OBSERVATIONS ON THE USE of BATHING; WARM and COLD: AND THE Diseases it will cure without a Doctor.
WITH An Account of the
Cicer Venereum,
or
; the celebrated Restorative among the antient
Greeks,
used in their BATHS and at their TABLES.
Illustrated with its Figure.
LONDON:
Printed for J. DAVIS in
Piccadilly,
and M. COOPER in
Paternoster-Row.
MDCCLIX.
[Price One Shilling and Six-pence.]
TO The Right Honourable the Lord SOUTHWELL.
My LORD,
I F I could want better motives for laying this slight treatise at your lordship's feet, there is a duty would compel me to it: the thought on which 'tis built was wholly yours: and tho' my very just sense of its imperfections forbids my putting my name to the piece; I may, without boasting, say, that I felt an extreme pride when your lordship thought me equal to the undertaking of reducing it to form. The world will say I have cause: for it knows no person of whose favourable opinion an author may so reasonably be proud.
YOU were pleased to demand of me no more than a sketch; nor does this attempt claim any higher title. If it should lead those to think more upon the subject, within whose province it lies to explain the matter perfectly, and whose authority can bring the practice into use, I shall have done all I presumed to undertake.
YOUR lordship will be pleased to pardon this address: It breathes no flattery, for he who writes it has none of their views, whose rank praise offends even the ears to which it is addressed. His whole pride was to say how perfectly, and with what true respect he is,
My LORD,
Your LORDSHIP'S Most obedient Servant, The AUTHOR.
INTRODUCTION.
M ORE deseases may be prevented, and more actually cured by one or the other kind of bathing than by medicines. This the concurrent testimony of all ages, and all countries avows: but there may be also danger attending the inconsiderate and unskilfull use of either. This is the occasion of the present treatise, in which it is proposed to give in a succinct view what is already known upon the subject; and preserving a middle course between the rash zeal of the advocates for this practice, and their vain terrors who oppose it; absolutely to shew wherein it may be useful, wherein dangerous; to limit the cases and prescribe the circumstances in which it will do good; and by free cautions against its use in those wherein it may be mischievous, to prevent all accidents: to restore the original credit of the practice, and to do some service to mankind.
THE USE of BATHING.
CHAP. I.
B ATHING has doubless been coeval with mankind: cleanliness and pleasure would lead them early to it, and the advantages were evident. The cold bath was the first; for every pond and river gave the opportunity: and they who used it found that they were stronger in their bodies, and more lively in their imaginations than those who did not. They found they escaped sickness also: it was natural to attribute this to the coldness, and thence to seek for the same purpose the coldest waters. Religion countenanced the practise, and purifications with water were made essential ceremonies. Fraud followed: for an artful race of priests, sensible of the good from bathing in extreme cold water, dedicated springs to saints, and the cures the water made were attributed to the patron of the fountain.
WARM bathing followed naturally. The earth in many places sends out hot springs: these were more pleasant to the flesh in washing, and they were therefore more used: some who had coarse eruptions on their skin were cured by this entirely; in others headachs ceased, and in many more complaints of long continuance vanished. One, tortured with the cholic, when he bathed found instant ease; another who was dumb, from hoarsness, spoke; and was frighted at the unaccustomed sound of his own voice; a third bursting with suppressed urine, expecting only ease, grew instantly relieved of his complaints.
THE effects appeared miraculous; and lying doctors as ignorant as priests were cunning, attributed these cures to they knew not what minerals imprequating the Spring: ignorant: and desirous their patiant should continue ignorant that all these diseases, and with these many more, might be cured by warm water only.
BUT before physicians interferred the practise spread; and became, wherever there were these hot springs universal.
WHERE they were wanting plain reason taught their nature, and tutored people to imitate them: common water was easily warmed, and this performed the service.
THIS was all nature taught, and this they found sufficient: ingenious art, ingenious for the uses of the artist, soon introduced a multitude of folly. Thus doctors who had fancied minerals in all the hot baths, because they found them in a few, added them under various preparations to these they made art. Iron and copper became general ingredients, and they dreamed something of the vague acid, tho' they had not yet its name. The red hot slags from iron-works and copper furnaces were thrown into the water and miracles attributed to them: and hence the unfeeling folly of the physicians came by degrees to baths of INFANTS BLOOD.
