BATHING, the act of using or applying a bath;
that is, of immersing the body, or part of it, in water
or other fluid.
Bathing is a practice of great antiquity. The
Greeks, as early as the heroic age, are said to have bat-
hed themselves in the sea, in rivers, &c. We even find
mention in Homer of hot baths in the Trojan times;
but these seem to have been very rare, and only used
on extraordinary occasions. Athenæus speaks of hot
baths as unusual even in his age. In reality, public
baths appear to have been discouraged, and even prohi-
bited, by the ancient Greeks, who were contented to
wash themselves at home in a sort of bathing tubs. The
method of bathing among the ancient Greeks was, by
heating water in a large vessel with three feet, and
thence pouring it on the head and shoulders of the per-
son seated in a tub for that purpose, who at coming out
was anointed with oil.
The Romans were also long before they came into
the use of baths; the very name of which, thermæ,
shows they borrowed it from the Greeks. As the an-
cient 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 sup-
per with more decency: for it is to be observed, the use
of linen was then unknown: and the people of that age
went with their arms and legs bare, and consequently
exposed to dust and filth. But this was not all; for
every ninth day, when they repaired to the city, ei-
ther to the nundinee or to attend at the assemblies of
the people, they bathed all over in the Tiber, or some
other river which happened to be nearest them. This
seems to have been all the bathing known till the time
of Pompey, when the custom began of bathing every
day. See BATH.
The Celtic nations were not without the use of bat-
hing: 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 gen-
eral, in gratitude for some benefactions he had conferred
upon it.
Although bathing, among the ancients, made, as
it were, a part of diet, and was used as familiarly as
eating or sleep; yet it was in high esteem among their
physicians for the cure of diseases, as appears from
Strabo, Pliny, Hippocrates, and Oribasius; whence
frequent exhortations to washing in the sea, and plun-
ging into cold water. The first instance of cold bat-
hing, as a medicine, is Melampus's bathing the daugh-
ters 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 physi-
cian of Marseilles named Charmis; but during the ig-
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. See MEDICINE
Index.
Bathing among the Turks, as among the ancients,
makes a part of diet and luxury; and in every town,
and even village, there is a public bath. Indeed, the
necessity of cleanliness, in a climate where one perspires
so copiously, has rendered bathing indispensable; the
comfort it produces preserves the use of it; and Maho-
met, who knew its utility, has reduced it to a precept.
Of these baths, and the manner of bathing, particularly
at Cairo, the following account is given by M. Savary
in his Letters on Egypt.
"The first apartment one finds in going to the bath,
is a large hall, which rises in the form of a rotunda.
It is open at the top, to give a free circulation to the
air. A spacious estrade, or raised floor, covered with
a carpet, and divided into compartments, goes round
it, on which one lays one's clothes. In the middle of
the building, a jet-d'eau spouts up from a basin, and
agreeably entertains the eye. When you are undressed,
you tie a napkin round your loins, take a pair of sand-
als, and enter into a narrow passage, where you be-
gin to be sensible of the heat. The door shuts to;
and at 20 paces off, you open a second, and go along
a passage, which forms a right angle with the former.
Here the heat increases. They who are afraid of sud-
denly exposing themselves to a stronger degree of it, stop
in a marble hall, in the way to the bath properly so
called. The bath is a spacious and vaulted apartment,
paved and lined with marble, around which there are
four closets. The vapour incessantly arising from a
fountain and cistern of hot water, mixes itself with the
burning perfumes. These, however, are never burnt
except the persons who are in the bath desire it. They
are mixed with the steam of the water, and produce a
most agreeable effect.
"The bathers are not imprisoned here, as in Europe,
in a sort of tub, where one is never at one's ease. Ex-
tended on a cloth spread out, the head supported by a
small cushion, they stretch themselves freely in every
posture, whilst they are wrapped up in a cloud of odo-
riferous vapours, which penetrate into all their pores.
