and

gether different-they who rise highest are generally the most accomplished empirics. It has been said-" Scrub a Russian, you will come on a Tartar," with more certainty you may say—Denude a Drug Physician of his pretentious airs and empirical graces, and underneath you find nothing but the rankest charlatanism. In operative surgery, the hospital practice which large towns and cities afford is favorable to the development of a high order of skill, but in drug practice an apothecary's apprentice at the Land's End, at John O'Groat's House, or at CapeClear, is just as competent to poison with drugs as any fashionable physician in London, Edinburgh, or Dublin; and the chances are, he has quite as much accurate knowledge about the nature of disease and its rational treatment. Assuredly he can commit manslaughter equally well, though he may want the dexterity that practice imparts to work secundum artem with an agreeable plausibility.

CHAPTER XVI.

The fear of catching cold from the Bath illusory-Cold bathing, its danger as commonly practised-The Bath fortifies the system against cold- Opinions of medical authorities.

THE fear of catching cold is a very popular and prevalent objection to the use of the Bath. There is nothing more common in conversation on the subject than to hear persons who only know the bath by general repute express apprehensions as to the danger likely to follow the rapid transition from the hot chamber at 140° or 150°, where perspiration has been profusely excited, to the cooling chamber at a temperature of 50° or 60°. To those not acquainted with the action of heat and cold on the human system, such an objection may appear, at first sight, plausible enough, but there is absolutely nothing in it.

It is within the experience of almost every one that, in ordinary cold water bathing, the maxim established by professional and popular ignorance is "Never venture into the water when in a heat-cool first"-a practice which cannot be too severely deprecated as highly pernicious, most detrimental to health, fraught with dangerous tendencies to induce functional derangements, and develope hereditary predispositions to disease. We believe, indeed, that an incalculable amount of disease is induced annually by the injudicious way in which cold bathing is conducted by youths at school, and by visitors indiscriminately, who usually resort to sea-side watering places. Could the balance be fairly taken between the good and evil effects so produced we fear the latter would largely predominate.

Multitudes, however, indulge with unhesitating confidence

in cold bathing, whose ignorant prejudices would be excited by the mere proposal to take a Hot-air Bath, as being infinitely more salubrious in its influences, combining as it does, all that is beneficial in cold bathing, with a great deal more besides. The cold bath undoubtedly possesses great merits as a curative agent in certain cases, but it is an agent that requires great caution in its use, as having very dangerous tendencies, though this fact is not yet generally accredited. As Sir John Forbes observes:

“Like all powerful and valuable remedies, its employment requires great caution and discrimination-first, as to whether it should be used at all; and secondly, as to the form and mode of using it. It must be confessed that in a vast number of cases no such discrimination is practised; and it will not be doubted by any physician resident in the vicinity of the sea that in the case of no other remedy are greater mistakes committed and greater mischief produced than in the use of the cold bath."-Cyclopædia Practical Medicine, Art. "Bathing."

In cold bathing, however, the safe rule is not to cool first, as popular prejudice enjoins, because a healthy re-action is commonly proportioned to the vigour of the circulation in general, and more particularly to that on the surface of the body-to the warmth of the skin and of the extremities previously to immersion. Without the necessary re-action a complete and prolonged depression of the powers of life may be the consequence, or even life itself may be extinguished, for numerous instances are known of individuals having been killed by cold bathing when improperly indulged in.

We have already noticed how the untutored Indian discovered, by the sound philosophy of experience, that the only way to ensure not catching cold, after taking his rude form of sweating bath, was by plunging, when reeking with perspiration, into water the temperature of the atmosphere. The Irish sweating-houses were constructed near rivers, ponds, or lakes for a similar purpose, and the Russians rush out of their bath and roll in the snow without any dread of cold. All this can be done, not only with perfect impunity, but with positive advantage, while it is physiologically impossible to take cold.

