A Bath-Room, if possible should certainly receive the benefit of the sun, and in warm and genial weather the enjoyment of the bath will be heightened if the window be opened wide at the top.
When, however, the thermometer is in the neighbourhood of freezing point, the atmosphere of the bath-room is to many intolerably cold, and one may perhaps be sometimes tempted to raise the temperature of the cold water in the bath too high to produce the necessary shock with its pleasant and health-promoting reaction. It is better, by some means, in cold weather, to warm the bath-room and to keep the temperature of the cold water sufficiently low to produce the desired reaction. Drying and dressing may be comfortably gone through in front of a fire, the use of which for this purpose is a positive advantage, and will by no means, as might perhaps be imagined, tend to enervate or enfeeble, or in any way lessen the pleasure and benefits to be derived from the bath; a good fire on the contrary, will act as a help in laying in an agreeable and valuable supply of warmth, the advantage of which will be felt during the whole day.
Only a very weakly person should take the bath in the bed-room, as the air of the sleeping chamber must necessarily be more or less vitiated. Still, better there than not at all, and very likely, after a few trials, sufficient courage and energy will be found to enable the bather to get into fresher air.
The surface of the human body is protected by an oily film deposited by innumerable vessels, so that after a dip into water the skin is not thoroughly wetted, most of the water running from the body as from a duck’s back. After a Soap-bath, the bather will find himself thoroughly wet all over, the skin being apparently saturated as if it were blotting paper; both natural secretions and foreign matter will have yielded to the warm and cleansing bath of yellow soap and the after-application of cold water.
In conjunction with the Soap-bath, daily exercise after breakfast is not only desirable but necessary: half-an-hour’s ride, a brisk walk, or an open air game helps to circulate the blood and raise the spirits for the day. If the accumulated effects of three hundred and sixty-five morning walks could be seen and judged, perhaps business men would not be in quite so great a hurry, after bolting their breakfast, to rush into the omnibus or train. Half-an-hour apparently thus wasted is gained twice over during the day in better work more easily done.
A celebrated physician was once heard to say that he did not much care what atmosphere his patients lived in during the day so long as they breathed pure air at night; but whether one resides in town or country, it is impossible to breathe fresh air if the bed-room window be kept closed. Many people appear to be afraid of taking cold if they sleep with the bed-room window open: never was a greater mistake. The most delicately constituted maiden may, with ordinary precaution, and without the slightest fear of injury, sleep with the bed-room window open almost all the year round, and with the certainty of health and vigour being materially improved. Even this uncertain climate is seldom bad enough to compel complete closing up of the windows: the bed must of course not be placed in a direct draught: i.e. between the open window and the fireplace.
