On Bathing 
AND 
Different Forms of Baths. 
wn. PAUL GERHARD. PRESS OF 
WILLIAM T. COMSTOCK, 
23 WARREN ST., 
NEW YORK. ON BATHING 
AND 
DIFFERENT FORMS OF BATHS. 
By WM. PAUL GERHARD, C. E., 
Consulting Engineer for Sanitary Works. 
Author of “ Hints on the Drainage and Sewerage of Dwellings,” “A Guide to 
Sanitary House Inspection,” “ House Drainage and 
Sanitary Plumbing,” etc. 
Eeprinted from “Architecture and Building.” 
New York : \ 
WILLIAM T. COMSTOCK. 
1895. BY THE SAflE AUTHOR: 
"Some Recent Public Rain Baths in New York City.” 
“The Modern Rain Bath.” 
‘•A Novel Hot Water Apparatus for Rain or Douche 
Baths.” 
“ The Rain Bath at the Utica State Hospital.” 
“The Rain Bath for Hospitals for the Insane.” On Bathing and Different Forms of Baths. 
Motto: “In balneis salus." 
HISTORICAL NOTES ON BATHING. 
THE practice of bathing has, since the earliest periods of his- 
tory, been regarded as conducive to the health and welfare 
of the human race. Indeed, in some respects the ancients ap- 
preciated the value of bathing perhaps more even than we do; 
to them cleanliness of the body was a symbol of moral purity. 
In many religious rites regular bathing and ablutions of the 
body were made compulsory, and we find that baths and bath 
houses were established for this purpose in India, Persia, As- 
syria and in Egypt. Moses ordered regular ablutions of the body 
to be taken before the daily meals, before wedding festivities and 
birth celebrations, before entering the temple of worship and before 
all religious ceremonies. Hebrew girls and women were com- 
manded by strict laws to bathe at regular monthly intervals, which 
custom prevails with the orthodox Jews even at the present day. 
The Greeks considered the care of the body as quite necessary for a 
sound development of the mind. They had tub baths in the houses of 
the rich, public swimming baths used in winter, and during the sum- 
mer took baths in the rivers. Warm baths are mentioned by Ho- 
merus, and a douche bath is said to be shown on a Grecian vase now 
in the Royal Museum of Berlin. Even medical baths were known 
at that time, as for instance the hot sulphur baths of Thermopylae, 
which were used for the cure of diseases. The gymnasiums of the 
Greeks, devoted to athletic exercises, had generally baths attached 
to them, and they were used not as a mere matter of luxury, but 
chiefly for the sake of cleanliness and healthy exercise. 
It is well known to what extent the Romans indulged in the lux- 
ury of baths, in their private houses as well as in magnificent public 
bath houses, planned on a grand scale, seldom excelled in our own 
age. The magnitude of such baths may be understood from a study 
of the ruins of the baths of Emperors Titus, Caracalla, Diocletianus, nd the Thermae of Pompeii. Even in their foreign provinces the 
Homans erected large bath houses. And again we find it related by 
the Roman historical writer, Tacitus, that the Germans enjoyed 
taking daily baths and swimming exercises in the rivers, in which 
both sexes bathed promiscuously. Up to the beginning of the Mid- 
dle Ages bathing remained popular, but subsequently the practice 
degenerated. It is only since the middle of the present century that 
the healthful influence of bathing has been again recognized, and 
public bath houses are now once more on the increase, due largely 
to the recommendation and urging of physicians and sanitarians. 
4 
PURPOSES OF BATHING. 
Let us, by way of introduction, make a brief inquiry into the ob- 
jects of bathing. We may readily distinguish two chief purposes, viz.: 
(1). The maintenance of health of the human body; and (2) the 
cure of disease or the restoration of health. 
It is largely with the former that we are concerned in this article. 
The preservation of health and prevention of disease by bathing 
are accomplished in several ways, of which the following are the more 
important ones. Bathing is practiced 
1. For the sake of cleanliness of the surface of the body. 
2. For the sake of promoting the proper functions of the skin. 
3. For the sake of cooling and refreshing, and the general exhil- 
arating and stimulating, or sometimes soothing, effect. 