BUT while we charge barbarous antiquity with these abuses, let us except those nations among whom science flourished, and with it all true knowledge; from whom we have deduced our best discoveries; and from whom we might borrow many more, if it were as much a custom to study, as 'tis a glory to pretend to study them.
THE Greeks considered warm baths as warm water; but then they added plain and simple things to assist the intention; bran, soap, emollient herbs: no more. And they had fragrant oils and precious ointments to use afterwards, which served the two great needful purposes, refreshing the spirits, and preventing those mischiefs which might ot herwise have followed sudden cold.
What these were is a point involved in some obscurity, for the originals speak a broken language; and howsoever learned their commentators may have been in words, they were all wholly unacquainted with the things concerned. The Greek plants are less known than almost any other subject of antiquity: with what success they have been sought by the nameless author of these enquiries, those who have most learning will be best able to determine: at least they have been sought with diligence and candour.
WHILE priesthood, physic, fraud, and folly were obscuring the great light of nature in this instance, among people who were distinguished by the fine term civilized, honest nature taught the Savages of other quarters not only the use of cold water, but to roll themselves in snow: and not alone to plunge into the natural warm bath, or make one by the help of fire; but to seize whatsoever offered like it.
IN some places there rise hot vapours out of the earth, and on these they placed themselves to grow warm by them: when this advantage did not offer they seated themselves against a sand bank of earth which faced the south. In the middle of a clear hot day; and covering their feet with the loose dust, stood to be heated thoroughly; in other places they heated turfs; and lay on them, and were covered with them: and elsewhere threw their bodies upon heaps of fermenting dung.
THUS nature led the way to the use of bathing, and it was well for the world while science only followed her steps. Health was presorved by the cold baths, before 'twas known diseases could be cured by them; and half the destructive legion of chronic complaints were cured familiarly. So much plain reason taught, and they were happy who obeyed her guidance.
CHAP. II.
Of the Use of Bathing among the Greeks and Romans.
EGYPT in the earliest times whereof we have account, adopted and improved the natural use of bathing, in both hot and cold water; and from that people probably the Greeks derived its rational use, together with their other knowledge. In this case as all others, they soon became more eminent than their originals: for whatsoever they adopted they improved. In their heroic ages we read they bathed in rivers or the sea, and there is reason to believe tho' facts are handed down from these uncertain times very obscurely, that they distinguished the salt from fresh water. Even hot baths were as early as the times when Homer lived: perhaps as those concerning which he wrote. Pythagoras taught to his countrymen what he had learned in Egypt of their use; and from his time, tho' for some ages slowly, they were made a regular part of medicine. From thence they were soon brought into the lists of luxury, and then the chaste manners of that honourable people would not suffer them public. Those who had occasion made them in their houses, and they were again given back to the relief of sickness; their natural and original use.
ROME borrowed them from Greece. Even the name Thermae is not of the other origin. They considered them as an article of luxury and pleasure, as much as of medicinal vertue: and after the fatigue of the day they prepared themselves by bathing, rubbing and anointing, for the table and the pleasures of the evening: both nations were wise enough to know, that which could preserve might also restore their health; and, by both the hot and the cold baths were used also in the cure of diseases. The Greek and Latin medicinal writers equally name them in this light, from Hippocrates downward to the last.
THE accounts we have of the manner of bathing for medicinal purposes are very obscure, but 'tis most probable they proceeded thus. The person who was to have the advantage of a warm bath, was led into an antichamber of the stove; here he took off part of his habit: when warmed in this place he was led into the stove; there he was soon made very hot, and being wholly stripped he was set in a tub, and a quantity of warm water was poured upon his head: after this he plunged into the warm bath; and when he came out of this he was rubbed dry, and then anointed with oils.
THIS was the compleat method: but in many cases a part of the ceremony only was used, the warm rooms alone, or these and the warm water were esteemed sufficient; but always anointing with the oils closed the ceremony.
