Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

The arrangements of the _thermae_ were mainly those of the balneae on a larger scale. Some idea of their size may be gathered from such facts as these, that in the baths of Diocletian one room has been transmuted into a church of most imposing proportions, and that the outside walls of the baths of Caracalla extend about a quarter of a mile on each of the four sides. A visit to the remains of the baths of Titus, of Diocletian, or of Caracalla impresses the mind strongly with a sense of the vast scale on which they were erected, and Ammianus's designation of them as provinces appears scarcely exaggerated. It is said that the baths of Caracalla contained 1600, and those of Diocletian 3200 marble seats for the use of the bathers. In the largest of the thermae there was a stadium for the games of the young men, with raised seats for the spectators. There were open colonnades and seats for philosophers and literary men to sit and discourse or read their productions aloud or for others to discuss the latest news. Near the porticoes, in the interior open space, rows of trees were planted. There was a _sphaeristerium_ or place for playing ball, which was often over the apodyterium; but it must be confessed that the purposes of many portions of these large edifices have not been made out in as satisfactory a way as those of smaller baths. A more definite idea of the thermae can be best got by an examination of the accompanying plan of the baths of Caracalla (fig. 5). A good deal of the plan is conjectural, the restorations being marked by lighter shading.

At the bottom of the plan is shown a long colonnade, which faces the
street, behind which was a series of chambers, supposed to have been
separate bathing-rooms. Entering by the opening in its centre, the
visitor passes what was probably an inner colonnade round the main
building. Passing in by either of the gates (2, 2), he reaches the
large chamber (3), which has been variously called the natatio or
large swimming-bath, or the tepidarium. The great central room (4) in
all probability was the calidarium, with two labra (6, 6) on opposite
sides, and with four alvei, one in each corner, represented by small
circular dots. (9) has been regarded by some as the laconicuim,
although it appears very large for that purpose. The rooms (15, 15)
have been variously described as baptisteria and as laconica. Most
authors are agreed in thinking that the large rooms (13) and (16) were
the sphaeristeria or places for playing ball.

Returning to the outside, (1) and (18) and the corresponding places on
the other side are supposed to have been the exedrae for philosophers,
and places corresponding to the Greek xysti. (20) and (19) have been
considered to be servants' rooms. (22) was the stadium, with raised
seats for the spectators. The space between this and the large central
hall (9) was planted with trees, and at (21) the aqueduct brought
water into the castellum or reservoir, which was on an upper storey.
There were upper storeys in most portions of the building, and in
these probably were the libraries and small theatres.

The piscinae were often of immense size--that of Diocletian being 200 ft. long--and were adorned with beautiful marbles. The halls were crowded with magnificent columns and were ornamented with the finest pieces of statuary. The walls, it has been said, were covered with exquisite mosaics that imitated the art of the painter in their elegance of design and variety of colour. The Egyptian syenite was encrusted with the precious green marbles of Numidia. The rooms contained the works of Phidias and Praxiteles. A perpetual stream of water was poured into capacious basins through the wide mouths of lions of bright and polished silver, water issued from silver, and was received on silver. "To such a pitch of luxury have we reached," says Seneca, "that we are dissatisfied if we do not tread on gems in our baths."

The richer Romans used every variety of oils and pomades (_smegmata_); they scarcely had true soaps. The poorer class had to be content with the flour of lentils, an article used at this day for the same purpose by Orientals. The most important bath utensil was the strigillus, a curved instrument made of metal, with which the skin was scraped and all sordes removed.

The bath servants assisted in anointing, in using the strigillus and in various other menial offices. The poorer classes had to use their strigils themselves. The various processes of the aliptae seem to have been carried on very systematically.

Ring on which are suspended some of the articles in use in the Alipterium]

The hot baths appear to have been open from 1 P.M. till dark. It was only one of the later emperors that had them lighted up at night. When the hot baths were ready (for, doubtless, the plunge baths were available at an earlier hour), a bell or _aes_ was rung for the information of the people. Among the Greeks and Romans the eighth hour, or 1 o'clock, before their dinner, was the commonest hour for bathing. The bath was supposed to promote appetite, and some voluptuaries had one or more baths after dinner, to enable them to begin eating again; but such excesses, as Juvenal tells us, occasionally proved fatal. Some of the most effeminate of the emperors are said to have bathed seven or eight times in the course of the day. In early times there was delicacy of feeling about the sexes bathing together--even a father could not bathe with his sons; but latterly, under most of the emperors, men and women often used the same baths. There frequently were separate baths for the women, as we see at Pompeii or at Badenweiler; but although respectable matrons would not go to public baths, promiscuous bathing was common during the Empire.

The public baths and thermae were under the more immediate superintendence of the aediles. The charge made at a public bath was only a quadrans or quarter of an as, about half a farthing. Yet cheap though this was, the emperors used to ingratiate themselves with the populace, by making the baths at times gratuitous.

