Many persons have to content themselves with a Sponge-bath, and although its invigorating effects are great, and cold water daily applied externally—no matter how—hardens the body, and keeps the system up to that high condition which makes the mere sense of living enjoyable, the application of cold water—sometimes nearly freezing—by fits and starts as it were, is not the most comfortable method of taking a bath, and the preference will generally be given to that which enables one to dip overhead at once.

However, after a long continued course of the Plunge, the Sponge-bath will sometimes be found a positive relief, and, like a change of food, will act as a whet to the appetite. In taking such a bath it is desirable that the sponge be of large size, and it should be placed in the bath, charged with water, ready for immediate use.

To obtain the fullest benefit in the most agreeable manner, the charged sponge, as the bather steps into the bath, should be lifted and carried quickly to the back of the head, which should be slightly inclined forward, so that the bulk of the water will run down the spine and back; the next spongeful should be almost instantaneously applied, leaning forward, to the top of the head, and the third, standing quite upright, to the chest; the arms and legs may then be separately treated: and if desire be felt for more, the application may be repeated to the back of the head and chest.

The species of cold bath following the hot is really of little moment, it is simply a matter of taste and convenience; and whether a plunge, shower, hip, sitz, or sponge-bath be used, the pleasurable and beneficial results will be very much the same.

There are bathers who prefer a Shower-bath, and, to those able to stand it, nothing can be more agreeable and refreshing, but it may be safely questioned whether a Shower-bath taken on a cold wintry morning, with the water all but freezing, can possibly prove salutary even to the most robust.

Nearly freezing water from a shower-bath produces a feeling something akin to what might be imagined to result from a shower of red-hot lead; the shock is tremendous, and the shower, if continued for any length of time, would assuredly cause asphyxia. Professor Jamin shews conclusively that although ice is always at an uniform temperature of 32°, water may remain liquid at a very much lower temperature if guarded from external disturbance.

The nerves must be thoroughly braced up to take such a bath: the writer has a lively recollection of stepping into a shower-bath one intensely cold morning, when, the string being pulled, not a drop of water descended; the connections were all frozen, and the bath was empty; the shock resulting on that occasion from the absence of the water, though of a negative and totally different description, was really greater than would have been produced by the cold shower itself.

The Shower-bath should be taken warmer than the ordinary cold bath; the water may be advantageously placed in the bath on the previous evening, and, if necessary, a little warm water added in the morning.

If headache follow, or reaction be slow, accompanied by shivering, the shower must be discontinued, and a milder bath resorted to.