Volume 2

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    84/600 (page 72)
    especially by those who are not very robust. In the hot chamber the reclining posture should be maintained, and very little con- versation allowed. Those with heart disease or palpitation should not indulge in the Turkish bath, and those who cannot perspire in dry air should not take it unless there is a vapour chamber in the baths. In the Swimming Bath we recognise one of the best means of obtaining active exercise for all the muscles. If the chill be taken off the water there are few of moderately good constitution who may not indulge in it. Every child ought to be taught to swim. One never knows when this accomplishment might be turned to use, either for self-preservation or to save the life of another. The Bath in the Treatment of Illness.—If it be of im- portance to attend to the skin in health, it is equally important to do so in many diseases, specially in those of kidneys and of lungs. Although the employment of baths in the treatment of disease is too extensive and two difficult a subject to be treated of in detail in a course such as the present, I ought to mention its use in a few of the more frequent ailments. Some young children are very liable to become feverish from slight exciting causes. The irritation of teething (not always a slight cause),^ too much food, indigestible food, constipation, are quite sufficient to make some children very hot and restless, specially towards evening and at night. Frequently the first named cause predisposes to and acts in conjunction with one of the other causes. If the exact cause is known it should be removed, but it may be unknown, or it may be impossible at once to remove it. In any case a quiet night may often be obtained by immersing the child in a warm bath, not a hot bath, but one about 98^, the whole body to be kept under water for seven or ten minutes. On removing the child from the bath it should be quickly dried and put in a warm bed. In this case it is not necessary to remove every trace of moisture from the skin. When a child is feverish, it is sometimes afraid of the bath, although it is not so at other times. In such an event the bath