Wherever the Romans settled, they built public baths; and wherever they found hot springs or natural stufae, they made use of them, thus saving the expense of heating, as at the _myrteta_ of Baiae or the _Aquae Sulis_ of Bath. In the cities there appear to have been private baths for hire, as well as the public baths; and every rich citizen had a set of baths attached to his villa, the fullest account of which is given in the _Letters_ of Pliny, or in Ausonius's _Account of a Villa on the Moselle_, or in Statius's _De Balneo Etrusco_. Although the Romans never wholly gave up cold bathing, and that practice was revived under Augustus by Antonius Musa, and again under Nero by Charmis (at which later time bathing in the open sea became common), yet they chiefly practised warm bathing (_calida lavatio_). This is the most luxurious kind of bathing, and when indulged in to excess is enervating. The women were particularly fond of these baths, and were accused, at all events in some provincial cities, of drunkenness in them.

The unbounded license of the public baths, and their connexion with modes of amusement that were condemned, led to their being to a considerable extent proscribed by the early Christians. The early Fathers wrote that bathing might be practised for the sake of cleanliness or of health, but not of pleasure; and Gregory the Great saw no objection to baths being used on Sunday. About the 5th century many of the large thermae in Rome fell into decay. The cutting off of the aqueducts by the Huns, and the gradual decrease of the population, contributed to this. Still it is doubtful whether bathing was ever disused to the extent that is usually represented. It was certainly kept up in the East in full vigour at Alexandria and at Brusa. Hot bathing, and especially hot air and vapour baths, were adopted by the Mahommedans; and the Arabs brought them with them into Spain. The Turks, at a later time, carried them high up the Danube, and the Mahommedans spread or, it may be more correct to say, revived their use in Persia and in Hindustan. The Crusaders also contributed to the spread of baths in Europe, and hot vapour baths were specially recommended for the leprosy so prevalent in those days. After the commencement of the 13th century there were few large cities in Europe without hot vapour baths. We have full accounts of their regulations--how the Jews were only allowed to visit them once a week, and how there were separate baths for lepers. In England they were called hothouses. Erasmus, at the date of the Reformation, spoke of them as common in France, Germany and Belgium; he gives a lively account of the mixture of all classes of people to be found in them, and would imply that they were a common adjunct to inns. They seem after a time to have become less common, though Montaigne mentions them as being still in Rome in his day. In England the next revival of baths was at the close of the 17th century, under the Eastern name of _Hummums_ or the Italian name of Bagnios. These were avowedly on the principle of the Turkish baths described below. But there were several considerable epochs in the history of baths, one in the commencement of the 18th century, when Floyer and others recalled attention to cold bathing, of which the virtues had long been overlooked. In the middle of the century also, Russell and others revived sea-bathing in England, and were followed by others on the continent, until the value of sea-bathing became fully appreciated. Later in the same century the experiments of James Currie on the action of complete or of partial baths on the system in disease attracted attention; and though forgotten for a while, they bore abundant fruit in more recent times.

_Modern Baths._--It is uncertain how far the Turkish and Egyptian and even the Russian baths are to be regarded merely as successors of the Roman baths, because the principle of vapour baths has been known to many nations in a very early period of civilization. Thus the Mexicans and Indians were found using small vapour baths. The ancient inhabitants of Ireland and of Scotland had some notion of their use, and the large vapour baths of Japan, now so extensively employed, are probably of independent origin.

The following accounts of Turkish and Russian baths illustrate the practices of the ancient Roman and also of modern Turkish baths. In Lane's _On the Modern Egyptians_ we read: "The building consists of several apartments, all of which are paved with marble, chiefly white. The inner apartments are covered with domes, which have a number of small glazed apertures for the admission of light. The bather, on entering, if he has a watch or purse, gives them in charge to the keeper of the bath. The servant of the bath takes off his shoes and supplies him with a pair of wooden clogs. The first apartment has generally three or four _leewans_ (raised parts of the floor used as couches) cased with marble, and a fountain of cold water, which rises from an octagonal basement in the centre. One of the leewans, which is meant for the higher classes, is furnished with cushions or mats. In warm weather bathers usually undress in this room; in winter they undress in an inner room, called the _beytowwal_ or first chamber, between which and the last apartment there is a passage often with two or three latrines off it. This is the first of the heated chambers. It generally has two raised seats. The bather receives a napkin in which to put his clothes and another to put round his waist--this reaches to the knees; a third, if he requires it, is brought him to wind round his head, leaving the top of it bare; a fourth to put over his chest; and a fifth to cover his back. When the bather has undressed, the attendant opens to him the door of the inner and principal apartment. This in general has four leewans, which gives it the form of a cross, and in the centre a fountain of hot water rises from a small shallow basin. The centre room, with the adjoining ones, forms almost a square. The beytowwal already mentioned is one of them. Two small chambers which adjoin each other, one containing a tank of hot water, the other containing a trough, over which are two taps, one of hot and one of cold water, occupy the two other angles; while the fourth angle of the square is occupied by the chamber which contains the fire, over which is the boiler. The bather having entered this apartment soon perspires profusely from the humid heat which is produced by the hot water of tanks and fountains, and by the steam of the boiler. The bather sits on one of the marble seats, or lies on the leewan or near one of the tanks, and the operator then commences his work. The operator first cracks aloud every joint in the body. He makes the vertebrae of the back and even of the neck crack. The limbs are twisted with apparent violence, but so skilfully, that no harm is ever done. The operator next kneads the patient's flesh. After this he rubs the soles of the feet with a kind of rasp of baked clay. There are two kinds of rasps, one porous and rough, one of fine smooth clay. Those used by ladies are usually encased in thin embossed silver. The next operation is rubbing the bather's flesh with a small coarse woollen bag, after which the bather dips himself in one of the tanks. He is next taken to one of the chambers in the corner, and the operator lathers the bather with fibres of the palm tree, soap and water. The soap is then washed off with water, when the bather having finished washing, and enveloped himself in dry towels, returns to the beytowwal and reclines. Here he generally remains an hour to an hour and a half, sipping coffee and smoking, while an attendant rubs the soles of the feet and kneads the body and limbs. The bather then dresses and goes out."