4. For the sake of increasing the blood circulation and the bodily 
heat. 
5. For the sake of hardening the skin against atmospheric influ- 
ences. 
6. For the sake of bodily athletic exercise, as in swimming. 
In other words, baths are taken, not merely with a view to per- 
sonal cleanliness—although that must always remain the one object 
of paramount importance—but they are also indulged in in order to 
refresh and cool the body, to strengthen and invigorate the bodily 
system, to open up the pores of the skin and regulate the bodily 
temperature, to make the muscles more pliable, to render the body 
less sensitive to changes of temperature, to give a higher degree of 
endurance, and finally, for the enjoyment of healthy muscular 
exercise. 5 
Warm tub baths and showers are of baths 
taken chiefly to obtain and preserve cleanliness, while swimming 
baths, river and sea baths are the forms of baths largely taken for 
the sake of pleasurable exercise, for the hardening and strengthen- 
ing of the body, and for the general comfort as well as cooling and 
stimulating effect derived from the same. 
In the following remarks reference will almost entirely be made to 
the principal object of bathing, viz., the cleansing of the surface of 
the body, consisting in the removal of all dust, dirt, perspiration and 
dead scarfskin. This leads us naturally to say a few words in gen- 
eral about bodily cleanliness. 
ON PERSONAL CLEANLINESS. 
The periodical and thorough cleansing of the surface of the 
human body by bathing and general ablutions is a condition 
for continued health, and becomes a potent factor in prolong- 
ing life. This was recognized at all times, and Hippocrates ex- 
pressed this view in his well-known requirements relating to 
purity of soil, of air, of water, of food and of the body. 
The best way of preventing disease or epidemics consists in 
removing quickly all manner of dirt and refuse, whether in 
the streets, in the houses or on the human body. Uncleanliness 
of the body may lead to skin diseases, and often causes offensive 
exhalations due to the putrefaction of the dirt on the skin and in the 
clothing. It is a frequent source of contamination of the air of 
closed apartments, and this is particularly apparent in places where 
many persons assemble or congregate together, as in schools, thea- 
tres, churches and hospitals. Indeed, bodily exhalations, due to 
lack of cleanliness of body and clothing, pollute the air of rooms 
often to such an extent that the best and most elaborate schemes of 
ventilation fail utterly, as for instance in schoolrooms, in prisons, 
military barracks and in workshops. 
Cleanliness of body is, without doubt, the most important step to 
be taken for the prevention of the evils associated with foul air of 
rooms, as it is indispensable for the development and strengthening 
of the young and the maintenance of health in grown persons. 
In order to understand still better the effect of bodily ablutions 
and baths on the health of the system, it is necessary to consider 
the structure and function of the human skin. 6 
Briefly stated, the skin forms the outer surface of the human 
body, and as such is in constant and more or less intimate 
contact with the air and with the objects which surround us. 
The skin may be taken as being composed of two layers, 
namely, an outer, thin layer, of innumerable cells or scales, the 
scarfskin or so-called epidermis, and the inside or deeper layer, 
the true skin or derma, which contains the blood vessels and nerves, 
and on the upper surface of which are ridges or papillae. Under- 
neath the true skin is a mass of adipose tissue, in which are located 
the roots of the hair and the sweat and sebaceous glands, leading to 
the outer surface. The outer skin is subject to abrasion or renewal, 
and is constantly shed off. Of the two varieties of glands in the skin 
the sweat glands accomplish the object of cutaneous perspiration, 
whereas the oily or sebaceous glands are intended to keep the skin 
soft and flexible. Both kinds of glands open on the surface in the 
so-called pores of the skin, and their secretion or discharge is con- 
stantly going on in healthy individuals. 
Now, what are the functions of the skin? First, it encloses and 
protects the internal organs against injury; second, it regulates the 
temperature of the body by perspiration aud evaporation; third, it 
eliminates waste materials from the body and thus acts as an organ 
of excretion and of purification of the system; fourth, it is the organ 
of feeling, of touch and of temperature. 
If the regular action of the skin is suppressed or interfered with, 
serious detriment to health may follow. This is precisely what may 
happen if the cleaning of the skin is neglected; the pores become 
clogged, as it were, and the functions of the skin cease to be per- 
formed with sufficient regularity. 
