2025-06-04 - Life in a Tub by Diogenes
======================================

This title caught my attention in the Project Gutenberg new ebook feed.
I thought of The Captain in The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Close
but not quite.  This book is a description of the Victorian Turkish
bath AKA Roman bath, which is classified as a water cure AKA
hydrotherapy.

Victorian Turkish baths
<gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Victorian_Turkish_baths>

Roman baths
<gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Thermae>

Hydrotherapy
<gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Hydrotherapy>

> By this simple process [of wet sheet packing] the pulse is often
> reduced from 120 pulsations per minute to sixty-five, in the short
> period of three-quarters of an hour, the circulation equalized
> throughout the body, and a soothing effect produced on the patient,
> which language fails to describe [and without drugs].

Interesting!  I wonder if this uses the same physiological reflex as
the hug machine and weighted blanket?

Hug Machine
<gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Hug_machine>

Weighted Blanket
<gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Weighted_blanket>

The wet sheet packing process is described in detail in the following
two books.

Hydrotherapy by Yogi Ramcharak, Chapter 9, p.103
<gopher://tilde.pink/1/~bencollver/ia/details/hydrotherapy_202004>

Rational Hydrotherapy by Dr. Kellogg, p.600
<gopher://tilde.pink/1/~bencollver/ia/
details/rationalhydrothe00kelluoft>

> The truth will ere long be acknowledged, that it is our mode of
> life that makes us fit subjects for cholera, and that it is our
> mode of treating it alone, which makes the disease so dangerous.
> The wretch who is cast uncared for in a ditch, exposed to all tine
> inclemency of the weather, with water along to quench his burning
> thirst, has ten chances to one in favour of his recovery, compared
> with the well-cared patient who is dosed with brandy and the
> favourite specifics of the apothecary's shop.

Interesting, a self-critical look at Victorian lifestyles.

> Do not run away with the idea that it is Islamism that prevents to
> use of [alcohol]--it is the bath.  It satisfied the cravings which
> lead to those indulgences, it fills the period of necessary
> relaxation, and it produces, with cleanliness, habits of
> self-respect which are incompatible with intoxication. ... In
> Greece and Roman, in their worst times, there was neither
> "blue ruin" nor "double stout."
>
> The Turkish bath supplies this stimulant, the desire for which
> prompts intoxication, and so becomes, as Mr. Urquhart argues, a
> powerful engine in the promotion of temperance; by improving the
> general health, it also removes the desire for stimulus.

Lexicon Balatronicum 1st edition (1811), Blue Ruin is gin, p.33
<gopher://tilde.pink/1/~bencollver/ia/details/b29337781>

Manual of the Turkish Bath by David Urquhart
<gopher://tilde.pink/1/~bencollver/ia/details/b21933418>

> The Turkish bath is, in short, an antidote for the unwholesome
> lives we live--a peace-offering to outraged nature for our
> non-compliance with her laws.  To ladies, to invalids, and men of
> business, whose sedentary occupations preclude the possibility of
> healthful exercise, the Turkish bath presents an inestimable boon.

author: Diogenes
source: <gopher://gopher.pglaf.org/1/7/3/2/5/73251/>
tags:   ebook,health,history
title:  Life in a Tub

Tags
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ebook
<gopher://tilde.pink/1/~bencollver/log/tag/ebook/>
health
<gopher://tilde.pink/1/~bencollver/log/tag/health/>
history
<gopher://tilde.pink/1/~bencollver/log/tag/history/>

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