The following description of a Russian bath is from Kohl's _Russia_ (1842): "The passage from the door is divided into two behind the check-taker's post, one for the male, one for the female guests. We first enter an open space, in which a set of men are sitting in a state of nudity on benches, those who have already bathed dressing, while those who are going to undergo the process take off their clothes. Round this space or apartment are the doors leading to the vapour-rooms. The bather is ushered into them, and finds himself in a room full of vapour, which is surrounded by a wooden platform rising in steps to near the roof of the room. The bather is made to lie down on one of the lower benches, and gradually to ascend to the higher and hotter ones. The first sensation on entering the room amounts almost to a feeling of suffocation. After you have been subjected for some time to a temperature which may rise to 145 deg. the transpiration reaches its full activity, and the sensation is very pleasant. The bath attendants come and flog you with birchen twigs, cover you with the lather of soap, afterwards rub it off, and then hold you over a jet of ice-cold water. The shock is great, but is followed by a pleasant feeling of great comfort and of alleviation of any rheumatic pains you may have had. In regular establishments you go after this and lie down on a bed for a time before issuing forth. But the Russians often dress in the open air, and instead of using the jet of cold water, go and roll themselves at once in the snow."

Turkish baths have, with various modifications, become popular in Europe. The Russian baths were introduced into German towns about 1825. They had a certain limited amount of popularity, but did not take firm root. Another class practically owes its origin to Dr Barter and David Urquhart. It professed to be founded on the Turkish bath, but in reality it was much more of a hot air bath, i.e. more devoid of vapour than either Roman or Turkish baths ever were, for it is doubtful whether in any case the air of the laconicum was free from vapour. These baths, with their various modifications, have become extremely popular in Great Britain, in Germany and in northern Europe, but have, curiously enough, never been used extensively in France, notwithstanding the familiarity of the French with Turkish baths in Algiers.

In England hot air baths are now employed very extensively. They are often associated with Turkish and electric baths.

Bathing among the ancients was practised in various forms. It was sometimes a simple bath in cold or in tepid water; but at least, in the case of the higher orders, it usually included a hot air or vapour bath, and was followed by affusion of cold or warm water, and generally by a plunge into the piscina. In like manner the order varies in which the different processes are gone through in Turkish baths in modern Europe. Thus in the baths in Vienna, the process begins by immersion in a large basin of warm water. Sudation is repeatedly interrupted by cold douches at the will of the bathers, and after the bath they are satisfied with a short stay in the cooling-room, where they have only a simple sheet rolled round them. In Copenhagen and in Stockholm the Oriental baths have been considerably modified by their association with hydropathic practices.

This leads us to notice the introduction of the curiously misnamed system known as hydropathy (q.v.). Although cold baths were in vogue for a time in Rome, warm baths were always more popular. Floyer, as we have seen, did something to revive their use in England; but it was nearly a century and a half afterwards that a Silesian peasant, Priessnitz, introduced, with wonderful success, a variety of operations with cold water, the most important of which was the packing the patient in a wet sheet, a process which after a time is followed by profuse sudation. Large establishments for carrying out this mode of bathing and its modifications were erected in many places on the continent and in Great Britain, and enjoyed at one time a large share of popularity. The name "hydropathic" is still retained for these establishments, though hydropathy so-called is no longer practised within them to any extent.

But the greatest and most important development of ordinary baths in modern times was in England, though it has extended gradually to some parts of the continent. The English had long used affusion and swimming-baths freely in India. Cold and hot baths and shower baths have been introduced into private houses to an extent never known before; and, since 1842, public swimming-baths, besides separate baths, have been supplied to the public at very moderate rates, in some cases associated with wash-houses for the poorer classes. Their number has increased rapidly in London and in the principal continental cities. Floating-baths in rivers, always known in some German towns, have become common wherever there are flowing streams. The better supply of most European cities with water has aided in this movement. Ample enclosed swimming-baths have been erected at many seaside places. When required, the water, if not heated in a boiler, is raised to a sufficient temperature by the aid of hot water pipes or of steam. Separate baths used to be of wood, painted; they are now most frequently of metal, painted or lined with porcelain enamel. The swimming-baths are lined with cement, tiles or marble and porcelain slabs; and a good deal of ornamentation and painting of the walls and ceiling of the apartments, in imitation of the ancients, has been attempted.

