Bath is the immersion of the body in water, or an apparatus for this purpose. The use of the bath as an institution apart from occasional immersion in rivers or the sea, is, as might be anticipated, an exceedingly old custom. Homer mentions the bath as one of the first refreshments offered to a guest; thus, when Ulysses enters the palace of Circe, a bath is prepared for him, and he is anointed after it with costly perfumes. No representation, however, of a bath as we understand it is given upon the Greek vases, bathers being represented either simply washing at an elevated basin, or having water poured over them from above. In later times, rooms, both public and private, were built expressly for bathing, the public baths of the Greeks being mostly connected with the gymnasia. Apparently, by an inversion of the later practice, it was customary in the Homeric epoch to take first a cold and then a hot bath; but the Lacedemonians substituted the hot-air sudorific bath, as less enervating than warm water, and in Athens at the time of Demosthenes and Socrates the warm bath was considered by the more rigorous as an effeminate custom.
The fullest details we have with respect to the bathing of the ancients apply to its luxurious development under the Romans. Their bathing establishments consisted of four main sections: the undressing room, with an adjoining chamber in which the bathers were anointed; a cold room with provision for a cold bath; a room heated moderately to serve as a preparation for the highest and lowest temperatures; and the sweating-room, at one extremity of which was a vapour-bath and at the other an ordinary hot bath. After going through the entirecourse both the Greeks and Romans made use of strigils or scrapers, either of horn or metal, to remove perspiration, oil, and impurities from the skin. Connected with the bath were walks, covered race-grounds, tennis-courts, and gardens, the whole, both in the external and internal decorations, being frequently on a palatial scale. The group of the Laocoon and the Parnese Hercules were both found in the ruins of Roman baths.
With respect to modern baths, that commonly in use in Russia consists of a single hall, built of wood, in the midst of which is a powerful metal oven, covered with heated stones, and surrounded with broad benches, on which the bathers take their places. Cold water is then poured upon the heated stones, and a thick, hot steam rises, which causes the sweat to issue from the whole body. The bather is then gently whipped with wet birch rods, rubbed with soap, and washed with lukewarm and cold water; of the latter, some pailfuls are poured over his head; or else he leaps, immediately after this sweating-bath, into a river or pond, or rolls in the snow.
The Turks, by their religion, are obliged to make repeated ablutions daily, and for this purpose there is, in every city, a public bath connected with a mosque. A favourite bath among them, however, is a modification of the hot-air sudorific-bath of the ancients introduced under the name of Turkish Bath into other than Islamic countries. A regular accompaniment of this bath, when properly given, is the operation known as 'kneading,' or massage, generally performed at the close of the sweating process, after the final rubbing of the bather with soap, and consisting in a systematic pressing and squeezing of the whole body, stretching the limbs, and manipulating all the joints as well as the fleshy and muscular parts.
Public baths were common in Europe during the late 19th century, but the first English public baths and wash-houses of the kind common in all cities during the late 19th century were established in Liverpool and near the London docks in 1844. In 1846 an act was passed for their encouragement, and a Baths and Wash-houses Act of 1878 authorized the establishment of cheap swimming-baths.
The principal natural warm baths in England are at Bath in Somersetshire (the hottest), and Brixton and Matlock in Derbyshire. The temperature of the Bath springs ranges from 109 to 117 degrees, while that of the Buxton and Matlockwaters scarcely exceeds 82 degrees. The baths of Harrogate, which are strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas, are also of great repute for the cure of obstinate cutaneous diseases, indurations of the glands, etc. The most celebrated natural hot baths in Europe are those of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the various Baden in Germany; Toeplitz, in Bohemia; Bagnieres, Bareges, and Dax, in the south of France; and Spa, in Belgium. Besides the various kinds of water-bath with or without medication or natural mineral ingredients, there are also milk, oil, wine, earth, sand, mud, and electric baths, smoke-baths and gas-baths; but these are as a rule only indulged after specific prescription.
The practice of bathing as a method of cure in cases of disease falls under the head of hydrotherapathy; in the 19th century it was advised that even when bathing was employed simply for pleasure or purification due regard should be paid to the physiological condition of the bather. During the Victorian era in Britain writers were concerned about the potential dangers of bathing, and one warned:
'in many cases cold bathing should be avoided altogether, especially by those who have any tendency to spitting of blood or consumption, by gouty people, or by those who have any latent visceral disease or apoplectic tendency. Wherever the bath is followed by shivering instead of by a healthy reactionary glow, it is undesirable; and a cold bath in the morning after any debauchery or excess in eating or drinking on the previous evening is exceedingly imprudent. Delicate persons and children ought not to bathe in the sea before ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, and in no case should bathing be indulged after a long fast. In cold streams and rivers additional precautions should be taken, the cold plunge, when heated or fatigued, being frequently attended with fatal results. Even warm baths are not wholly free from danger; apoplexy and death having been known to follow a hot bath when entered with a full stomach. As a rule the temperature should not exceed 105 degrees, and they should not be too long continued. Frequent indulgence in them has an enervating effect, though the majority of people need as yet no renewal of Hadrian's prohibitive legislation in this matter.'
The eminent author, George Black, in 1892, while generally encouraging bathing, and describing bathing as 'likely to be of excellent use and efficacy both in the prevention and cure of disease.' Also went on to warn:
'Baths should never be taken immediately after a meal, nor when the body is very much exhausted by fatigue or excitement of any kind, nor during nor just before menstruation; and they should be sparingly and guardedly used by pregnant women.' Research Bath
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