It is now about twelve months since, that my attention was first attracted to the Eastern Bath. I thought I knew as much of baths as most men: I knew the hot, the warm, the tepid, and the cold; the vapour, the air, the gaseous, the medicated, and the mud bath; the natural and the artificial; the shower, the firework, the needle, the douche, and the wave bath; the fresh-river bath and the salt-sea bath, and many more beside: I knew their slender virtues, and their stout fallacies; they had my regard, but not my confidence; and I was not disposed to yield easily to any reputed advantages that might be represented to me in favour of baths. Mr. Urquhart talked to me, but without producing any other than a passing impression; he had, many years before, illustrated, under my observation, the beneficial effects of heat and moisture on his own person; but it bore no fruits in me; for where could I find another man who would submit to a process of so much severity? Without being prejudiced against the whole family of baths, I was not to be enticed into any belief or trust in them, without some positive and undoubted proof. Such was the state of my opinion with regard to baths, when an earnest man, with truth flashing from his eyes, one day stood before me, and challenged me to the trial of the Eastern Bath. I would, if no engagement occurred to prevent me. "Let nothing stand in your way, for there are few things of common life of more importance!" was the appeal of my visitor. "On Saturday, at four o'clock?" "So be it." And on Saturday, at four o'clock, with the punctuality of Nelson, I stood in Mr. George Witt's ThermÆ.

To George Witt, F.R.S., the metropolis is indebted for a knowledge of the Eastern Bath. Mr. Urquhart struck the spark in "The Pillars of Hercules;" Dr. Barter caught it in Ireland, and fanned it into a blaze; another spark was attracted by Mr. George Crawshay and Sir John Fife, and burst into a flame in Newcastle-on-Tyne and the North of England. Mr. Urquhart himself applied the match in Lancashire; but Mr. George Witt introduced the Bath to London and its mighty ones. Rank, intellect, learning, art, all met, as companions of the new "order of the Bath," in Prince's Terrace, Hyde Park. And all will remember, with kindness and affection, the generous disinterestedness and earnest truthfulness of their host.

When I stepped into the Calidarium for the first time; when I experienced the soothing warmth of the atmosphere; when, afterwards, I perceived the gradual thaw of the rigid frame, the softening of the flesh, the moistening of the skin, the rest of the stretched cords of the nervous system, the abatement of aches and pains, the removal of fatigue, and the calm flow of imagination and thought,—I understood the meaning of my friend's zeal, and I discovered that there was one Bath that deserved to be set apart from the rest—that deserved, indeed, a careful study and investigation.

The Bath that cleanses the inward as well as the outward man, that is applicable to every age, that is adapted to make health healthier, and alleviate disease whatever its stage or severity, deserves to be regarded as a national institution, and merits the advocacy of all men, and particularly of medical men; of those whose special duty it is to teach how health may be preserved, how disease may be averted. My own advocacy of the Bath is directed mainly to its adoption as a social custom, as a cleanly habit; and, on this ground, I would press it upon the attention of every thinking man. But, if, besides bestowing physical purity and enjoyment, it tend to preserve health, to prevent disease, and even to cure disease, the votary of the Bath will receive a double reward.

Having, in my own person, and in the experience afforded me by its regular use, become convinced of the power and importance of the Bath, I felt it to be a duty to make my impressions known to the Medical Profession. With this object I addressed an essay, entitled, "Thermo-therapeia, the Heat-cure," to the British Medical Association, at their meeting at Torquay in August, 1860. In this paper, I urged upon the members of the medical profession, particularly in the provinces and rural districts, to erect a bath for themselves, as an auxiliary armament against disease, as an addition to their pharmacopoeia; and to give their support to the establishment in every village and hamlet in Britain of an Eastern Bath.

In September, 1860, I was invited to address a paper on the "Revival of the Eastern Bath, and its Application to the Purposes of Health," to the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, at their meeting in Glasgow; an abstract of that paper will be found in the second chapter of this treatise. And, having subsequently been called upon to deliver a popular lecture at the Parochial Institution of Richmond, I penned the historical account of the Bath which is embodied in the first chapter. This explanation I hope my readers will accept as accounting for a certain degree of repetition which occurs in this volume; and which, without the devotion of more time to the labour than I have at my disposal, could not be avoided.

It will be guessed, and with truth, that I am no longer a sceptic of the value of the Bath, when the Bath embraces the virtues which are possessed by the Eastern Bath. That it is a source of much enjoyment may be inferred from the suddenness with which it has spread through the metropolis of London. Turkish Baths meet our eye in almost every quarter of the town, and three Companies have been formed, or are in course of formation, for the establishment of Eastern Baths on correct principles. One of these Companies, under the presidency of Mr. Stewart Rolland, professes to draw its inspiration directly from Constantinople, and will take, as its especial model, the Turkish Bath.

When adopted as a social custom, the Turkish model is clearly that which ought to be imitated, on account of the moderate temperature which belongs to it. The higher temperatures are upon their trial; they are not a necessity of the process, they may have their uses in disease; but it would be best to treat them with caution, or, as a medicine, leave them wholly in medical hands. The Bath for the public should be one that they may adopt with as much safety as the basin of water with which they wash their hands.

The use of an elevated temperature is founded on the well-known power of heat of destroying organic impurity—such as odour, miasma, and animal poison. But, in this acceptation, when applied to the human body, it becomes a medicine of the most potent kind; and should, therefore, be left to medical management.

Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square,
March, 1861.