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CHAP. IX.

THE COLD BATH: DIRECTIONS AND CAUTIONS AS TO ITS EMPLOYMENT-IMPORTANT FUNCTION OF THE SKIN, CONTEMPLATED BY PHYSICAL EDUCATION, NOT SOLELY AS ORNAMENTAL, BUT AS HIGHLY USEFUL: EXCESSIVE CARE PRECAUTIONS REQUIRED BY HEALTH -EXTENSIVE CONNEXIONS-PRESSURE TO BE AVOIDED ITS INJURIOUS CONSEQUENCES SPECIFIC CONTAGIONS TO WHICH THE SKIN IS LIABLE-SMALL POX-VACCINATION-MODIFICATION OF GENERAL RULES REQUIRED BY INDIVIDUAL PECULIARITY, &c.

WE have already spoken of the advantages of cold ablution; but it may become an interesting question as to the utility of the cold bath. As a remedy, we more than doubt its frequent value; but for strong and healthy children it possesses advantages, when employed with due precaution, especially as it affords to boys the opportunity of learning to swim; an acquisition which certainly should not be omitted in physical education, both as a mode of exercise, and for its prospective utility, in saving life from otherwise inevitable

destruction, under circumstances of danger and destitution. This point will come before us hereafter. We have only now to remark, that the cold bath should not be allowed to weakly or sickly children; and that for those who are apparently robust, it should never be repeated if it produce languor instead of refreshment-a sense of chilliness rather than an active glow, or even a tendency to drowsiness in the room of a feeling of lightness and elasticity. It should be deemed inadmissible, because imprudent, in a damp season, during the continuance of which we have seen that the skin is more susceptible, and the impression of cold is much more extensively and more permanently felt. It should never be employed when there is a kind of instinctive aversion from it, or any feeling of debility and loss of health, or creeping chilliness, or that state of the surface which is called goose-skin.

Under proper management, exercise taken before the cold bath, is not objectionable, provided the body has not been fatigued and debilitated by its violence or protraction. When profuse perspiration exists as a consequence of great exertion, the cold bath would be unadvisable; but particularly would it be mischievous, if the body shall have been suffered to lose its high temperature after this state of excitement, and the cold plunge shall have been taken just at the moment when the system had parted with so much of its caloric, that it was beginning to

feel cool, and to suffer from the lassitude of preceding exertion.

The hour when the cold bath may be taken is not indifferent: the morning, between breakfast and dinner, and after moderate exercise, is the period to be preferred: on the principles before enumerated, it must be inexpedient with an empty stomach, and terribly injurious when that viscus is distended. It is also desirable that the universal application of cold water should be sudden, and therefore the child should be taught to plunge head first into the bath, which will secure that important organ, as well as the lungs, from congestion and irritation. This plan should, however, be voluntary: the shock of such a plunge where the child is fearful, should never be permitted, since the impression upon the nervous system would be so great, as to endanger the regularity of the capillary circulation. Neither should the bath be prolonged: considerable activity should be used while remaining in it, and the body should then be wiped dry, and freely rubbed; it should never continue exposed to the action of the air or the sun, but the dress should be rapidly adjusted, and exercise be immediately taken, so as to ensure a healthy reaction upon the surface, and to render it permanent. Where this reaction of health is fully established, the cold bath will be useful, since it will strengthen the capillary vessels, and drive the blood into that remote structure, in which it is believed that the

process of assimilation will take place, thereby contributing to the nutrition and tone of the system; while it will also invigorate the heart and larger blood vessels, by calling upon them for that increased energy of action, by which the blood is returned to the extremities. The secret of the cold bath proving beneficial, then, depends upon re-action; and when this does not take place when the skin is too susceptible of the impression of cold, and the heart and arteries are too feeble to ensure a quick return of the blood to the surface, it is positively injurious, and should never be repeated. Whenever the digestive function is disturbed-whenever there may be any deviation from the strictest health-whenever any disease of the skin may be present, the cold bath is generally contra-indicated, and should not be hazarded.

The skin is an organ of such extensive sympathies and connexions, that its function is worthy of particular regard; but in a treatise on Physical Education, it is to be contemplated, not as is too frequently the case, in the light of an ornament to the body, for the preservation of whose beauty every consideration is to be sacrificed, but as a mucous membrane, of vital importance to the general health, for the due performance of whose function every other consideration is to be yielded. Indeed it will be found that the former is a most mistaken view, and that the only

means of securing a good complexion is to maintain the health of the skin.

Since the principles upon which this indication is to be conducted, have been already considered, it only remains for us in this place to stigmatize that excessive care which induces parents to shield from the breath of heaven, and the cheering light of its grand luminary, every atom of the surface of the body, lest it should ruin the complexion. This idea is altogether erroneous; since the skin, even more manifestly than other organs, is undergoing that constant process of decay and reparation, which is the joint effect of the due balance of the functions of nutrition and absorption; a process to which every organ of the human body is subjected, and by which, in a short time, it is most effectually changed, so that no effect produced upon the skin can be permanent, unless, indeed, it may have given rise to organic disease. Let, then, this beautiful covering be freely and readily exposed; let it be preserved in a healthy state, and accustomed to all the vicissitudes of season; it will assuredly brave them without injury; and although it may have been bronzed by the fervid ray of the dog star, it will again be blanched by December's snows; while neither heat nor cold will destroy its healthy texture, and while its functions will have proved beneficial to the general play of organic life.

Another consideration here presents itself, viz.