BATHS, Dry, are those made of ashes, salt, sand, shreds of leather, and the like.—The ancients had divers ways of sweating by a dry heat; as by the means of a hot sand, stove-rooms, or artificial bagnios, and certain natural hot steams of the earth, received under a proper arch, or hot-house, as we learn from Celsus. They had also another kind of bath by insolation, where the body was exposed to the sun for some time, in order to draw forth the superfluous moisture from the inward parts; and to this day it is a practice in some nations to bury the body over with horse-dung, especially in chronic diseases, to digest and breathe out the humour that causes the distemper. In New England they make a kind of stoves of turf, wherein the sick are shut up to bathe or sweat.
The same name is sometimes also given to another kind of bath, made of kindled coals, or burning spirit of wine; the patient being placed in a convenient close chair for the reception of the fume, which rises and provokes sweat in a plentiful manner: care is here taken to keep the head out, and to secure respiration. This bath has been found very effectual in removing old obstinate pains in the limbs; and venereal complaints; and will often complete a cure left unperformed by salivation.
Some authors speak of bloody baths, balnea sanguinolenta,
Bath. noleta, prepared especially of the blood of infants, anciently supposed to be a kind of specific for the leprosy.