The exudations from the skin and the oily secretions of the seba- 
ceous glands, together with the dead particles of the scarfskin, min- 
gle with the dirt and dust floating in the air, to form an incrustation 
more or less thick which closes up the outer openings or pores and 
thus hinders perspiration, besides causing bad odors due to putre- 
faction of the mixture, and sometimes inducing inflammation or boils 
on the skin, or becoming the seat of bacilli. 
A part of the dirt crust is probably abrased and attaches to the 
underwear of persons, and is thus removed with the change of linen, 
THE SKIN AND ITS FUNCTIONS. in the laundry. From this it is apparent that the less often a change 
of linen is accomplished the oftener a bath should be taken. It is, 
however, unfortunately true, that where underclothing is not 
removed sufficiently often ablutions are also seldom indulged in. 
Our akin can only perform its functions well if it is kept clean and 
free from all putrefactive accumulations. This is accomplished by a 
liberal use of warm water and soap. Warm water dissolves dirt much 
quicker and better than cold water, therefore a warm bath is re- 
quired to clean the skin and to remove the used-up particles of the 
scarfskin. The alkalies of soap help to dissolve and remove the 
greasy or fatty substances forming part of the dirt crust. The com- 
bined chemical and mechanical effect of water, soap and friction are 
needed to remove the mixture of dirt, skin secretions and epidermic 
scales on the skin surface, to prevent the clogging of the pores and 
to promote the proper performance of the functions of the skin. 
It is evident, then, that the good influence which bathing exercises 
upon the health of the body is exerted first on the skin itself, and 
then through it upon the tissues and vital organs of the body. The 
care of the skin and the cleanliness of the body are seldom sponta- 
neous, they must be taught like all other things. Many persons are 
too lazy to use soap and water, brush and comb, and the entire ab- 
lution of the body is not accomplished with sufficient regularity. 
According to Prof. Liebig the true degree of civilization of a people 
may be judged by the amount of soap (and let us add water) con- 
sumed annually. The enjoyment of regular complete cleansing of 
the body should be afforded to all classes of the population. It does 
not cost much to keep clean, and there is no good reason why the 
poor man should not be enabled to maintain cleanliness as well as 
the rich. Indeed, the laboring man is, owing to the nature of his 
work and to the increased perspiratory action of the skin due to 
muscular exercise, often in the midst of dirty surroundings, much 
more subject to dirt contamination, and therefore he requires, if any- 
thing, a more frequent change of underwear, and likewise more 
facilities for bodily ablution. We shall again discuss this point 
later on in speaking of people’s baths, baths in tenements and in 
factories. That we are far fr>m having reached anything like per- 
fection in this respect is sufficiently attested by the common condi- 
tion of the air in tenements, in lodging houses, in street and elevated 
railroad cars and on ferryboats, in schoolrooms, theatres and places. 8 
of worship. The organic emanations due to malodorous clothing or 
bedding are everywhere painfully apparent. It is, in fact, a matter 
of doubt what causes the largest amount of air pollution in a hall 
crowded with human beings, whether the product of combustion of 
illuminants and fuel for heat, or those of respiration, or finally those 
due to the perspiration and action of the skin! 
DIFFERENT FORMS OF BATHS. 
After this slight digression, made necessary in order to ob- 
tain a thorough understanding of one of the chief objects of 
bathing, we will now return to our subject and briefly review 
the different kinds and forms of baths and bathing appliances. 
But first we must give a general definition of the word “bath- 
ing." We understand by bathing the immersion of the human 
body, or parts of the same, in a liquid, generally water, or 
else the application of running or falling water to the body or some 
special part of the same. In a wider sense we can define bathing 
as a contact of the skin of the body during a more or less continued 
period of time, with any semi-liquid, liquid or gaseous substance 
(which thus includes mud baths, sand baths, air, steam and vapor 
baths), and we may finally include the application of sunlight and 
electricity. 
Baths may be classified according to the medium used, according 
to temperature, according to the object, according to the form of 
bathing appliance, and finally, according to location. 