THE cold bathing was conducted with less ceremony; but as rationally. The person was plunged into the water headlong; then when he came out he was rubbed dry, and afterwards he was anointed with oils.
THESE were the customs of the Greeks, and from these the Romans varied but little. They grew careless, and made both kinds of bathing slighter and more frequent among those in health: but for the sick the same methods still were used. Mischief happened sometimes from bathing, as well as often good: we better undestand the danger, but we have less sense of the real advantages; it may be therefore useful to endeavour to introduce again some of the neglected practices of the Greeks; and to lay down before the public the diseases in which bathing will be a cure; and the danger which may attend its improper use.
CHAP. III.
Of the Uses of the Warm Bath.
PERSPIRATION is a first essential to health: the obstruction of this brings on fullness, fevers, pains in the head, and a multitude of other disorders, all which may be removed at once by a proper use of the warm bath. The obstruction of perspiration arises usually at once from the effect of cold; or more slowly by cutaneous foulnesses: These often begin from a stoppage of perspiration, and they always encrease it. In either case the warm bath is a cure.
IT relaxes the skin and opens the pores, and nothing is so effectual in cleaning away every kind of foulness. The slighter disorders which rise from an obstructed perspiration, COLDS as we call them, and the whole train of their attendant symptoms vanish at once, by the effect of a warm bath: this would make the recourse to it universal in these cases, but that there follows the immediate danger of taking cold again: the effect of the chill air being the greater, as the pores have been left so particularly open. Our custom is to be put immediately into bed from a warm bath; but this is neither necessary nor right, the effect has been produced in the bath, and to what purpose should the person weaken himself, and open the pores yet more by a continued heat.
THE Greeks went from the bath into their heating rooms, and cooled gradually before they went to bed. They understood the danger of exposing themselves suddenly to the cold air which they avoided, and even took precautions that the difference between the air of the bathing room and that of the apartment into which they went should not hurt them. These were rubbing and anointing; and with these we, tho' our country is colder, might return from the warm bath into a warm apartment without danger. We should thus have all the advantages of the heat without weakening ourselves by it; and it would set aside half the need of medicine.
THE uses of warm bathing among the Greeks, exclusive of the mere consideration of luxury and amusement, may be reduced to three. 1st. The relaxing of the skin and opening of the pores. 2d. The cleansing of cutaneous foulness and cure of the disorders of the skin. 3d. The strengthening the parts, and conveying the virtues of powerful medicines immediately to them.
THE two first are plain and obvious; but to the third slight readers will object, because it seems contradictory: the absolute effect of warm baths being not to strengthen but relax: yet to this seeming argument 'tis easy to oppose facts. The Greeks were faithful, and they name the effects: and to confirm this, we have in Hoffman, a writer scarce less accurate than themselves, a singular account of the Caroline baths, which, tho' hot, he says, strengthen, not relax the parts, because of the astringency of an ochreous earth contained in them.
THEREFORE the thing is practicable: what we have found done in one place by nature, they did by art at pleasure; and it is certain they might do it better: for the virtues of astringent plants are much more easily conveyed to water than those of astringent earths.
A WARM bath is a general fomentation: we may do what they did, and we have the means: Whatsoever effect a warm fomentation can take upon a limb by means of its ingredients, the same a warm bath impregnated with the same ingredients may on the whole body. Where the complaint is local we plainly see the good effects of medicated water, for fomentations in general are no other; and where the malady is universal the same good will be attained by a bath made with the same ingredients.
WARM water answers the common purposes alone; and whether this; or the medicated baths be used, the same precautions will prevent all bad accidents.
WHAT is here advanced is the doctrine of plain reason supported by antient medicine, I hope it will be soon corroborated farther by the modern: I can propose it only: for 'tis an age in which some think, and others practise.
CHAP. IV.
Of bathing for relaxation only.
IN the first and most natural use of warm bathing, which is only to relax the skin and open the pores, nothing more need be considered than to have a pure light water for the purpose; and to avoid cold afterwards.
