BATH, in medicine, chemistry, &c. signifies a quantity of matter either moist or dry, included in a proper vessel, and sufficient for the total immersion of the human body, or any other substance which it may be judged necessary to cover with it. Hence baths are divided into moist and dry, according as the materials are either aqueous or not: the first are subdivided into hot and cold; and these are either natural or artificial. The natural hot baths are formed of the water of hot springs, of which there are many in different parts of the world; especially in those countries where there are or have evidently been volcanoes. The artificial hot baths consist either of water, or of some other fluid made hot by art. Sometimes indeed the vapour of water, either naturally or artificially heated, is made use of without suffering the person to enter the water itself; this is called the vapour-bath, and is a powerful sudorific. The cold bath consists only of water, either fresh or salt, in its natural degree of heat; or it may be made colder by art, as by a mixture of nitre, sal-ammoniac, &c.
Bathing seems to have been a very ancient practice. The Greeks, as early as the heroic age, are said to have bathed themselves in the sea, in rivers, &c. We even find mention in Homer of hot-baths in the time of the Trojan war; but these seem to have been very rare, and used only upon extraordinary occasions. Athenæus speaks of them as unusual even in his time. In reality, public baths seem to have been for some time discouraged if not prohibited by the Greeks, who were contented to wash themselves at home in a sort of bathing tubs. The method of bathing among them was by heating water in a large vessel with three feet, and thence pouring it on the head and shoulders of a person seated in a tub for that purpose, who at coming out was anointed with oil. The Greek baths consisted of seven different apartments, usually separated from one another, and intermixed with other buildings belonging to different kinds of exercises. These were, 1. The cold bath, frigida lavatio; in Greek λειτουργ. 2. The elathesium, or room where they were anointed with oil. 3. The frigidarium, or cooling room. 4. The proptineum, or entrance of the hypocaustum or stove. 5. The vaulted room for sweating in, or vapour-bath, called by the Romans concamerata sudatio. 6. The
laconicum, or dry stove; and 7. The hot bath, called calida lavatio.
The Greek baths were usually annexed to palestre or gymnasia, of which they were considered as a part. They appear to have been double, one for men, and the other for women; but so near, that one furnace served for heating both. The middle part was possessed by a large basin, which received water by several pipes, and into which they went down by steps, being surrounded by a ballustrade, behind which was a kind of corridor, which formed a pretty large area to hold those who were waiting till there should be room for them in the bath. They were vaulted over, and only received light from the top.
The Romans were also long before they came into the use of baths; the very name of which, thermæ, shows they borrowed the practice from the Greeks.—As the ancient Romans were chiefly employed in agriculture, their custom was, every evening after work, to wash their arms and legs, that they might sit down to supper with more decency; for it is to be observed, that the use of linen was then unknown, in Italy at least; and the people of that age went with their legs and arms bare, and consequently exposed to dust and filth. But this was not all; for, every ninth day, when they repaired to the nundinæ, or to the assemblies of the people, they bathed all over in the Tiber, or some river that happened to be nearest to them. This seems to have been all the bathing used till the time of Pompey, when the custom began of bathing every day.—The Romans, when they found their stomachs overcharged with meat, went to the bath, as we learn from Juvenal, who inveighs against those that, having gorged themselves with eating, were forced to go into the bath to give themselves relief. They also found that a bath was good for refreshing them after some considerable fatigue, as we are informed by Celsus the physician. Hence, after Pompey's time, when luxury was prodigiously increased, the humour of bathing was carried to an extravagant height. Many by the immoderate use of the bath entirely ruined their constitution, being unable to taste food without bathing first. By this practice the emperor Titus is said to have lost his life. Hence Pliny inveighs severely against those physicians who held that hot baths digested the food. The emperor Adrian first laid a restraint on this immoderate humour of bathing, forbidding all persons to go to the bath before the eighth hour.
According to Dion, Mæcenas was the first who made a bath at Rome: yet there are instances of public baths before his time; but they were of cold water, small, and poorly decorated. Agrippa in his ædilate built a bath of 160 paces in length, where the citizens might be accommodated with either the hot or cold bath gratis. After his example Nero, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, Severus, Gordian, Aurelian, Maximian, Diocletian, and most other emperors who studied to gain the affections of the people, erected baths laid with the finest marble, and built according to the nicest rules of architecture. Alexander Severus was the first who allowed the public baths to be open during the night in the heats of summer.
