ITS ACTION AND USES IN HEALTH AND DISEASE. BY DURHAM DUNLOP, M.R.I.A., AUTHOR OF "THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BATH," ETC., ETC. (Reprinted, with Additions, from "THE DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE" for "Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano."—Juvenal. Now ready, Third Edition, crown 8vo, 480 pp., price 5s., The Philosophy of the Bath, With a History of Hydro-Therapeutics, and of the Hot-Air BY DURHAM DUNLOP, M.R.I.A. -:0: Opinions of the Press on the First Edition. "The book will be acceptable in proportion to the intelligence and good sense of the reader."-Meliora. "Not only the latest but the most accurate and readable book on the subject."-Hydropathic Record. "Gives an account of the nature and object of Hydropathy, the origin of warm bathing, the history of the bath in the middle ages, and its revival in latter times. The descriptions are interesting and instructive, occasionally amusing."-Veterinarian. "No work that has yet appeared has to our mind done so much for the cause of Hydropathy. We can most heartily recommend Mr. Dunlop's work to the reader, telling him it is a duty he owes to himself and society to thoroughly study and digest it. If he imbibes its philosophy, he will save himself each year one hundred times the price of the work."-Human Nature. "As a champion of Hygeio-Therapeutics, Mr. Dunlop may be called the most earnest of any recent writer. He places this system on the broad platform that embraces 'all natural agencies' whatever that tend to the preservation of health, and rejects everything that is classed as a poison, or has having no normal relation to the human economy. The work deserves a kindly welcome, and will act as a stimulus to improvement in medical practice where candidly read."-Herald of Health. "A vast mass of information is collected and put together in readable form, such as might be expected to interest those who are not adepts in the study of Hydropathy, and to those who are unacquainted with the subject upon which it treats, our advice is-get the book and read it."—Malvern News. LONDON: W. KENT & CO., 23, PATERNOSTER ROW. PREFACE. :0: ALTHOUGH a generation has passed away since the revival of the Hot-air Bath in Ireland, and its spread throughout Western Europe, we have to lament the vast amount of ignorance and prejudice that still exists respecting its action and uses in health and disease. The Bath is one of the most ancient institutions of which we have authentic record. It has come down to us with its merits tested and approved by the wisdom and experience of thousands of years; yet it is most remarkable how dense the ignorance is that continues to involve and obscure its merits among us-not among the illiterate in the humble walks of life only, but among the presumably well-educated and enlightened. Equally remarkable is the inveteracy of prejudice by which that ignorance is cherished, and the light of reason and of experience shut out and rejected. In proportion as the human mind is held in the bondage of ignorance and prejudice, so does it incline to dogmatism and the conceits of self-sufficient complacency. Hence men profoundly ignorant on the subject of the Bath-who know absolutely nothing about its physiological action, its therapeutical and prophylactic properties, its sanative and sanitive virtues, have no hesitation in condemning it altogether. Modesty is seldom an attribute of ignorance. At first the revival of the Bath was not cordially received by the Medical Profession as a body, though among its most ardent advocates were included, from an early period, medical authorities of the highest eminence. But a great change has been effected in medical opinion generally, so that now it is rare indeed to find a medical gentleman worthy to rank in a profession so learned, useful, and honourable, who yet remains insensible to the vast good that may be accomplished by the judicious use of an Agent so potent and incomparable as Hot-air unquestionably is. A medical practitioner who affects to ignore the Bathwho, whether from ignorance or prejudice superciliously sneers at its merits, and misrepresents its action and uses, simply pronounces his own condemnation. In the vanity of his self-conceit he presumptuously sets himself in opposition to some of the first men in his profession-to some of the ablest physiologists of our day, and thereby proclaims his own incapacity—his own incompetency to treat disease in accordance with the lights of science, and it is needless to say that such practitioners, like the rotten ice in the Serpentine marked "dangerous," are not to be trusted. Patients may be assured that no enlightened practitioner— no medical man worthy of his profession, and conscientiously impressed with its responsibilities, will ever allow apathy or prejudice to influence his judgment, and lead him to reject, without study and reflection, so powerful a means of alleviating human suffering as the Bath has been declared to be by the very first medical authorities of the age. Of the many excellent works that have been published on the Bath, some of the best are by medical authors; but among them all there is not one that has been designed to fulfil the purposes of a popular treatise, suitable for the instruction of all classes. To meet this want, the present little work has been prepared, in the hope that it will afford all the information necessary to a right understanding of the action of the Bath, and its peculiar merits. The aim throughout has been to show how the Bath is "a boon to humanity," as Erasmus Wilson declared it to be, and how admirably adapted it is to meet the bathing wants of all classes of rich and poor alike. In a word, while the desire has been to produce a cheap work suitable for general circulation, care has been taken to convey all necessary information as correctly as possible, so as to make it, in all essential particulars, a complete MANUAL OF THE BATH. Those who may desire more detailed information concerning the action of Hot-Air, and its uses, more especially in disease, can consult a more elaborate work, "The Philosophy of the Bath," by the same author. |