We have thus traced in outline the history of baths through successive ages. The medium of the baths spoken of thus far has been water, vapour or dry hot air. But baths of more complex nature, and of the greatest variety, have been in use from the earliest ages. The best known media are the various mineral waters and sea-water. Of baths of _mineral_ substances, those of sand are the oldest and best known; the practice of _arenation_ or of burying the body in the sand of the sea-shore, or in heated sand near some hot spring, is very ancient, as also that of applying heated sand to various parts of the body. Baths of _peat_ earth are of comparatively recent origin. The peat earth is carefully prepared and pulverized, and then worked up with water into a pasty consistence, of which the temperature can be regulated before the patient immerses himself in it.

There are various terms that may be termed _chemical_, in which chlorine or hydrochloric acid is added to the water of the bath, or where fumes of sulphur are made to rise and envelop the body.

Of _vegetable_ baths the number is very large. Lees of wine, in a state of fermentation, have been employed. An immense variety of aromatic herbs have been used to impregnate water with. At one time fuci or sea-weed were added to baths, under the idea of conveying into the system the iodine which they contain; but by far the most popular of all vegetable baths are those made with an extract got by distilling certain varieties of pine leaves.

The strangeness of the baths of _animal_ substances, that have been at various times in use, is such that their employment seems scarcely credible. That baths of milk or of whey might be not unpopular is not surprising, but baths of blood, in some cases even of human blood, have been used; and baths of horse dung were for many ages in high favour, and were even succeeded for a short time by baths of guano.

_Electrical_ baths are now largely used, a current being passed through the water; and electrical _massage_, by the d'Arsonval or other system, is colloquially termed a "bath."

Baths also of _compressed air_, in which the patient is subjected to the pressure of two or three atmospheres, were formerly employed in some places.

A _sun_ bath (_insolatio_ or _heliosis_), exposing the body to the sun, the head being covered, was a favourite practice among the Greeks and Romans.

Some special devices require a few words of explanation.

_Douches_ were used by the ancients, and have always been an important mode of applying water to a circumscribed portion of the body. They are, in fact, spouts of water, varying in size and temperature, applied by a hose-pipe with more or less force for a longer or shorter time against particular parts. A douche exercises a certain amount of friction, and a continued impulse on the spot to which it is applied, which stimulate the skin and the parts beneath it, quickening the capillary circulation. The effects of the douche are so powerful that it cannot be applied for more than a few minutes continuously. The alternation of hot and cold douches, which for some unknown reason has got the name of _Ecossaise_, is a very potent type of bath from the strong action and reaction which it produces. The _shower_ bath may be regarded as a union of an immense number of fine douches projected on the head and shoulders. It produces a strong effect on the nervous system. An ingenious contrivance for giving circular _spray_ baths, by which water is propelled laterally in fine streams against every portion of the surface of the body, is now common.

To all these modes of acting on the cutaneous surface and circulation must be added dry rubbing, as practised by the patient with the flesh glove, but much more thoroughly by the bath attendants, if properly instructed (see also MASSAGE).

_Action of Baths on the Human System._--The primary operation of baths is the action of heat and cold on the cutaneous surfaces through the medium of water.

The first purpose of baths is simply that of abstersion and cleanliness, to remove any foreign impurity from the surface, and to prevent the pores from being clogged by their own secretions or by desquamations of cuticle. It need scarcely be said that such objects are greatly promoted by the action of the alkali of soaps and by friction; that the use of warm water, owing to its immediate stimulation of the skin, promotes the separation of sordes, and that the vapour of water is still more efficient than water itself.

It has been supposed that water acts on the system by being absorbed through the skin, but, under ordinary circumstances, no water is absorbed, or, if any, so minute a quantity as not to be worth considering. No dissolved substances, under the ordinary circumstances of a bath, are actually absorbed into the system; although when a portion of skin has been entirely cleared of its sebaceous secretion, it is possible that a strong solution of salts may be partially absorbed. In the case of medicated baths we therefore only look (in addition to the action of heat and cold, or more properly to the abstraction or communication and retention of heat) to any stimulant action on the skin that the ingredients of the bath may possess.

The powerful influence of water on the capillaries of the skin, and the mode and extent of that operation, depend primarily on the temperature of the fluid. The human system bears changes of temperature of the air much better than changes of the temperature of water. While the temperature of the air at 75 deg. may be too warm for the feelings of many people, a continued bath at that temperature is felt to be cold and depressing. Again, a bath of 98 deg. to 102 deg. acts far more excitingly than air of the same temperature, both because, being a better conductor, water brings more heat to the body and because it suppresses the perspiration which is greatly augmented by air of that temperature. Further, a temperature a few degrees below blood heat is that of indifferent baths, which can be borne longest without natural disturbance of the system.

_Cold baths_ act by refrigeration, and their effects vary according to the degree of temperature. The effects of a cold bath, the temperature not being below 50 deg., are these:--there is a diminution of the temperature of the skin and of the subjacent tissues; there is a certain feeling of shock diffused over the whole surface, and if the cold is intense it induces a slight feeling of numbness in the skin. It becomes pale and its capillaries contract. The further action of a cold bath reaches the central nervous system, the heart and the lungs, as manifested by the tremor of the limbs it produces, along with a certain degree of oppression of the chest and a gasping for air, while the pulse becomes small and sinks. After a time reaction takes place, and brings redness to the skin and an increase of temperature.