A. As regards the substances used for bathing the body or parts 
of same, the most universally used medium is ordinary water 
which may be either fresh or salt), and next in frequency is hot air 
and the vapor of Pteam. One or more of these three agencies are 
employed in baths taken for their cleansing effect, as well as in all 
baths taken for the sake of the general care of the body or for health- 
ful exercise. The use of other media is almost entirely restricted to 
medicinal baths, and includes not only water charged with salts, or 
metals or gases, such as the various mineral spring waters, but also 
mud, sand, brine, sunlight and electricity. 
As regards the water required for bathing, it should be abundant 
in quantity and suitable in quality. It may be derived either from 
springs, from deep or artesian wells, or from the city supply sys- 
tem. In the latter case the water often needs to be filtered, particu- 9 
larly if used in white porcelain tubs or in marble or tile lined swim- 
ming baths. Water used for bathing need not be as clean and pure 
as drinking water, still it should always be free from organic con- 
tamination and disease germs. Hard water is not as suitable as soft 
water for cleansing the skin, and it must be remembered that hard 
water is unsuitable for use in the boilers and in the apparatus for 
warming the water. 
As regards the quantity of water required, swimming baths re- 
quiie the greatest amount. The hourly supply should be equivalent 
to from to of the contents of the tank. Tub baths require 
somewhat less water, but in figuring the quantity needed for each 
bath allowance should be made for the water used in the shower at 
the end of the bath, and also of the additional water needed for 
cleansing the tub, both of which lead to increased consumption. 
Showers or rain baths require the least amount of all forms of 
baths. On an average showers will run from 2 to 5 gallons per 
minute, and the consumption will depend upon the duration of the 
spray. In military barracks, school baths and prison baths the limit 
is usually five minutes, which makes the total consumption exceed- 
ingly reasonable as compared with tub or swimming baths. 
B. According to the temperature we can distinguish in a general 
way between warm baths, cold baths and general baths of an aver- 
age temperature, which are neither hot nor cold. To the latter be- 
long the great mass of baths taken for the sake of their cleansing 
action or for the purpose of obtaining a mild exhilarating effect. 
The cold bath is taken for the sake of refreshment, to cool off by 
drawing out the heat from the body, to increase the blood circulation, 
and, after a warm bath, to prevent catching cold, as the cold water 
causes the pores to contract. Warm baths, on the other hand, are 
taken to soothe local pain, such as rheumatism, and sometimes for 
cleanliness, but they often have a slightly weakening effect on the 
system. Between these three kinds lie a great many varieties, such 
as the excessively cold, the cold, the moderately cool, the slightly 
cool, the tepid, the warm and the hot baths. To be more specific, we 
give a statement of the respective temperatures of these varieties, viz.: 
Excessively cold 
Cold 
50°- 60° “ 
Moderately cool 
60°- 70° “ 
Slightly cool 
70°- 80° 
Tepid 
80°- 95° “ 
Warm 
95°-105° “ 
Hot 
105°-120° “ 10 
Higher temperatures exist only in the Turkish and Russian baths, 
where the heat may reach from 120° up to nearly 200° Fahr. 
Regarding the means for heating the water for bath purposes, dif- 
ferent methods are available, according to the quantity to be heated. 
In private houses the water-back in the kitchen range usually per- 
forms this function, although this is occasionally supplemented by 
gas heaters and hot water heaters. In larger establishments steam 
is usually the medium, and different methods of heating may be 
adopted, such as steam coils in tanks, the direct admixture of steam, 
and more recently an apparatus called a “Gegenstrom” or counter- 
stream apparatus, which offers many advantages and works very 
successfully. 
C. According to their purpose, baths, as we have already 
tioned, are divided in a general way in baths taken for cleansing, 
refreshing, exercise and preservation of health or prevention of dis- 
ease, and in curative baths taken for the treatment of disease. Baths 
for cleansing comprise warm and cold tub baths, tepid douches, 
showers and sprays, rain baths, sitz baths, hip baths and footbaths. 
Baths for refreshing and cooling the body and for the general main- 
tenance of health comprise cold ablutions, sponge baths, shower 
baths, wave baths, needle baths, swimming baths, river and sea 
baths, and Turkish baths. Baths for bodily exercise are taken in 
swimming pools of large bath houses, and in summer time at the 
river, lake, seashore and in surf baths. 
