Bathing : how to do it, when to do it, and where to do it / by Edgar Sheppard.

  • Sheppard, Edgar, 1819-1897.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bathing : how to do it, when to do it, and where to do it / by Edgar Sheppard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    many strangers, who have heard of its construction; and by Visiting Justices and Medical Superintendents from other Asylums, with a view of introducing the same therapeutic agent into the establishments with which they are officially connected. “ It will be remembered by the Committee that many of its members had a not unnatural mistrust of a power so susceptible of misapplication, and so shrouded in prejudices by the community at large. They will be glad, therefore, to learn from the indi- vidual who pressed it so strongly upon their favourable consideration, that the Turkish Bath in Colney Hatch Asylum has been an unqualified success. Its power in many forms of disease—especially in Melancholia— is most remarkable. Sleep is wooed by its soft in- fluences, and morbid fancies are chased away. It does not appear (as far as my experience yet goes) to shorten the paroxysms, though it certainly mitigates the violence, of acute Mania. That it removes many obstructions from our path, and expedites ultimate recovery, is, however, as certain with respect to mania as melancholia. It is known to those who are familiar with insanity, that one of its most striking characteris- tics is a remarkable dryness of skin. In many cases there is a peculiar odour from the scanty dermal secretions, which has given rise to, and almost justi- fied, the common saying, that {you may smell a madman anywhere.’ This state of things invites the action of the Bath. Dry epithelium is peeled from the human covering; poisonous exudations crowd upon it