THE Greeks, whom I would propose as models, we see, first warmed the body gradually, for this practise, by the air of a heated room; then poured on warm water, and immediately gave the bath: then after rubbing dry, they used their oils: It will be an addition to our common practice to observe this gradual preparation for the bath; and it is worth while to enquire diligently after the Composition of those medicines, which they have mentioned as of so much importance.
THE effects ascribed to them by candid writers, shew they deserved that praise: but as to the composition of them we are altogether
and negligent; neither affecting to know them, nor attempting to imitate them. We want them more than they did: for our climate being colder, the danger of taking cold, which they were invented to obviate, is with us greater.
CHAP. V.
Of the Grecian oils and ointments.
IF we would learn any thing truly of the oils and ointments used by the antient Greeks after warm bathing, we must first distinguish them from those employed upon different occasions. They had in all three kinds: the first were an article of luxury, and in these only fragrance was considered; the second kind were for those who used great bodily exercise; and the third for health. These last alone were for the use of those who bathed.
THE fragrant ointments came in at all great entertainments with the second course, when the guests dressed themselves in flowery garlands; the second sort were very simple, and were furnished at the public expence; the third alone employed the care of the physicians. These were composed with so good a choice of the ingredients, and so much care, and such perfect art in compounding, that it would be well if modern pharmacy would copy them.
THE receipts for several of these are preserved by Dioscordes; but the earliest and most celebrated must be traced much higher. These researches are so slightly practised now, that men think it a great thing if they can quote Pliny. An author is produced as an authority whose errors are more numerous than his paragraphs: for often one of these has been compiled from half a dozen former writers; no two of whom were of the same opinion. In the present instance, if we take this collector's word we shall believe the Greeks adopted Persian customs only in this matter; and that the first chest of ointments their country saw was taken by Alexander in the tent of Darius.
WHERE Pliny found such a piece of history none knows, but 'tis astonishing he should adopt it. Ointments of these kinds are named by authors who wrote long before the time of Alexander; and the Greek comedies, of the earliest date, rally this piece of luxury. Alcaeus Sappho and Anacreon we find plainly knew them, and spoke of them as things in common use: Sophocles scents with these precious unguents his Venus, and anoints his Pallas: the verses of Archilochus named them; and it would be ridiculous to think the
of Homer meant any other than an ointment of which roses were the base, and the receipt of which is yet extant in Dioscordes.
is the more common term, but they meant nothing else also by their
.
THE Romans had the like ointments early; and were extravagant in them to an excess: they imported such as they fancied Asia produced better than their own, after the defeat of Antiochus; and it was an article of luxury, carried soon to so high an abuse, that the censors passed a solemn ordonance that no exotic oils should be brought into the country.
THESE were the compositions with which Toti madebant, as their Poets spoke it; and these only were interdicted. They had at home the choicest saffron, and the drugs for many others; and they were at liberty still to to import myrrh and spices, the principal ingredients of the rest, useful in the preservation of health. These they had learned from the chaste and hardy Greeks: others from softer, and effeminate nations.
AMONG the oils and ointments sacred to health, the principal were those which made a part of the bathing operations: by which they prevented all the dangerous consequences that could have attended the warm bath; and availed themselves of all its possible benefits.
THEIR intent in these compositions was to stop the pores, warm the body, and refresh the spirits. The very nature of the oil answer'd, in a great measure, the first purpose; the warmth of the spices did the second; and the natural fragrance of these and the rest of the ingredients, took the place of Asiatic luxury in performing the last. We in our baths want these helps; and 'tis to the inventors of the receipts we are to look up for them.
THE general ingredients were oil and spices: and the usual method of composition was this. They boiled the common spices in the oil, and afterwards added the more rich and fragrant; cautious that their virtues would have been lost if added before boiling. They were usually composed of many ingredients; and had their names from the principal. Sometimes they made them by insolation, exposing the oils and ingredients a long time to the sun, to answer the purpose of fire: to some they added a little wax; and sometimes, if we believe Galen, resin: to others also they plainly added vinegar. The
as they expressed themselves were those which had wax, and were to be rubbed into the flesh; and their
were such as had only the oils and spices, and were just poured upon the body. The latter were properly oils, and the former ointments.