Curative, therapeutic or medical baths comprise a great number of 
varieties, largely artificial, of which I will only mention a few, viz.: 
air and sun baths, Russian and vapor baths, mud baths, sand baths, 
pine needle, sulphur, and brine baths, mineral springs, hot springs or 
thermal baths, electric and galvanic and massage baths, hydropathic 
baths, comprising wet sheet packing, sitz and hip baths, ascending, 
descending or side douches, or combinations of these. 
The physiological effect of baths upon persons depends upon a 
number of factors, such as the mode and frequency of application, 
the temperature of the bath, the duration of same, etc. In some 
baths the tonic and stimulating effect is marked, others have a dis- 
tinct soothing and sedative effect; others, again, are administered 
for their sudorific and sweat-producing effects, or for their beneficial 
action in drawing out heat and reducing the temperature; finally, in 
many baths the desired effect is simply cleanliness. 11 
D. Baths may be classified according to the kind and shape of the 
bathing appliance, or the means for pouring water over the body. 
We distinguish in a general way single baths and common baths, 
the former including all tub baths, sponge baths, douches, needle- 
baths and showers, the latter the swimming pools, swimming baths, 
river and sea baths, and the hot air and vapor baths. 
All common baths are open more or less to the objection of a pos- 
sible contagion of the bathers, though the larger the bathing appli- 
ance is, and the more frequently its water is changed, the less dan- 
ger there is of contamination or skin disease. 
Another subdivision may be made by considering the various ap- 
pliances by means of which a bath is taken. We have baths in 
which water is simply poured over the body, such as sponge baths, 
rain baths, douches and needle baths, and such baths in which a 
vessel is used for the immersion of either the entire body except the 
head, or of parts of the same only {general and local baths), such as 
tub baths, hip, sitz, foot baths and swimming baths. 
The simplest form of bath consists in the ablution of the whole 
body with cold or tepid water by means of a sponge. This is the 
ordinary so-called sponge bath, and where other bathing facilities are 
lacking this should be taken daily. Many persons, however, restrict 
the daily ablution only to the exposed parts of the body, viz., the 
face and the hands, while other parts of the body receive a washing 
only at rare intervals. The wet sponge should be applied to face, neck, 
and chest; to the armpits, arms and hands; and to the groins and the 
feet, where the skin perspires more freely. In another form of 
sponge bath the bather stands in a large shallow tub, and water is 
poured ever his entire body, generally from a large sponge. 
Water is also applied to the body by means of douches, or show- 
ers and sprays. The spray may be descending, ascending or from 
the side, and it also has different names according to the part of the 
body to which it is applied. The words “douche” and “shower” 
are often used indiscriminately, but in order to be strict one must 
distinguish between them. The douche consists of a compact, solid 
descending stream of water of varying size and force, whereas in the 
shower or spray the water issues through numerous small apertures 
in a finely divided stream under a moderate pressure, and from 
either a sprinkler-shaped or a ring-shaped shower. The douche is 
very intense in action and is not used to any great extent in ordinary 12 
bathing, whereas the spray or shower is very popular. On account 
of its frictional impulse the douche is used in hydrotherapeutic 
baths. We have head showers, side sprays or upward jets, and in 
the needle bath we find a combination of all these, applied in minute 
jets to the whole body by a series of vertical and horizontal perfo- 
rated ring tubes. The showers are either fixed showers or hand 
sprays, operated by the bather or by attendants. The overhead 
shower may be fixed so as to give a vertical descending stream, or 
more frequently nowadays it is placed inclined, so as to prevent the 
water from striking the head of the bather. This last special form 
of shower is commonly designated as the “rain bath.” All of the 
appliances mentioned are generally arranged to supply either warm 
or cold water to the body, but very often the shower is merely fitted 
up for cold water, in connection with a tub bath, taken for cleansing 
purposes, it being a good practice to end a warm bath with a mod- 
erately cold douche, which closes the pores of the skin and thus 
prevents the person from catching cold. A modification of the 
shower or douche, in which hot and cold water are used alternately, 
is called the “Scotch douche.” 
