The Eastern, or Turkish Bath

The Eastern, or Turkish Bath - Its History, Revival in Britain, and Application to the Purposes of Health.

It is now about twelve months since, that my attention was first attracted to the Eastern Bath. I thought I knew as much of 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. Mr. Urquhart talked to me, but without producing any other than a passing impression; he had, many years before, illustrated, under my observation, the beneficial effects of heat and moisture on his own person; but it bore no fruits in me; for where could I find another man who would submit to a process of so much severity? Without being prejudiced against the whole family of baths, I was not to be enticed into any belief or trust in them, without some posi[viii]tive and undoubted proof. Such was the state of my opinion with regard to baths, when an earnest man, with truth flashing from his eyes, one day stood before me, and challenged me to the trial of the Eastern Bath. I would, if no engagement occurred to prevent me. "Let nothing stand in your way, for there are few things of common life of more importance!" was the appeal of my visitor. "On Saturday, at four o'clock?" "So be it." And on Saturday, at four o'clock, with the punctuality of Nelson, I stood in Mr. George Witt's Therm. To George Witt, F.R.S., the metropolis is indebted for a knowledge of the Eastern Bath. Mr. Urquhart struck the spark in "The Pillars of Hercules;" Dr. Barter caught it in Ireland, and fanned it into a blaze; another spark was attracted by Mr. George Crawshay and Sir John Fife, and burst into a flame in Newcastle-on-Tyne and the North of England. Mr. Urquhart himself applied the match in Lancashire; but Mr. George Witt introduced the Bath to London and its mighty ones. Rank, intellect, learning, art, all met, as companions of the new "order of the Bath," in Prince's Terrace, Hyde Park. And all will remember, with kindness and affection, the generous disinterestedness and earnest truthfulness of their host. When I stepped into the Calidarium for the first time; when I experienced the soothing warmth of the atmosphere; when, afterwards, I perceived the gradual thaw of the rigid frame, the softening of[ix] the flesh, the moistening of the skin, the rest of the stretched cords of the nervous system, the abatement of aches and pains, the removal of fatigue, and the calm flow of imagination and thought,I understood the meaning of my friend's zeal, and I discovered that there was one Bath that deserved to be set apart from the restthat deserved, indeed, a careful study and investigation. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 58990
Author: Wilson, Erasmus
Release Date: Mar 1, 2019
Format: eBook
Language: English