Bathing after hard exercise must be indulged in judiciously: a bath after a day’s shooting or cricketing, or an afternoon at lawn-tennis—to an enthusiast, who really plays, by far the hardest and most tiring form of amusement of the three—is pleasant and invigorating, and better understood than when it was an article of faith that to plunge into cold water, when heated, was almost equivalent to committing suicide.

Our grandmothers who adopted this view, were not like some of the present generation of girls educated at Girton and Zurich, or they might have called to mind Homer’s graphic description of the nocturnal expedition of Ulysses and Diomede to the Trojan camp, and their refreshing plunge into the sea when they returned reeking with heat and moisture from their successful raid; certainly none need fear to follow the example of such an old soldier as the cautious Ithacan.

A plunge into cold water when one is warm from exercise is intensely grateful, and may be indulged in with impunity even when much heated, provided the plunge be taken the moment the clothes are removed; the danger is in standing about on the brink, during which time the body rapidly cools, and cold may be taken.

Although perfectly safe to plunge into cold water, no matter how much the body may be heated, care must be taken to avoid it if there are feelings of lassitude and exhaustion; these are sure signs of over fatigue, and a cold bath under such circumstances is not only weakening, but might prove absolutely dangerous. A complete change of clothing must be ready, both for comfort, and to prevent any chance of taking cold through putting on clothes rendered damp by previous exercise.

The morning-bath forms a tolerably sure index as to the manner in which the previous evening has been spent. Morning exhaustion, and antipathy to cold water, may follow after an evening’s dancing with its attendant late hours, and nature will probably protest against too great a shock: it will be advisable to take the cold bath from five to ten degrees warmer than usual, or it may be deferred two or three hours.

The much vexed question as to the advisability of continuing the bath through a severe and prolonged, or even an ordinary winter, must be left open, as it is not only unadvisable but absolutely impossible to lay down fixed rules. Each bather must be guided entirely by his own state of health and sense of vitality.

Even among the well-to-do, the bath is by no means so universal or so well appreciated as might be desired, the daily thorough ablution being looked upon by too many as a necessarily unpleasant process to be shunned or superficially hurried through, with no enjoyment and little advantage: thorough ablution in the form of the Soap-bath is an absolute luxury, and moreover is followed by an immediate increase of health, strength and mental vigour.

The primary object of taking a bath is cleanliness, and it is now better understood that the mere application of cold water to the skin does not cleanse, but merely closes the pores, the after vigorous use of towels doing so still further by rubbing in the impurities and natural secretions of the skin.

Cleanliness in connection with the bath should be strictly enforced: it should be cleaned and dried daily and occasionally scrubbed, and the washing glove well rinsed after use.

The delicately-soft skin of Egyptian women is said to be produced by the habitual use of the loofah, a fibrous flesh-glove woven by Dame Nature, the use of which is to be commended for finally cleansing the skin after the soap application with the ordinary washing glove. The loofah not only readily removes every particle of soap, but acts as a mildly invigorating flesh-glove, increases the suppleness of the skin in a marked degree, and moreover possesses the happy faculty of completely rinsing itself the moment it is dipped into water. Some persons discard the washing glove altogether, and use a loofah for applying the soap to the body: loofahs are of different degrees of texture, and when thus used, a fine close quality should be selected.

The sponge after use should be dipped in clean water and pressed out—not wrung, which tends to tear it—as nearly dry as possible: if habitually left charged with water, or—as sometimes done with a vague idea of sweetening—put out wet in the sun to dry, it will not only rot quickly but probably smell offensively, and even become unpleasant to the touch. To restore its sweetness, the sponge should be placed for a day or so in a basin of water in which a large piece of washing soda has been dissolved: the water should be changed once or twice, or oftener if necessary, and the sponge well squeezed out each time.

A word about the soap:—the best, perhaps, is that known as “John Knight’s Primrose,” an ordinary yellow soap, sweet and sound, and apparently containing none of the foreign matter sometimes found in soaps of a commoner and cheaper description. Scented soap must be avoided, especially for using habitually and liberally over the whole body.

Decidedly unpleasant feelings, in some cases amounting to a positive loathing, occasionally follow the preliminary wetting of the feet on stepping into cold water: it may be taken for granted that such antipathy is by no means imaginary, but simply nature’s protest. The use is recommended, in conjunction with the Sponge-bath, of a broad stool (heavily weighted at the bottom, to prevent risk of upsetting) covered loosely with carpet, and high enough to reach above the level of the water when placed in the middle of the bath: the piece of carpet may be dried each day after use; or a Sponge-bath may be readily constructed with a fixed raised centre of metal forming a portion of the bath, the bather standing as it were on an island: the feet may thus at first be kept dry, and the preliminary shock received on the head and shoulders; persons who in despair had almost given up the Soap-bath, are by this means enabled to enjoy it without discomfort.

The temperature of the warm water with the soap application may vary from 75 to 95, or even 100°; it ought to be hot enough for the bather to feel it thoroughly grateful and comforting. The cold may vary from 30 to 70°, and it may be borne in mind that as great a shock will be produced with the higher temperature on an enfeebled or weakly constitution, as with the lower on a strong and robust: the bather must be guided by his own feelings. As a rough guide for those in moderate health, 90° for the warm and 60° for the cold may be taken as convenient.