WE should do well to imitate the care wherewith the Greeks selected their ingredients. The oil for this purpose was pressed from unripe olives; and had therefore an astringency, which no common oil has: and as they found this necessary quality was lost after a time, the oil mellowing with keeping, they never used it except fresh. We know the danger of cold after a bath is from the relaxed state of the skin, and extreme openness of the pores; we understand oil fills them, and that way prevents taking cold: but we see also the Greek oil constringed them; even before it had the virtue of the spices.
THE oil in most frequent use with the Greeks after bathing was the
, the oil of roses. The composition we have in Dioscordes, and it was excellent. The single red rose was the flower used in this; it was taken just in the bud, and only the red put in, the white heel being cut off because less astringent: these rose buds were pressed to pieces in the hands, anointed first with honey. They were put into this oil of unripe olives: as many were used as the oil would contain; and they were worked about in it: after this they stood all night, and in the next morning they pressed out the oil. They added then fresh rose buds, in an equal quantity, and managed them in the same manner: they repeated this to the seventh time. To this oil they added some more of the same kind scented with schaenanth, by boiling that ingredient first in oil and water.
WE have no such compositions as this now made. Those who prepare medicines have not the Grecian industry, nor those who prescribe the receipts, the Grecian knowledge. We have an oil of roses: but how is it made? roses are boiled in oil till they are crisp, and the oil is then press'd out. The preparation is easy, but having no virtue it is neglected. Those who make medicines should be told this seven times repeated maceration of the Greeks gives seventy times the virtue of one boiling; and their directors should also know, that he who first ordered the breaking of the roses to be performed
Cicer Venereum
with hands anointed with honey, knew there was a peculiar power in that substance of dissolving the best part of the rose, and making it mix with the oil.
WE see how things incapable of mixture by themselves are brought to it by the addition of some third substance, the yolk of an egg thus mixes turpentine and water; and the volatile alkalies mix water and oil: Honey has the same effect in mixing oil with the most perfect and effectual part of this flower. It is originally itself a vegetable substance, and has the quality of uniting the oleaginous and astringent parts of other vegetables.
WE see the path we are to follow if we would recover the advantages of bathing: we must pursue their steps who first discovered them. Our oil of roses wou'd act merely as fat: But this is something more. The unripe oil has its own austere quality, and by this repeated maceration it wou'd have all the astringency of that noble flower. We cannot well scent it with schaenanth, for the light flavour of that herb is lost in drying: but as they expected only a scent from this, we need not lament the loss: a very small quantity of winter's bark boil'd the same way wou'd answer its purpose; or the medicine wou'd have equal effect without it.
THUS we may supply ourselves with the plain and familiar oil used in the Grecian and Roman baths: and we may for the delicate or curious go much farther. Great Persons among them us'd on these occasions oils or unguents approaching to the nature of those imported from the Asiatics, for luxury. These were cordial as well as properly astringent: for it is certain cordials may in a certain degree, be conveyed by the scent.
AMONG their costly ointments, the principal were three: they took their names from spikenard, cinnamon, and saffron. The first and last of these were merely articles of luxury; but that which had its name from cinnamon, was an invention of Theophrastus; and he, who was too great and honest to encourage the follies of his countrymen, meant it for use after bathing. It long continued the first and most reputed unguent for that purpose. According to the accounts extant, concering it 'twas made thus.
Grind to a fine powder four ounces of the purest myrrh; add to this three ounces of thin honey, such as runs freely from the comb, rub these a long time together, adding some juice of the blossoms of the vine.
THESE flowers of the vine were what the old Greeks called aenanthe, and 'twas the plain sense of the word
. Some rash translators fancied they meant the plant which we call now aenanthe, the water dropwort. They made an unguent from rough oil and blossoms of the vine alone: but the most judicious prefer'd the
to that; and used those flowers only in this composition.
WHEN the myrrh honey and juice have been a long time worked together, add oil of the ben nut (this was the famous
) two quarts: mix these, and then stir in of costus and amomum, each one ounce, bruised, and schaenanth cut small, half an ounce; put in a pint of water, and boil the whole till the water is evaporated. Powder three ounces of choice cinnamon. Cover the sides and bottom of an earthen vessel with honey; put into it the powder of cinnamon, and then strain in the oil from the other ingredients. Expose this to the sun a month: then add one ounce of more cinnamon powdered; let it stand ten days longer, and then strain it off.