The colder the water is, and the more powerful and depressing its effects, the quicker and more active is the reaction. Very cold baths, anything below 50 deg., cannot be borne long. Lowering of the temperature of the skin may be borne down to 9 deg., but a further reduction may prove fatal. The diminution of temperature is much more rapid when the water is in motion, or when the bather moves about; because, if the water is still, the layer of it in immediate contact with the body is warmed to a certain degree.

A great deal depends on the form of the cold bath; thus one may have--(1) Its depressing operation,--with a loss of heat, retardation of the circulation, and feeling of weariness, when the same water remains in contact with the skin, and there is continuous withdrawal of heat without fresh stimulation. This occurs with full or sitz baths, with partial or complete wrapping up the body in a wet sheet which remains unchanged, and with frictions practised without removing the wet sheets. (2) Its exciting operation,--with quickening of the action of the heart and lungs, and feeling of glow and of nervous excitement and of increased muscular power. These sensations are produced when the layer of water next the body and heated by it is removed, and fresh cold water causes fresh stimulus. These effects are produced by full baths with the water in motion used only for a short time, by frictions when the wet sheet is removed from the body, by douches, shower baths, bathing in rivers, &c. The depressing operation comes on much earlier in very cold water than in warmer; and in the same way the exciting operation comes on faster with the colder than with the warmer water. The short duration of the bath makes both its depressing and its exciting action less; its longer duration increases them; and if the baths be continued too long, the protracted abstraction of animal heat may prove very depressing.

_Tepid baths_, 85 deg. to 95 deg.--The effects of a bath of this temperature are confined to the peripheral extremities of the nerves, and are so slight that they do not reach the central system. There is no reaction, and the body temperature remains unchanged. Baths of this kind can be borne for hours with impunity.

_Warm baths_ from 96 deg. to 104 deg.--In these the action of the heat on the peripheral surface is propagated to the central system, and causes reaction, which manifests itself in moderately increased flow of the blood to the surface, and in an increased frequency of pulse.

With a _hot bath_ from 102 deg. up to 110 deg. the central nervous and circulating systems are more affected. The frequency of the pulse increases rapidly, the respiration becomes quickened, and is interrupted by deep inspirations. The skin is congested, and there is profuse perspiration.

_Very hot baths._--Everything above 110 deg. feels very hot; anything above 120 deg. almost scalding. Baths of from 119 deg. to 126 deg. have caused a rise of 2 deg. to 4-1/2 deg. in the temperature of the blood. Such a bath can be borne for only a few minutes. It causes great rapidity of the pulse, extreme lowering of the blood-pressure, excessive congestion of the skin, and violent perspiration.

In the use of hot baths a certain amount of vapour reaches the parts of the body not covered by the water, and is also inhaled.

_Vapour_ baths produce profuse perspiration and act in cleansing the skin, as powerful hot water baths do. Vapour, owing to its smaller specific heat, does not act so fast as water on the body. A vapour bath can be borne for a much longer time when the vapour is not inhaled. Vapour baths can be borne hotter than water baths, but cannot be continued too long, as vapour, being a bad conductor, prevents radiation of heat from the body. A higher heat than 122 deg. is not borne comfortably. The vapour bath though falling considerably short of the temperature of the hot air bath, raises the temperature much more.

_Hot air_ baths differ from vapour baths in not impeding the respiration as the latter do, by depositing moisture in the bronchial tubes. The lungs, instead of having to heat the inspired air, are subjected to a temperature above their own. Hot air baths, say of 135 deg., produce more profuse perspiration than vapour baths. If very hot, they raise the temperature of the body by several degrees. Vapour baths, hot air baths, and hot water baths agree in producing violent perspiration. As perspiration eliminates water and effete matter from the system, it is obvious that its regulation must have an important effect on the economy.

In comparing the general effects of cold and hot baths, it may be said that while the former tend to check perspiration, the latter favour it.

The warm bath causes swelling and congestion of the capillaries of the surface in the first instance; when the stimulus of heat is withdrawn their contraction ensues. A cold bath, again, first causes a contraction of the capillaries of the surface, which is followed by their expansion when reaction sets in. A warm bath elevates the temperature of the body, both by bringing a supply of heat to it and by preventing the radiation of heat from it. It can be borne longer than a cold bath. It draws blood to the surface, while a cold bath favours internal congestions.

But baths often produce injurious effects when used injudiciously. Long continued warm baths are soporific, and have, owing to this action, often caused death by drowning. The effects of very hot baths are swimming in the head, vomiting, fainting, congestion of the brain, and, in some instances, apoplexy.

The symptoms seem to point to paralysis of the action of the heart. It is therefore very evident how cautious those should be, in the use of hot baths, who have weak hearts or any obstruction to the circulation. Fat men, and those in whom the heart or blood-vessels are unsound, should avoid them. Protracted indulgence in warm baths is relaxing, and has been esteemed a sign of effeminacy in all ages. Sleepiness, though it will not follow the first immersion in a cold bath, is one of the effects of protracted cold baths; depression of the temperature of the surface becomes dangerous. The risk in cold baths is congestion of the internal organs, as often indicated by the lips getting blue. Extremely cold baths are always dangerous.

