Alter the bathing, sweating between flannels is generally enjoined; but if we wish to employ it as a stimulus, a copious perspiration should not be too freely indulged. The contracted vessels should be excited to action, but their powers should not be exhausted.

Fomentations and embrocations are partial warm baths, and supposed to derive some virtue from their impregnations; but, in general, the heat and moisture, when the latter are used warm, are the most beneficial agents.

arm baths, impregnated with different medicinal substances, are said to derive, from these, peculiar advantages. The baths at Bath and at Harrowgate, we shall on a future occasion notice; and we must here speak only of those imitations which are within our reach. We know of no instance in which the waters of Bath have been imitated for external use. Those of Harrowgate have been prepared by adding sulphurated kali to water, in the proportion of two ounces to a sufficient quantity of fluid for a bath. They are chiefly used in cutaneous complaints, but we have had no experience of their efficacy.

An impregnation of warm water, though not an artificial one, is employed in warm sea water. This bath is supposed to be a more active stimulant than common water, and to be more useful, not only in palsy, but from the absorption of its salts in scrofulous complaints. We have reason to think that its powers are considerable; and it may be used at a low temperature in constitutions that cannot bear the shock of cold immersion, and in weak habits as a good preparative for sea bathing. The greater weight and pressure of salt water have been supposed to render it more useful as a bath, than fresh. It certainly is so; though, during the short immersion, we cannot easily perceive how any advantage can arise from its weight. In pumping, or pouring from a height, the momentum is certainly greater, and the advantages are proportionally increased.

Near smelting huts, it is not uncommon to impregnate baths with the scoriae of iron, and sometimes with the mixed slag of copper, cobalt, etc. The slags and scoriae are immersed in water while hot, or heated again for the purpose; and the baths thus prepared are supposed to be peculiarly useful as tonics. With a similar view, it has sometimes been a practice of boiling alum and quick lime together for a bath.

Scheutzer describes the pepper water of the Alps, which was formerly highly esteemed as a bath. It breaks out in a place almost inaccessible with great impetuosity in the spring, and continues till near October. The water, however, according to this author, contains no particular mineral.

The vapour bath conveys heat less speedily than water, but a greater heat can be borne, and for a longer period. This, in reality, was the warm bath of the Romans, as it is of the Swedes, Russians, and the native Americans; and it is probably more efficacious both as a relaxant and a stimulant. It is certain, that water in a vesicular state is more powerful in its hygro-metical affinity than when fluid; andsaussure, when he fixed the extreme point of moisture in his hygrometers in water, found that the index, in a fog, passed beyond it. This was our meaning when we remarked that man could live in air beyond the point of extreme humidity.

A bath of a different kind is that of warm sand or earth. The former is used by sailors in scurvy; the latter, we believe, has only been employed by quacks. We remember attending some experiments of this kind. A glowing heat was felt in the parts surrounded by the earth, but we remarked no peculiar change in the countenance that would lead us to suppose it a powerful remedy, and certainly no disease was relieved by it. The complaints to which it is apparently best adapted are cutaneous. See Edinb. Med. Comment. Decad. 2d vol. x. p. 153; also among the ancients, Hippocrates, Celsus, Coelius Aurelianus, Aretaeus, and Trallian; and among the moderns, Sir John Floyer, Dr. Wainwright on Bathing, and particularly Hoffman.

Balneum arenae. Balneum siccum. The sand bath.

Over the mouth of a common wind furnace place one end of an iron plate with a ledge round it, and under this plate the canal must run, by which the furnace communicates with its chimney; the plate must then be filled with sand or other dry matter for placing the medicines to be digested in. The heat from the fire will be different in different parts of the plate; and thus, as more or less warmth is required, different situations are chosen.

The vessel containing the matter to be heated hath its bottom and sides totally covered with the sand, and there it is continued until the digestion is completed.

Ashes may be used in this bath when a less heat is wanted, sand for a greater, and iron filing for the greatest. See Fornax.

Balneum mariae, vel maris. The sea water bath; which admits of greater heat than boiling water, though sometimes it implies this only. In this bath, water supplies the place of sand; and when a greater heat than that of boiling water is not required, this method of digestion is preferable to that by the sand bath, because the heat cannot exceed at any time that which is required.

Balneum siccum. See Balneum arenae.

Balneum vaporis. A vapour bath. This is, properly, when the vessel containing the matter to be digested is exposed only to the steam that arises from boiling water.