THIS with the common qualities of oil, had a sufficient astringency, and a cordial virtue. This the great persons among the Greeks used when they arose from the bath; and prepared for their evening entertainments: Their slaves rubbed it all over their bodies. It was expensive, but 'twas well worth the Price. The receipt here given is not any where entire; for it was among the lost works of Theophrastus; but we collect it piece meal among the inestimable remnants of antiquity. Dioscorides has an ointment of the same name, but it wants some of the original ingredients; and seems an imperfect receipt only of one of the luxurious unguents of the soft Asiaticks.
CHAP. VI.
Of the Use of the warm Bath in England, with the Grecian Ointments.
BEFORE we proceed to the other uses of warm bathing, let us consider what might be the benefit of the practice, with this assistance, in the most common cases.
COLDS are very frequent from the irregular weather of our climate: they are troublesome and painful in themselves; and they bring on three fourths of the other diseases. A warm bath will be a certain cure for these; and this ointment will prevent all danger.
LOWNESS OF SPIRITS is another national disorder. This rises often from repletion only; and this will be always cured as infallibly by the same practice.
HEAD-ACHS are almost as common; and often they are inveterate. We know, that placing the feet in warm water frequently cures them: a compleat warm bath wou'd do it always.
WE shall treat presently of those other disorders, which may be cured by warm bathing; the person being secured from danger by one of these ointments.
FOR the common purpose bagnio's must not be used, for there will be danger always in returning from them. The bath must be at home: and nothing is so easy. Let the bathing tub be large enough, let rain water be used; or if that cannot be had, any soft water; and let the person go into it between seven and eight in the evening.
HE should remain in it about twelve minutes; then let warm cloths be ready to wipe him dry, and with his own hands let him rub over his body with a little of one or the other of these ointments. This shou'd be the common practice; and for this use, the cinnamon ointment is most proper. Or when an extream cold, or a desperate head-ach require staying longer in the water, the rose oil shou'd be used.
AFTER rubbing with this, he shou'd put on easy and warm cloaths, and going into his dining-room, warmed by a good fire; wait there for supper.
IF there were only pleasure meant by this, it would be excellently worth the trouble; for the ease and refreshment which follow, are not to be described: chearfulness and a good appetite attend uon it; and there will be less danger even in too much wine, after this, than at any other time.
IF every gentleman in England wou'd thus far copy the manners of the Greeks and Romans, he would feel what he so often hears, that they were the happiest people in the world.
CHAP. VII.
Of the Use of the warm Baths, with the assistance of the Smegmata of the Greeks.
WHEN cutaneous diseases are to be cured by the warm bath, the first article is perfectly cleaning the skin; and to this purpose it is easy to add some ingredient to the water, which will assist. The Greeks, whom I would make our masters in this article, had many such, exceeding one another in power; which they used severally according to the obstinacy of the disorder. These they called smegmata: and to these it will be proper we have recourse for the same service. The mildest of them were the chaffy substance, separated from the pulse kinds, as bran from the flour of wheat. Of all the pulse kind, they prefer'd for this purpose the cicer or chich: this was their Erebinthos, so celebrated and so justly. We know the effect of bran; but this has much more. They seperated only a part of the meal from this, and beating up the husky remains into a paste, with a little water, they used this as soap. The person after he had been some time in the warm water, to soften the scurff and other foulness, rubbed himself gently with this paste of the chich bran, and letting it melt off with the water, washed himself, and then rubbed on more of it. Thus by degrees the foulness was got away. It was not the work of one day or of two, but they were contented to bring it on by slow degrees. After this had been done a week, or more, they began scraping the whole body while in the bath, with knives, whose blades were of gold. This perfected the cleansing of the surface, after the opening of the pores by the bath, as we shall shew in the next chapter.