The reason is this. When heated naturally by exercise or artificially by the action of the Bath, the system is fortified with an extra amount of caloric to withstand the sudden transition to and shock of cold. But if, when heated, you wait until you cool, the very effect of cooling, abstracts caloric from the system, and thereby renders it less able to resist the transition, and hence the liability to be injuriously affected. Thus it is, that, when in a state of profuse perspiration, a coldest water can be endured with entire impunity, and not only so, but also with pleasure and benefit. authority, Dr. Leared, observes:

plunge into the

An excellent

"One remarkable change of opinion has resulted from the introduction of the Turkish Bath. Not five years ago, it was generally supposed that to pass, while in a state of profuse perspiration, into water the temperature of the air in winter, must be injurious or even highly dangerous. The dread of the cold water to the heated skin was sometimes carried to a ludicrous extent. I well remember, when a schoolboy, having been taken to bathe with other boys, and, if heated by exercise, being compelled to wait in a state of semi-nudity until the point of regulation coolness was attained before entering the water. This refrigeration was, of course, the best possible foundation for bad results from bathing. It remained, however, for the Eastern Bath to prove that the most profuse perspiration may be suddenly checked, not only without risk, but with positive advantage."Papers on the Treatment of Phthisis by the Turkish Bath, Lancet, Nov. and Dec., 1863.

Dr. Sheppard in his work on Bathing endorses this statement to the fullest extent, and so, also, will every well-informed professional gentleman. "The vigour of the constitution and the heat of the body," he says, "are the true measure of capacity for cold." Spenser Wells, lecturer on Surgery in the Grosvenor School, London, an equally high authority, remarks:

"One of the most common objections raised to the Bath is the fear that the transition from a heated room to the open air may give cold. But experience proves that this fear is groundless, and a little reflection will show why it is groundless. The skin of the face, which we habitually leave uncovered and exposed to rapid alternations of heat and cold, receives no unpleasant impression from a current of cold air after leaving a hot room. But the rest of the body is kept covered up from the light and air, and un

naturally heated, and, therefore, loses its normal sensibility, and its natural power of supporting changes of temperature without discomfort or injury. The habitual use of the bath tends to restore the normal properties of the skin. When the body is thoroughly heated it is enabled to resist cold; where perspiration is going on freely a stream of cold water is only a pleasant mode of producing contraction of the structures of the dermis. The bather may pass to the cooling room with perfect impunity, and with a skin which, with each succeeding trial, becomes more and more habituated to alterations of temperature-in other words, with unnatural susceptibility to cold corrected."-Lecture on the Turkish Bath, delivered to his class, Oct., 1860.

Erasmus Wilson thus describes the ordinary process of taking a cold—"We are warmed by exercise, perhaps somewhat exhausted at the same time, the skin is bedewed with perspiration; the perspired fluid evaporates, producing chill; and the chill occasions a shock to the nervous system and to the whole economy that results in the reaction known as cold."-Eastern Bath, &c., p. 135. How different this from the action of the bath, in which no evaporation of perspired fluid capable of producing chill can possibly take place, and consequently no shock can be given to the nervous system calculated to produce an injurious re-action. On the contrary, the whole economy is fortified to resist the sudden transition from perspiring heat to extreme cold, and, at the same time, prepared to receive the sensation of the shock as pleasurable.

Thus, Dr. C. J. B. Williams, in his Principles of Medicine, says "Susceptibility to the morbid effects of cold is to be diminished by means tending to invigorate the capillary circulation, especially when they are such, at the same time, as serve the process of re-action, which is Nature's ordinary method of resisting cold." This is exactly the way in which the bath operates; and hence Erasmus Wilson's emphatic declaration "The bath properly conducted—and improperly conducted it is not the bath-the bath cannot give cold."

Dr. Haughton who has made the subject a special study, gives his valuable experience on the subject in these words:

"With regard to taking cold after bathing, it is only necessary to consider that every Turk is obliged to go to the bath regularly, without respect