The necessity of getting quickly over the second or cold application must be strongly urged: in and out again must be the rule and not the exception. Any one may observe what takes place when the body is immersed in cold water: first comes the sharp, half-pleasing, half-painful sensation of cold, almost immediately followed by a consciousness of internal warmth, the duration of which will be in proportion to the power of the organization to keep up this counteraction. The cold water slowly but surely absorbs and extracts the vital heat; if the bath be unduly prolonged, chilliness, shivering, numbness, and exhaustion follow, and although the unpleasant symptoms will probably shortly disappear, the bather will have lost rather than gained in point of health.

No notion of “getting used to it,” or of cultivating hardiness and endurance, should induce one to venture near the stage commencing with chilliness; by so doing the stock of health is wasted instead of increased: the mere patient endurance of cold cannot possibly do good, although it may unquestionably do a great deal of harm.

Many persons suffer severely in winter from cold feet, with the attendant penalties of chilblains, colds, sore throat, and personal discomfort. It is well known to medical men that, when the feet are cold, the system is far more readily accessible to the attacks of disease, and to keep them warm, more especially during the early hours of the morning and after the bath, is, with some persons, almost an impossibility. Singers—both amateur and professional—suffer, certainly in this climate, more or less severely from affections—difficult to guard against—of the throat, induced in the majority of cases by cold, which first attacks the extremities. In lately consulting Dr. Llewelyn Thomas, he suggested as a future safeguard the wearing of shoes or slippers (made by Whiteley, of Westbourne Grove) of a description calculated not only to retain the natural heat of the body but to absolutely exclude cold and draughts. The material is a dark felt, lined with thick white fur; the shoes are open down the sides, but the openings are heavily covered with a dark fur, effectually excluding draughts. There are no laces or fastenings of any kind, and the shoes are slipped on or off in a moment.

It need not be imagined that because the daily application of cold water in the luxurious form of the Soap-bath be strongly urged, it is desirable to inure the body in the manner advocated at the early part of this century, when bare-kneed little children—robust or weakly—were exposed insufficiently clothed to the inclemency of the weather under the mistaken idea of hardening them—hardening some, no doubt, but killing a great many more. The power to resist cold means the power to resist disease, and to be proof against intense cold, one must not only be well fed, and warmly clad, but thoroughly warm before exposure to the cold atmosphere out of doors. Protected by sufficient clothing, the body acts as a sort of store-house of heat, and a sufficiently large stock of warmth absorbed in the morning will last all day, and fresh supplies will be drawn from the heat-producing food consumed. A shivering child sent out of doors for violent exercise may certainly get warm, but it does so at the expense of its own vital energy.

The essential that must not only be looked for, but positively and rapidly attained, is the reaction from the shock produced by the cold water: the heart is actively excited, and the blood propelled with unusual force through the system; the temperature of the body rapidly rises, and a general glow supervenes, accompanied with mixed feelings of increased vitality, buoyancy and exhilaration, difficult to describe. With the non-robust the stay in the cold water can hardly be made too short: the principal shock is produced from the first application, and the endeavour ought rather to be to get out as quickly as possible, than to stay in under the mistaken notion of deriving increased benefit.

Should the stay be even a trifle too prolonged, the reaction will be proportionately slow, and by no means so pleasant; or proper reaction may be made almost impossible, with the result of coldness, shivering, violent headache, slow pulse and probable sickness. It must, however, never be lost sight of that these unpleasantnesses are absolutely under the control of the bather, and never arise except with the very ignorant or very foolish: speedy reaction must be attained and can invariably be secured, even by the most feeble, provided the unpardonable and suicidal sin of too long a stay in the cold water be avoided.

Should the reaction after a Sponge-bath be very slow, it may be hastened by the previous addition to the water of a small wine-glassful of eau-de-cologne, spirits of wine, or spirits of any description, whiskey being perhaps best.

The Soap-bath may be commenced at any period of the year, and if children are induced to take it as a treat, rather than from any other point of view, they will soon become as partial to its use as their elders.

In slight colds the bath may be continued, but in the rare case of an extremely violent one, or affection of the throat, the bather, however much against his will, must perforce give it up for a time.

Those who habituate themselves to the indulgence of the Soap-bath become, as it were, case-hardened, and can seldom be persuaded to forego their daily pleasure, much less to abandon the habit: by its use the body arrives and remains at its highest state of physical vigour; the power of resisting sudden changes of temperature is greatly increased, and liability to colds correspondingly lessened, while there is an almost absolute freedom from danger of infection and epidemic attacks. The Soap-bath is a source of immense and constant physical gratification; food is keenly enjoyed, the muscles get hard and firm, and the skin soft as satin, while vigorous health and feelings of mental and animal enjoyment are produced attainable perhaps by no other means. Existence becomes what it was intended, and what it certainly ought to be—a positive pleasure: the numerous unpleasantnesses and dyspeptic ailments incidental to a low state of bodily health glide into the past, and their very recollection almost disappears.