The second division of bathing appliances comprises all forms of 
baths in which the body is immersed in water. This, in the 
broadest sense, includes the plunge bath, the swimming pool, and 
river and sea baths. In a restricted sense, those appliances in 
which the bather sits or lies down, but cannot otherwise alter his 
position, are called bath tubs. Of bath tubs we have many varieties, 
differing in shape, size and material. We have full bath tubs, in 
which the whole body may be immersed up to the neck, and half 
baths, such as sitz tubs, foot baths, hip baths and bidets, used for 
bathing special parts of the body. A special form of bathing ap- 
pliance, used in houses on the Continent, but not as a stationary 
fixture or connected with the plumbing system, is the so-called 
“ wave bath,” which by the motion of the bather causes the water 
to impart to the body a feeling similar to that of the waves in the 
sea bath. 
Of the different shapes of bath tubs—the tapering shape, the 
French shape with parallel sides, the tub with both ends rounded, 
the shallow tub, etc.—it is not necessary to speak. The mainte- 
nance of cleanliness of tubs and hygienic considerations require that 
their interior surface be of smooth and non-absorbent material and that they have well-rounded corners. The rougher the surface is, 
the more difficult it is to remove dirt and soap. 
Bath tubs are manufactured of many varieties of materials. 
Wooden tubs are rarely used, except for medical baths where the 
water is charged with salts or minerals, e. g., sulphur baths. While 
wooden tubs are cheap, they do not last long; they soon become 
leaky when dry; the wood absorbs filth, and when kept wet it soon 
rots away. 
The cheaper metal tubs are made of zinc, whereas the better class 
of tubs consist of the more expensive copper. The American cop- 
per tubs are really wooden boxes lined with varying weights of 
tinned and planished sheet copper, whereas the English and Con- 
tinental copper tubs are heavy metal tubs, standing free and requir- 
ing no wooden casing for support. Copper tubs are either polished 
or tinned, and sometimes they are nickel or silver-plated. Zinc and 
copper tubs may be painted inside with special bath enamel and 
made to look quite inviting. In England japanned and enameled 
copper is used, the enamel being put on in a similar way to the en- 
amel of the iron American tubs. 
The inside of cast iron bath tubs may be either painted, galvanized 
or enameled. The latter process is now much perfected, enameled 
iron baths being obtainable which are in appearance and genera 1 
durability nearly equal to the more expensive solid porcelain tubs. 
Iron bath tubs are either provided with wooden casings, or mor e 
usually stand free on the floor and raised on iron legs. The top rim. 
consists either of polished wood, or more recently it is formed as a 
glazed roll rim with the tub, thus doing away entirely with all sur- 
rounding woodwork. 
A modification of the metal tub is the steel-clad bath tub, consist- 
ing of a shell of steel lined with copper. Bath tubs are also made o f 
indurated fibre, painted on the inside with a special kind of enamel, 
which resists the action of soap and water, and quite recently tub 
have been manufactured of cast aluminum. 
The glazed porcelain or fire clay tubs are very solid, durable and 
cleanly. Up to a recent date such tubs were made in England ex- 
clusively, but now the American potteries have succeeded in manu- 
facturing the same article, which compares very favorably with the 
imported tubs. Of course, all porcelain tubs require more hot 
water than metal tubs, and this difference is often quite noticeable in 
13 14 
private houses, though not so much in bathing establishments, where 
they are in more or less continuous use and do not become chilled 
during the intervals between bathing. Porcelain baths are finished 
on the top edge either with polished hard wood or with a marble 
capping, or else they have a glazed moulded rim. 
Other varieties of bath tubs are the tile-lined tubs and tubs lined 
with marble or slate, but these have the drawback that the joints 
may leak and that dirt collects in the square corners which is hard 
to remove. We finally have marble and stone (sandstone or granite) 
tubs cut out of a solid block, and therefore very heavy and very 
expensive, and tubs made of annealed glass, of particular service for 
hospitals. 
Larger bathing pools or piscinae, in which several persons may 
bathe together, and can move about but not swim, are generally 
masonry tubs, lined either with smooth cement or with tiles or 
marble. Such tubs are usually sunk halfway or more in the floor, 
and reached by several marble steps leading into the bath. 