In the Roman baths, the first part that appeared was a large basin called natatio and piscina. The middle was possessed by the hypocaustum, which had a string
of four apartments on each side called balnearia, so contrived, that one might easily go out of one into the other. There were two stoves called laconicum and tepidarium, which were joined together and built circular. Their floor was hollow and suspended, to receive the heat of the hypocaustum, which was a large furnace underneath. The same furnace also heated another room called vasarium, situated near the stoves, wherein were placed three large brazen vessels called millaria on account of their capacity; one for hot water, another for warm water, and a third for cold water; being so contrived, that the water might pass from one to the other by means of several siphons, and be distributed by pipes and cocks into the neighbouring bath, as occasion required. The rich had baths at home, and frequently very magnificent ones; but they used them only upon extraordinary occasions: the great men, and even emperors themselves, sometimes bathed in public with the rest of the people. At three in the afternoon, which is what Pliny calls hora octava et nona, the Romans all repaired to the baths, either the public or private ones; the public baths were all opened at the sound of a bell, and always at the same hour.
The baths of Agrippa were built of brick, but painted in enamel; those of Nero were not only furnished with fresh water, but also had the sea water brought into them; those of Caracalla were adorned with 200 marble columns, and furnished with 1600 seats of the same matter. Lipsius assures us they were so large, that 1800 persons might conveniently bathe in them at once. But the baths of Diocletian surpassed all the rest in magnificence; 140,000 persons were employed for many years in building them. Great part of these, as well as of the baths of Caracalla, are still standing; and with the vast high arches, the beautiful and stately pillars, &c. make one of the greatest curiosities in modern Rome.
The Celtic nations were not without the use of bathing: the ancient Germans bathed every day in warm water in winter, and in summer in cold. In England, the famous bath in Somersetshire is said by some to have been in use 800 years before Christ. Of this, however, it must be owned we have but very slender evidence: but Dr Musgrave makes it probable that it was a place of considerable resort in Geta's time; there being still the remains of a statue erected to that general, in gratitude for some benefactions he had conferred upon it.
Cold bathing was in high esteem among the ancient physicians for the cure of diseases, as appears from Strabo, Pliny, Hippocrates, and Oribasius; whence frequent exhortations to washing in the sea, and plunging into cold water. The first instance of cold bathing, as a medicine, is Melampus's bathing the daughters of the king of Argos; and the first instance of warm bathing is Medea's use of it, who was said to boil people alive, because Pelias king of Thessaly died in a warm bath under her hands. The cold bath was used with success by Antonius Musa, physician to the emperor Augustus, for the recovery of that prince; but fell into neglect after the death of Marcellus, who was thought to have been destroyed by the improper use of it. It was again brought into request, towards the close of the reign of Nero, by means of a physician of Marcellus named Gharmis; but during the ignorance
norance of the succeeding ages, the practice was again banished for a long time. Both hot and cold bathing are now prescribed in many cases by the physicians, though they are not agreed as to the manner in which they operate on the human body.
As to the origin of those hot waters, of which the natural hot baths are formed, we are very much in the dark. All we can affirm with certainty is, that where there are volcanoes, there also there are hot springs in great abundance; but how the heat of the volcano should be constantly communicated to the waters of a spring for many ages, during a great part of which the volcano itself has lain in a dormant state, seems almost beyond the reach of investigation. Another thing that creates a great difficulty is, that the fire of a volcano must certainly lie very deep in the earth, and most probably shifts from place to place, but the waters of a spring must always issue from a place situated lower than the origin of the spring itself. Besides, though we should suppose the water to come from the top of a volcano itself, and consequently boiling hot, it could not be supposed to percolate far through cold earth without losing all the heat it acquired from the volcano. From some observations, however, it certainly does appear, that there are some spots on the earth that have a power of producing heat within themselves, independent of any thing foreign; and that water is so far from being able to destroy this power, that it seems rather to promote and continue it. We know that water hath this effect upon a mixture of iron filings and sulphur; but whatever quantities of similar substances we may suppose to be contained in the earth, we must also suppose to be destroyed by one great conflagration soon after they have begun to act upon each other, so that by their means no lasting heat in waters could be produced. Dr Stukely indeed would solve this, and several other phenomena, by making the fire and smoke of volcanoes the effects of electricity; but here sufficient proof is wanting; for electricity, even in its most powerful state, is not very apt to set bodies on fire. The thought, however, deserves attention; for if electricity is capable of setting a volcano on fire, it is undoubtedly capable of producing folsaterras where it meets with proper materials, and from them springs of any degree of heat.