For the medical use of baths see BALNEOTHERAPEUTICS.

_Public Baths._--It was not till 1846 that it was deemed advisable in England, for the "health, comfort, and welfare" of the inhabitants of towns and populous districts, to encourage the establishment therein of baths by the local authority acting through commissioners. A series of statutes, known collectively as "The Baths and Wash-houses Acts 1846 to 1896," followed. By the Public Health Act 1875, the urban authority was declared to be the authority having power to adopt and proceed under the previous acts, and in 1878 provision was for the first time expressly made for the establishment of swimming baths, which might be used during the winter as gymnasia, and by an amending act of 1899, for music or dancing, provided a licence is obtained. By the Local Government Act 1894, it was provided that the parish meeting should be the authority having exclusive power of adopting the Baths and Wash-houses Acts in rural districts, which should, if adopted, be carried into effect by the parish council. Up to 1865 it seems as if only twenty-five boroughs had cared to provide bathing accommodation for their inhabitants. There is no complete information as to the number of authorities who have adopted the acts since 1865, but a return of reproductive undertakings presented to the House of Commons in 1899 shows that no local authorities outside the metropolis applied for power to raise loans to provide baths, of whom 48 applied before 1875 and 62 after 1875. In the year 1907 the loans sanctioned for the purpose amounted to L53,026. The revenues of parish councils are so limited that it has not been possible for them to take much advantage of the acts. In the metropolis, by the Local Government Act of 1894, the power of working the act was given to vestries, and by the act of 1899 this power was transferred to the borough councils. There are 35 parishes in London in which the acts have been adopted, all of which except 11 have taken action since 1875. These establishments, according to the return made in 1908, provided 3502 private baths and 104 swimming baths. The maximum charge for a second-class cold bath is 1d., for a hot bath 2d. In 1904-1905 the number of bathers was 6,342,158, of whom 3,064,998 were bathers in private baths and 3,277,160 bathers in swimming baths. In 1896-1897 the gross total had been only 2,000,000. In cases where the proportion between the sexes has been worked out, it is found that only 18% of the users of private baths, and 10% of the users of swimming baths, are females. In 1898 the School Board was authorized to pay the fees for children using the baths if instruction in swimming were provided, and in 1907-1908 the privilege was used by 1,556,542 children. The cost of this public provision in London--water being supplied by measure--is over L80,000 a year. No account can be given of the numbers using the ponds and lakes in the parks and open spaces, but it is computed that on a hot Sunday 25,000 people bathe in Victoria Park, London, some of the bathers starting as early as four o'clock in the morning. These returns show how great is the increase of the habit of bathing, but they also show how even now the habit is limited to a comparatively small part of the population. People require to be tempted to the use of water, at any rate at the beginning. There are still authorities in London responsible for 800,000 persons who have provided no baths, and those who have made provision have not always done so in a sufficiently liberal and tempting way. The comparison between English great towns and those of the continent is not in favour of the former.

For the literature of baths in earlier periods we may refer to the
_Architecture_ of Vitruvius, and to Lucian's _Hippias_; see art.
"Bader" in Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopadie_ (1896), by A. Mau;
"Balneum" in Daremberg and Saglio, _Dict. des antiquites_ J. Marquardt
_Das Privalleben der Romer_ (1886), pp. 269-297; Backer's _Gallus_,
and the article "Balneae" by Rich, in Dr Smith's _Dictionary of Greek
and Roman Antiquities_ (rev. ed. 1890); also the bibliography to
HYDROPATHY.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The figure represents four strigils, in which the hollow for
collecting the oil or perspiration from the body may be observed.
There is also a small ampulla or vessel containing oil, meant to keep
the strigils smooth, and a small flat patera or drinking vessel out
of which it was customary to drink after the bathing was finished.

BATHURST, EARLS. ALLEN BATHURST, 1st Earl Bathurst (1684-1775), was the eldest son of Sir Benjamin Bathurst (d. 1704), by his wife, Frances (d. 1727), daughter of Sir Allen Apsley of Apsley, Sussex, and belonged to a family which is said to have settled in Sussex before the Norman Conquest. He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, and became member of parliament for Cirencester in May 1705, retaining his seat until December 1711, when he was created Baron Bathurst of Battlesden, Bedfordshire. As a zealous Tory he defended Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, and in the House of Lords was an opponent of Sir Robert Walpole. After Walpole left office in 1742 he was made a privy councillor, and in August 1772 was created Earl Bathurst, having previously received a pension of L2000 a year chargeable upon the Irish revenues. He died on the 16th of September 1775, and was buried in Cirencester church. In July 1704 Bathurst married his cousin, Catherine (d. 1768), daughter of Sir Peter Apsley, by whom he had four sons and five daughters. The earl associated with the poets and scholars of the time. Pope, Swift, Prior, Sterne, and Congreve were among his friends. He is described in Sterne's _Letters to Eliza_; was the subject of a graceful reference on the part of Burke speaking in the House of Commons; and the letters which passed between him and Pope are published in Pope's _Works_, vol. viii. (London, 1872).