WHEN this was not sufficient, they used also an alkaline salt. This has been little understood, for it was called an earth. There rises at this time upon the surface of the ground, a salt of the fixed alkaline kind, in many parts of the east: they have it about Smyrna now, and it is called soap earth, because it answers the purposes of soap; the principal ingredient of which is a fixed alkali.
A small quantity of this salt was dissolved in the water of the bath; and the chich bran was used as before, which with this assistance had double effect. It is the quality of the fixed alkaline salts to soften water, and a small quantity of some of them should always be added, when no sufficiently soft water can be had.
IT would be easy to obtain these Ingredients, tho' they are not at present in common use; and it would be highly proper: I wou'd recommend not only the sense and spirit of the Greek instruction, but the very letter. One alkaline salt may indeed serve this purpose, as well as another, for there is very little difference between them: but it is not so with regard to the farinaceous vegetable substances. A little pearl ashes may be used in the place of the soap earth, but we have nothing that will supply equally well the place of the cicer.
CHAP. VIII.
Of the Virtues of the Grecian Cicer.
THE mealy part of this pulse is the softest of all farinaceous powders; and the skins have not the harsh and husky nature of bran, or of the hulls of oatmeal; every one knows the rinds of corn are hard: the chich is of the pea kind, and its skin is naturally soft and tough. It mellows in the warm water, and becomes extremely fit for rubbing on the skin; and its emollient quality is lasting.
'TIS easy to be raised in our gardens; being as hardy as the common pea: and there is another virtue which it possesses in an eminent degree, and which should recommend it farther: It may be eaten as pease; and is the most strengthening of all foods. Its peculiar virtue is as a provocative to venery. This it does safely; not by stimulating the organs, but by supplying the juices, therefore the use of it is innocent, and the benefit is natural and lasting. Men whose desires outlived their faculties among the old Greeks, prolonged the season of delight by this pulse, many years: and if a greater instance may be given of its effects from their time to the present, it is in those countries where the use is known, and where it is given to stallions, when too much exhausted; and always with success. The old Greeks eat these Chiches stewed in gravy; they appeared at all general entertainments, and this was called the old man's dish. Young people were ashamed to be seen eating of it: they thought it acknowledged want of vigour.
THE fruit in the pod is sometimes white, sometimes red, and sometimes black; the red was always chosen for the table for this purpose, and it obtained among them the name CICER VENEREUM the POVOCATIVE CHICH. The seeds may be had with us: but as our people through ignorance or fraud, often sell lentills under their name, it will be proper to add a description and a figure of the plant, that those who wish to have the benefit of its virtues, may not be disappointed. It grows to eighteen inches high, with a weak, yet hard stalk: the leaves are of delicate pale green, and the flower is crimson; the pods are bloated and the seeds are red. If it be sown in April in a common kitchen garden, there will be many gatherings during summer; and if a quantity of the chiches be dried as we do pease for keeping, they will preserve all their virtue.
CHAP. VIX.
Of the medicated Baths of the Antients.
WHEN more was required from bathing than opening the pores and cleansing the skin, the antients used ingredients proper for the relief of persons in such particular cases, and made their baths, as has been observed before, a kind of general fomentations.
IN cases of cutaneous foulness, which did not yeld to single bathing, they infused the roots of
docks
and
figwort
in the water: where more softening was required, they had recourse to large quantities of mallows; and for extream weakness, they used myrtle. The wood of the Juniper was also famous baths for pains.
NOTHING can be plainer then the reasonableness of this practice: and it would be an honour to our physicians to introduce and recommend it. This is their province: the subject here is bathing in the general; and it wou'd be departing from the purpose to enter upon the medicinal additions for peculiar cases.
CHAP. X.
Of the Dangers which attend warm Bathing.
THE principal and most obvious of these is taking cold afterwards; which 'tis easy to avoid: But there are also particular constitutions with which the Practice will not agree; and some disorders in which 'tis hurtful. More is said of this by systematic writers than is true: but what experience seems to shew is this.
IN all hectic habits it is hurtful: in the jaundice it has been known to do mischief; and in the dropsy it would be madness to think of it; nor should it be used by any, even by those who are well, in times of contagious disorders.
THESE are the cases wherein the warm bath never should be employed; but with these exceptions it may be recommended generally.