After reposing there some time, until there is a gentle
moisture over the whole body, a servant comes, presses
you gently, turns you over, and when the limbs are
become supple and flexible he makes all the joints crack
without any difficulty. He masses * and seems to knead
the flesh without making you feel the smallest pain. Man'
This operation finished, he puts on a stuff glove, and comes from
rubs you a long time. During this operation, he de- the Arabic
taches from the body of the patient, which is running verb man'
with sweat, a sort of small scales, and removes even a which sig-
the manner. nifies
touching in
even a delicate
Bathing. the imperceptible dirt that stops the pores. The skin becomes soft and smooth like satin. He then conducts you into a closet, pours the lather of perfumed soap upon your head, and withdraws. The ancients did more honour to their guests, and treated them in a more voluptuous manner. Whilst Telemachus was at the court of Nestor, 'the beautiful Polycasta, the handsomest of the daughters of the king of Pylos, led the son of Ulysses to the bath; washed him with her own hands; and, after anointing his body with precious oils, covered him with rich habits and a splendid cloak.' Pisistratus and Telemachus were not worse treated in the palace of Menelaus. "When they had admired its beauties, they were conducted to basons of marble, where a bath was prepared: Beautiful female slaves washed them; and, after anointing them with oil, covered them with rich tunics and superb pellicles.
"The closet to which one is conducted is furnished with a cistern and two cocks; one for cold and the other for hot water. There you wash yourself. Soon after the servant returns with a depilatory pomatum, which in an instant makes the hair fall off the places it is applied to. Both men and women make general use of it in Egypt. It is composed of a mineral called rusma; which is of a deep brown. The Egyptians burn it lightly, knead it with water, mixing it with half the quantity of slaked lime. This grayish paste applied to the hair, makes it fall off in two or three minutes, without giving the slightest pain.
"After being well washed and purified, you are wrapped up in hot linen, and follow the guide through the windings that lead to the outer apartment. This insensible transition from heat to cold prevents one from suffering any inconvenience from it. On arriving at the estrade, you find a bed prepared for you; and scarcely are you laid down before a child comes to press every part of your body with his delicate fingers, in order to dry you thoroughly. You change linen a second time, and the child gently grates the callosity of your feet with pumice stone. He then brings you a pipe and Moka coffee.
"Coming out of a stove where one was surrounded by a hot and moist fog, where the sweat gushed from every limb, and transported into a spacious apartment open to the external air, the breast dilates, and one breathes with voluptuousness. Perfectly massed, and as it were regenerated, one experiences an universal comfort. The blood circulates with freedom; and one feels as if disengaged from an enormous weight, together with a suppleteness and lightness to which one has been hitherto a stranger. A lively sensation of existence diffuses itself to the very extremities of the body. Whilst it is lost in delicate sensations, the soul, sympathizing with the delight, enjoys the most agreeable ideas. The imagination, wandering over the universe, which it embellishes, sees on every side the most enchanting pictures, everywhere the image of happiness. If life be nothing but the succession of our ideas, the rapidity with which they then recur to the memory, the vigour with which the mind runs over the extended chain of them, would induce a belief that in the two hours of that delicious calm that succeeds the bath, one has lived a number of years."
Such are the baths, the use of which were so strong—
VOL. III. Part II.
ly recommended by the ancients, and which are still the delight of the Egyptians. It is by means of them that they prevent or dispel rheumatisms, catarrhs, and such cutaneous disorders as are produced by want of perspiration. Hence likewise they find a radical cure for that fatal evil which attacks the sources of generation, the remedy for which is so dangerous in Europe. By the same resource they get rid of that uncomfortable feeling so common to all nations who do not pay so much attention to the cleanliness of their bodies.—M. Tournefort, indeed, who had used steam baths at Constantinople, where there is less refinement in them than at Cairo, is of opinion that they injure the breast. But, according to M. Savary, this is an error which further experience would have corrected. There are no people who make more frequent use of them than the Egyptians, and there is no country where there are fewer asthmatic people. The asthma is scarcely known there.
The women are passionately fond of these baths. They frequent them at least once a-week, and take with them slaves properly qualified for the purpose. More luxurious than the men, they use rose-water. It is there that female head-dressers form their long black hair into tresses, which they mix with precious essences instead of powder and pomatum. It is there that they blacken the edge of their eye-lids, and lengthen their eye-brows with cohel, a preparation of tin burnt with gall-nuts; it is there they stain the finger and toe nails with the leaves of henné, a shrub common in Egypt, and which gives them a golden colour. The linen and clothing they make use of are passed through the sweet steam of the wood of aloes; and when the work of the toilet is at an end, they remain in the outer apartment, and pass the day in entertainments. Females entertain them with voluptuous songs and dances, or tell them tales of love.
The medical effects of bathing are considered under the article BATHING, in the SUPPLEMENT.