HENRY, 2nd Earl Bathurst (1714-1794), was the eldest surviving son of the 1st earl. Educated at Balliol College, Oxford, he was called to the bar, and became a K.C. in 1745. In April 1735 he had been elected member of parliament for Cirencester, and was rewarded for his opposition to the government by being made solicitor-general and then attorney-general to Frederick, prince of Wales. Resigning his seat in parliament in April 1754 he was made a judge of the court of common pleas in the following month, and became lord high chancellor in January 1771, when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Apsley. Having become Earl Bathurst by his father's death in September 1775, he resigned his office somewhat unwillingly in July 1778 to enable Thurlow to join the cabinet of Lord North. In November 1779 he was appointed lord president of the council, and left office with North in March 1782. He died at Oakley Grove near Cirencester on the 6th of August 1794. Bathurst was twice married, and left two sons and four daughters. He was a weak lord chancellor, but appears to have been just and fair in his distribution of patronage.

HENRY, 3rd Earl Bathurst (1762-1834), the elder son of the second earl, was born on the 22nd of May 1762. In April 1789 he married Georgiana (d. 1841), daughter of Lord George Henry Lennox, and was member of parliament for Cirencester from 1783 until he succeeded to the earldom in August 1794. Owing mainly to his friendship with William Pitt, he was a lord of the admiralty from 1783 to 1789; a lord of the treasury from 1789 to 1791; and commissioner of the board of control from 1793 to 1802. Returning to office with Pitt in May 1804 he became master of the mint, and was president of the Board of Trade and master of the mint during the ministries of the duke of Portland and Spencer Perceval, only vacating these posts in June 1812 to become secretary for war and the colonies under the earl of Liverpool. For two months during the year 1809 he was in charge of the foreign office. He was secretary for war and the colonies until Liverpool resigned in April 1827; and deserves some credit for improving the conduct of the Peninsular War, while it was his duty to defend the government concerning its treatment of Napoleon Bonaparte. Bathurst's official position caused his name to be mentioned frequently during the agitation for the abolition of slavery, and with regard to this traffic he seems to have been animated by a humane spirit. He was lord president of the council in the government of the duke of Wellington from 1828 to 1830, and favoured the removal of the disabilities of Roman Catholics, but was a sturdy opponent of the reform bill of 1832. The earl, who had four sons and two daughters, died on the 27th of July 1834. Bathurst was made a knight of the Garter in 1817, and held several lucrative sinecures.

His eldest son, HENRY GEORGE, 4th Earl Bathurst (1790-1866), was member of parliament for Cirencester from 1812 to 1834. He died unmarried on the 25th of May 1866, and was succeeded in the title by his brother, WILLIAM LENNOX, 5th Earl Bathurst (1791-1878), member of parliament for Weobley from 1812 to 1816, and clerk of the privy council from 1827 to 1860, who died unmarried on the 24th of February 1878.

ALLEN ALEXANDER. 6th Earl Bathurst (1832-1892), was the son of Thomas Seymour Bathurst, and grandson of the 3rd earl. He was member of parliament for Cirencester from 1857 until he became Earl Bathurst in February 1878, and died on the 2nd of August 1892, when his eldest son, SEYMOUR HENRY (b. 1864), became 7th Earl Bathurst.

BATHURST, a city of Bathurst county, New South Wales, Australia, 144 m. by rail W.N.W. of Sydney on the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 9223. It is situated on the south bank of the Macquarie river, at an elevation of 2153 ft., in a fertile undulating plain on the west side of the Blue Mountains. Bathurst has broad streets,, crossing one another at right angles, with a handsome park in the centre of the town, while many of the public buildings, specially the town hall, government buildings, and Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals, are noteworthy. Bathurst is the centre of the chief wheat-growing district of New South Wales, while gold, copper and silver are extensively mined in its vicinity. There are railway works, coach factories, tanneries, breweries, flour-mills and manufactures of boots and shoes and other commodities. The town was founded in 1815 by Governor Macquarie, taking its name from the 3rd Earl Bathurst, then secretary of state for the colonies, and it has been a municipality since 1862.

BATHVILLITE, a naturally occurring organic substance. It is an amorphous, opaque, and very friable material of fawn-brown colour, filling cavities in the torbanite or Boghead coal of Bathville, Scotland. It has a specific gravity of 1.01, and is insoluble in benzene.

BATHYBIUS ([Greek: bathis], deep, and [Greek: bios], life), a slimy substance at one time supposed to exist in great masses in the depths of the ocean and to consist of undifferentiated protoplasm. Regarding it as an organism which represented the simplest form of life, Huxley about 1868 named it _Bathybius Haeckelii_. But investigations carried out in connexion with the "Challenger" expedition indicated that it was an artificial product, composed of a flocculent precipitate of gypsum thrown down from sea-water by alcohol, and the hypothesis of its organic character was abandoned by most biologists, Huxley included.

