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# 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 | |
Roman baths | |
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 | |
Weighted Blanket | |
The wet sheet packing process is described in detail in the following | |
two books. | |
Hydrotherapy by Yogi Ramcharak, Chapter 9, p.103 | |
Rational Hydrotherapy by Dr. Kellogg, p.600 | |
> 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 | |
Manual of the Turkish Bath by David Urquhart | |
> 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 | |
ebook | |
health | |
history |