Plunge or swimming baths are of two kinds, viz.: 
1. The swimming baths, erected in rivers, lakes or at the seashore, 
which are available only during the warm season of the year. 
2. Artificial pools, basins or tanks, constructed of masonry and 
lined with white marble or glazed tiles, in which the water is usually 
moderately warmed during the cold seasons, so as to enable the use 
of this form of bath the year round. 
Both classes of baths are adapted only for pleasurable and healthful 
physical exercise of body and limbs, and the open air swimming 
baths especially for cooling off and refreshing the body, though in 
the latter case cleanliness may also to some extent be secured. Still 
it is a fact beyond dispute that in the summer time, and particularly 
during heated terms, many people take a bath in the river or at the 
seashore, not from a desire to become clean, but for the sake of en- 
joying the practice of swimming, or for the cooling, invigorating 
and exhilarating effect of the bath. On the other hand, the swim- 
ming pools or basins in public and Turkish baths are not in any 
sense intended as cleansing baths, as the use of soap in them cannot 
be permitted. They therefore require the provision of special foot 
baths and showers, where all bathers must take a cleansing bath be- 
fore they are permitted to enter the plunge. Even after this is done 
each bather helps to a certain extent to pollute the water, and unless the supply is continually and constantly changed the water is liable 
to contamination. From time to time it is well to empty the whole 
contents in order to clean the sides and bottom of the bath. Hence 
swimming baths require a very large quantity of water, and are in 
every respect expensive to maintain. 
In vapor and steam baths, or the so-called Russian baths, the 
bather is surrounded by moist air of 104° to 132° Fahr., and in the 
Turkish bath dry air of a high temperature (from 140° to 200° Falir.) 
is used, which opens up the pores and causes the skin to perspire pro- 
fusely, and so secures a thorough cleanliness of the body. These 
are followed by shampooing, washing and kneading of the skin, by 
hose sprays, a needle bath or a cool plunge bath, and terminate with 
thorough drying, dry rubbing or massage and rest. The limits of 
this paper do not permit an extended discussion of these special 
forms of baths, and for like reasons I must omit a description of 
any of the medical baths. 
E. As regards location, we may finally distinguish between baths 
in private houses, public bath houses, people’s baths, barber shop 
baths, hotel baths, tenement baths, baths in factories or industrial 
establishments, school baths, baths in military barracks, in prisons, 
hospitals and institutions, baths attached to gymnasiums and club 
houses, river baths, sea and surf baths, and mineral spring, cura- 
tive and therapeutic baths. A brief reference to each kind of bath 
will be made in the following notes. 
15 
Beginning with baths in private dwellings, we find these more 
or less luxuriously fitted up, according to the size, character, rental 
or cost of the house. By far the majority of baths in dwell- 
ings are full tub baths, to which an overhead single or com- 
bination shower or douche is often attached. We also find in 
houses the foot tub, the sitz or hip bath, the bidet, and some- 
times a needle bath or a plain form of vapor bath. Bathing pools 
are not often provided on account of their expense in construction. 
The walls of bathrooms are either oil painted or finished with glazed 
washable paper, or wainscoted with tiles or marble. The ceiling 
may be oil painted and the floor made waterproof with tiling or mar- 
ble mosaic; large slabs of marble are often placed under the bath 
tub. Linoleum or cork matting form a good inexpensive floor cov- 
HOUSE BATHS. ering, which is warm to the feet, smooth and easily cleaned. The 
ideal of comfort is reached by providing in the bathroom an open 
fireplace with a wood, coal or gas fire. The writer feels it to be his 
duty to call in this place again attention to the undesirable and uncom- 
mendable American fashion of placing the water closet in the bath- 
room. In not a few cases the water closet fixture is unsanitary or 
defective or far from pure, and the bather is thus compelled to 
breathe foul air from the water closet while taking a bodily ablution. 
On the other hand, the water closet fixture is useless to the rest of 
the household while the bathroom is occupied. It is therefore much 
to be preferred, on aesthetic as well as practical grounds, to provide 
a separate well-ventilated and lighted water closet compartment. 