THE cases wherein it may be serviceable, are many. Hysteric complaints will be cured by this without the help of medicines; and hypocondrical cases in men, as they are nearly allied to these in their symptoms, give way to the same remedy.
THERE is no headach but may be cured by it: and if it were more practised in England, we should hear of fewer apoplexies.
THE convulsive asthma, which mocks the common remedies, will be cured by this.
MORE has been said in favour of its efficacy: but thus much sure experience warrants. More may be true; and farther experience may hereafter equally confirm it: in the mean time this is enough to recommend the practice. Indeed if there were no other benefit to be received from it, the certain relief it affords in habitual headachs no one of which ever withstood it, were sufficient to authorize all here said in its favour.
CHAP. XI.
Of Cold Bathing.
THE cold bath, though of vast and various use, is a more limited subject: for the plain and simple plunging into cold water is all. Here need no ointments, nor no smegmata, the immediate action of the water upon the body is the whole; and there is no danger of cold afterwards.
YET even here there must be some caution: for whatsoever can do good, may also do harm; and generally the power of mischief is proportioned to that of advantage.
NOT only the physicians of antiquity recommended the cold bath; but all their rational authors, in whose way it came to mention the subject. The sea and rivers have been cold baths from all time: but those are better which are covered from the sun, and fed immediately from the living spring. The coldness is all, and therefore the more cold, certainly the better. They talk idly who call in mechanic principles, and measure the density of the atmosphere, and the pressure of the water. The immediate effect of plunging into cold water, is a sudden and violent contraction of the fibres: this may naturally produce all the great effects we find from the cold bath; and do the mischief also which we sometimes hear from its improper use. Reason is the best guide in matters of health; and when her doctrines are confirmed by experience, she is placed above the reach of error: Those who go farther fool themselves; and it were well if that were all, but where the doctor doats the patient dies.
'TIS certain that cold bathing gives relief in very many and desperate cases, where all medicines fail: nor is its power less in preventing others
WHICH of the various maladies, whereto this weak frame is subjected, do not arise from, or may not be aggravated by the effect of colds? These, cold bathing obviates entirely. It strengthens the whole body, and defends it from those injuries of the weather to which our fickle climate makes us subject hourly. 'Tis therefore a practic usefulevery where, yet in a manner appropriated here.
IN regard to particular cases, we see daily that pains and sickness, lowness of spirits, and the most dejecting weakness which oppress people who are accustomed to warm rooms and delicate management, are all cured by the cold bath; the person scarce believing that he is the same man. His mind seeming to have shared the advantage of his body; chearful good humour succeeding pining peevishness, and vigour faintness.
IN those discharges which remain after frequent or ill cured venereal disorders, there is nothing equal to the cold bath. Balsams and astringent electuaries, vomits, and styptic injections, have in many cases been used even years in vain; when a few days of this practice have made a perfect cure.
THAT miserable weakness which wastes the strength of some young men, from a different and less excuseable cause, which robs them at once of the enjoyments and advantages of marriage; and in the end often entails upon them epelipsies, is cured constantly and certainly by this: injecting the cold water after bathing.
WE know what cures, indeed what miracles are recorded of the famous PFEFFER WATER on the ALPS, a remedy for half the diseases to which men are subject: many have tried, and several among them who disbelieved; but they have found it true. The water of this celebrated cavern is clear and tasteless; nor could those who wondered at the cures which it performed, ever discover any ingredient in it, to which they should attribute them. The sagacious Scheukzer foil'd the famous Arabian, he found the water was mere water, and that cold bathing was the mystery. The place where this strange flood bursts from the rock assists; for 'tis so high upon the mountain, that the air itself is colder than below, and the spot where nature has provided the first reservoir of it is in a hollow, open to the coldest winds, but so defended to the Southward that the sun never shines into it.
TRUTH and plain reason therefore give to cold bathing, all the virtues of this famous spring; and they are no small addition to the received and certain number of the benefits of cold baths. Those who would know these perfectly must try: they need not visit the frozen Alps, nor any of the other famous fountains; spring water kept cold, will work as many wonders.
FINIS.