when what we call "steam" is formed, but all the coal in England, if heaped into one monster fire, could not raise the temperature of water one degree above 212°, as long as the steam is allowed to pass away by evaporation or otherwise. And just so with the human body. Man can endure a temperature of 300° or 600° with impunity for a time, provided his skin organism acts freely, and the perspiration that exhales to the surface is freely evaporated, but not otherwise.

In further illustration of this important function of the skin we may adduce a very simple experiment that has been repeatedly verified, though apparently of so marvellous a character as likely at first to excite general incredulity. A man can sit, with complete impunity, in a Hot-Air Bath raised to a temperature sufficiently high to bake bread or cook a beefsteak! Erasmus Wilson testifies that he sat without the slightest inconvenience in a Bath at 240°, that is 28 degrees above the boiling water point. And he says, "if I had had bread, or meat, or eggs with me, they must necessarily have been cooked at that Heat." Now why is a beefsteak or mutton chop cooked in a Hot-Air Bath, the high temperature of which the human body can endure with perfect impunity—nay pleasure? Simply because the human skin acts in the manner we have described, so as to keep the temperature of the body at the normal standard by the Exhalation and Evaporation of its superabundant Heat. Not so, however, with the beef or mutton. It has ceased to be living matter, and has thus lost its preservative properties. Consequently the Heat gradually penetrates into and permeates the whole substance, thereby effecting the chemical change known as baking or cooking. Thus we have exemplified how remarkable the difference is in the of Heat on living and dead organic matter.

From what we have said about the importance of exhalation and evaporation under the circumstances stated, it might be imagined, that were the whole cutaneous surface covered over with a coating impervious to the air, whereby its respiratory power would be neutralisad, the internal heat would be raised far above the normal standard, and the body thrown into a state of high fever, in consequence of the suppressed transudation of the superabundant caloric. As we before observed, death in a very short time would be the necessary result, but death how produced? Death would not follow from an abnormal increase in the temperature of the body, as prima facie it might appear natural to infer, but from a positive decrease which assuredly takes place, thereby proving that cutaneous respiration is essential to the generation and maintenance of animal Heat. This fact has been demonstrated by carefully conducted experiments on the lower animals; and it is conclusive as to the vital importance of the skin as a Respiratory organ. We are thus enabled to understand, as Carpenter remarks:

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How, when the secreting power of the lungs is nearly destroyed by disease, the heat of the body is kept up to its natural standard by the action of the skin. A valuable therapeutic indication, also, is derived from the knowledge which we gain of the importance of the Cutaneous Respiration; for it leads us to perceive the desirableness of keeping the skin moist, in those febrile diseases in which there is great heat and dryness of the surface since secretion cannot properly take place through a dry membrane."Human Physiology, 3rd edit., par. 891.

It will now be understood, that there is no foundation whatever for the popular, and to some extent, professional prejudice, about the action of the Hot-air Bath having the effect of increasing the temperature of the body even to a dangerous degree. Such a prejudice, as we have seen, is not supported by physiology, nor warranted by experience, but is in positive antagonism to the divine laws of our organism. So far, indeed, from high temperatures proving injurious, it is on the adaptability of the skin to sustain high artificial temperatures that the Bath relies for its marvellous sanitary and sanative virtues. It is by the influence the Bath thus exercises that healthy skin

action, so essential to Nutritive Life, is maintained, and at the same time that, naturally and effectively, through the medium of the skin, the Bath is enabled to act on the whole internal organism which contributes so materially to the same great purpose.

We will now proceed to show that no means have as yet been discovered at all comparable with the Bath, for maintaining the intricate, delicate, and wonderful organism of the skin in a sound normal condition-strengthening its action, and enabling it to discharge efficiently the vital functions with which Nature has entrusted it. Lord Bacon shrewdly remarked that the "belly is the father of the family," and, doubtless, the condition of the digestive organs powerfully influences mental and bodily health. "But," observes Carpenter, “we may say with Dr. Prout, that a sort of digestion is carried on in all parts of the body," and it is by imparting vigour to the whole digestive system, enabling it to perform its important functions with ease and regularity-upon which intellectual, moral and physical health, is so largely dependent-that the Bath, by its potent and salutary action on the skin, proves an invaluable therapentic agent.

The action of the Bath as Preservative of health, and Preventive of Disease-It subdues evils arising from artificial habits of civilised life, and corrects, eradicates, or checks inherited predispositions to disease.

We have alluded to the peculiar properties of the Hot-Air Bath as being Preservative of health and Preventive of disease. These properties matured experience has demonstrated the Bath to possess, though the study of the action of Heat on the human system in its diseased conditions is, as yet, in comparative infancy. Still enough is known to satisfy reason, and justify the scientific physician in regarding the Bath as a Therapeutic agent of the very highest value, as there are no diseases in which it cannot be made beneficially available, while in many it possesses a curative power, beyond comparison, superior to any other agent the medical profession can command. Of course we refer to the Bath skilfully directed in accordance with enlightened and scientific Hydropathic practice.

Erasmus Wilson, a man of undoubted professional eminence, has admitted that, before he was led to investigate the peculiar merits of the Bath, he was quite unconscious that he had anything to learn on the subject. He says:

"I thought I knew as much about baths as most men. I knew the hot, the warm, the tepid, and the cold; the vapour, the air, the gaseous, the medicated, and the mud bath; the natural and the artificial; the shower, the firework, the needle, the douche, and the wave bath; the fresh-river bath and the salt-sea bath, and many more beside. I knew their slender virtues, and their stout fallacies: they had my regard, but not my confidence, and I was not disposed to yield easily to any reputed advantages that might

be represented to me in favour of baths."-The Eastern or Turkish Baths, preface.

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In this frame of mind he made a personal trial of the Bath, and was induced to study its nature, action and effects. thorough conviction of its superlative value followed, because his mind was superior to the prejudices engendered by preconceived opinions, and was open to receive the truth. He says:

"I discovered that there was one bath that deserved to be set apart from the rest that deserved, indeed, a careful study and investigation. The bath that cleanseth the inward as well as the outward man, that is applicable to every age, that is adapted to make health healthier, and alleviate disease, whatever its stage or severity, deserves to be regarded as a national institution, and merits the advocacy of all men, and particularly of medical men-of those whose special duty it is to teach how health may be preserved, how disease may be averted.

My own advocacy of the bath is directed mainly to its adoption as a social custom, as a cleanly habit; and, on this ground, I would press it upon the attention of every thinking man. But if, besides bestowing physical purity and enjoyment, it tend to preserve health, to prevent disease, and even to cure disease, the votary of the bath will receive a double reward.". Ibid.

Now, as Preservative of Health,—the peculiar and invaluable properties of the Bath act, as we have observed, through the medium of the skin, by maintaining its vital organism in vigorous action, on which healthy Nutritive Life is so immediately and materially dependent. If we compare the action on the skin of a common hot-water bath, or of any bathing or washing process which merely cleanses the outward surface of the skin, with the mode in which the Hot-Air Bath acts, the vast and salutary difference cannot fail to be at once discernible. Remembering what we have said about the surface of the whole body being covered over with some seven millions of tubes or pores-that those tubes are each about a quarter of an inch in length, and if stretched out, and laid end to end, would extend nearly twenty-eight miles-that this immense drainage system is designed by nature to relieve the body of its vicious secretions, and in return to convey by respiration and absorption healthy nutriment from the external atmosphere into the system