BATHYCLES, an Ionian sculptor of Magnesia, was commissioned by the Spartans to make a marble throne for the statue of Apollo at Amyclae, about 550 B.C. Pausanias (iii. 18) gives us a detailed description of this monument, which is of the greatest value to us, showing the character of Ionic art at the time. It was adorned with scenes from mythology in relief and supporting figures in the round.

For a reconstruction, see Furtwangler, _Meisterwerke der griech
Plastik_, p. 706.

BATLEY, a municipal borough in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, within the parliamentary borough of Dewsbury, 8 m. S.S.W. of Leeds, on the Great Northern, London & North Western, and Lancashire & Yorkshire railways. Pop. (1900) 30,321. Area 2039 acres. The church of All Saints is mainly Perpendicular, and contains some fine woodwork, mostly of the 17th century, and some good memorial tombs. The market square contains an excellent group of modern buildings, including the town hall, public library, post office and others. The town is a centre of the heavy woollen trade, and has extensive manufactures of army cloths, pilot cloths, druggets, flushings, &c. The working up of old material as "shoddy" is largely carried on. There are also iron foundries, manufactures of machinery, and stone quarries. The town lies on the south-west Yorkshire coalfield, and there are a number of collieries in the district. The borough is governed by a mayor, six aldermen, and eighteen councillors.

BATON (Fr. _baton_, _baston_, from Late Lat. _basto_, a stick or staff), the truncheon carried by a field marshal as a sign of authority, by a police constable, &c.; in music, the stick with which the conductor of an orchestra beats time; in heraldry, the fourth part of a bend, frequently broken off short at the ends so as to be shaped like a rod; in English coats of arms, only as a mark of illegitimacy, the "baton sinister."

BATONI, POMPEO GIROLAMO (1708-1787), Italian painter, was born at Lucca. He was regarded in Italy as a great painter in the 18th century, and unquestionably did much to rescue the art from the intense mannerism into which it had fallen during the preceding century. His paintings, however, are not of the highest order of merit, though they are generally graceful, well designed, and harmoniously coloured. His best production is thought to be his group of "Peace and War." Batoni painted an unusual number of pictures, and was also celebrated for his portraits.

BATON ROUGE, the capital of Louisiana, U.S.A., and of East Baton Rouge parish, on the E. bank of the Mississippi river, about 70 m. N.W. of New Orleans. Pop. (1890) 10,478; (1900) 11,269, of whom 6596 were of negro descent; (1910 census) 14,897. It is served by the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railway and by the Louisiana Railway & Navigation Company; and the Texas & Pacific enters Port Alien, just across the river. The city lies on the river bluff, secure against the highest floods. Old houses in the Spanish style give quaintness to its appearance. The state capitol was built in 1880-1882, replacing another burned in 1862. At Baton Rouge is the State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College (1860), of which the Audubon Sugar School, "for the highest scientific training in the growing of sugar cane and in the technology of sugar manufacture," is an important and distinctive feature. The university grew out of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy, founded in 1855 near Alexandria and opened in 1860 under the charge of W.T. Sherman. In 1869 the institution was removed to Baton Rouge, and in 1877 it was united with the Agricultural and Mechanical College, established in 1873 and in 1874 opened at New Orleans. The campus of the university is the former barracks of the Baton Rouge garrison, occupied by the college since 1886 and transferred to it by the Federal government in 1902. The enrolment of the university in 1907-1908 was 636. Other important institutions at Baton Rouge are a State Agricultural Experiment Station, asylums and schools for the deaf and dumb, for the blind, and for orphans, and the state penitentiary. The surrounding bluff and alluvial country is very rich. Sugar and cotton plantations and sub-tropic fruit orchards occupy the front-lands on the river. The manufactures include lumber and cotton seed products, and sugar. The value of the city's factory products increased from $717,368 in 1900 to $1,383,061 in 1905 or 92.8%. The city is governed under a charter granted by the legislature in 1898. This charter is peculiar in that it gives to the city council the power to elect various administrative boards--of police, finance, &c.--from which the legislative council of most cities is separated.

Baton Rouge was one of the earliest French settlements in the state. As a part of West Florida, it passed into the hands of the British in 1763, and in 1779 was captured by Bernardo Galvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana. The town was incorporated in 1817. In 1849 it was made the state capital, remaining so until 1862, when Shreveport became the Confederate state capital. In 1864 the Unionists made New Orleans the seat of government. The Secession Ordinance of Louisiana was passed on the 26th of January 1861 by a convention that met at Baton Rouge. On the and of May 1862 the city was captured by the forces of the United States under Col. Benjamin H. Grierson (b. 1826), who had led raiders thither from Tennessee; on the 12th of May it was formally occupied by troops from New Orleans, and was successfully defended by Brig.-Gen. Thomas Williams (1815-1862) against an attack by Confederate forces under General John C. Breckinridge on the 5th of August 1862; Gen. Williams, however, was killed during the attack. Baton Rouge was soon abandoned for a month, was then reoccupied, and was held throughout the rest of the war. It became the state capital again in 1882, in accordance with the state constitution of 1879. For several years after 1840 Zachary Taylor made his home on a plantation near Baton Rouge.