16 
PUBLIC BATHS. 
Public bath houses are established in the larger cities partly 
to make up for lack of bathing facilities in private houses, 
partly to provide baths for the traveling public. In Europe only 
the houses of rich people have bathrooms, whereas in America 
even small and unpretentious city houses or suburban cottages have 
a bath tub supplied with hot and cold water. For this reason, and 
because all hotels and large barber shops have baths attached, lux- 
urious public bathing establishments are not so frequent here as in 
Europe; in fact, the public baths here are almost exclusively lim- 
ited to Russian and Turkish baths, fitted up with hot air, moist 
vapor, electrical and massage baths. Further on I shall refer to the 
need of unpretentious, cheap baths for the masses, for working peo- 
ple of both sexes. 
In his address on “Recent Advances in Preventive Medicine,” 
delivered at a meeting of the American Medical Association in Chi- 
cago in 1887, Dr. George H. Roh6, of Baltimore, Md., has shown 
that, contrary to popular belief, a large proportion of the inhabit- 
ants of American cities are deprived of proper bathing facilities. 
He collected statistics from eighteen cities having no free public 
baths, which showed that only about 23 per cent, of residences are 
supplied with bath tubs. He concludes that “five sixths of the in- 
habitants of these cities have no facilities for bathing except such as 
are afforded by pail and sponge, or a river, lake or other body of 
water which may be easily accessible, but in winter even such 
ources of cleanliness are cut off.” 17 
Dr. Roh&’s table referred to gives the following figures 
Name of City. 
Number of homes 
in city. 
Number of house* 
supplied with 
bath tubs. 
Baltimore, Md 
70,000 
20,000 
Bridgeport, Conn 
6,000 
2,000 
Cambridge, Mass 
9,398 
2,315 
Charleston, S. 0 
10,000 
500 
Cincinnati, O 
33,471 
6,000 
Lancaster, Pa 
5,600 
1,000 
Lynn, Mass 
Milwaukee, Wis 
5,800 
1,238 
25,000 
3,000 
Minneapolis, Minn 
17,000 
3,000 
New Bedford, Mass 
5,237 
597 
Peoria, 111 
7,600 
800 
Portland, Me . 
7,188 
1,153 
Beading, Pa 
11,000 
1,900 
Savannah, Ga 
6,000 
4,000 
Somerville, Mass 
2,000 
500 
St. Louis, Mo 
50,000 
8,000 
St. Paul, Minn 
30,000 
10,000 
Wilmington, Del 
12,000 
5,000 
The need of cheap public baths is therefore apparently just as 
urgent here as it is in Europe. Such baths are better characterized 
as “ people’s baths,” under which name they will be spoken of be- 
low, and they may be provided by State laws, by the municipality, 
or by bureaus of charities, or by private charitable associations, 
whereas public baths are erected by private individuals or firms as 
a money-paying enterprise. 
Large public bathing establishments, in order to be complete, 
must contain all the different forms of baths described heretofore; 
in other words, comprise a large number of bath tubs in separate 
apartments, shower or spray baths, needle baths, a large swimming 
bath, the water in which must in the winter season be warmed to 
about 70° to 72° Fahr. In addition to these they must have steam, 
vapor and hot dry air baths, with dressing rooms, hot rooms, cool- 
ing rooms, smoking and reading rooms, rooms for massage and 
shampooing and for special electrical and hydro-therapeutic treat- 
ment. Such buildings require attractive entrances, ticket offices, 
large waiting rooms for the public, a buffet, barber shop and chi- 
ropodist’s office, besides rooms for the attendants, laundry, ironing 
and drying rooms, rooms for storage of towels and soap, boiler and 
fuel room, and water closets and urinals. All of the above rooms 18 
should be provided in duplicate for men and women, and should 
be entirely separate for the sexes. 
Where the swimming bath is the chief feature of a public bath, it 
should be located in a large, high, well-lighted and well-ventilated 
apartment. All swimming baths require preliminary cleaning baths 
in the form of foot tubs and warm showers. The water in the 
swimming tank is constantly being replenished, and this should be 
at such a rate that the whole contents are changed at least once in 
twenty-four hours. The dressing rooms may be located on the four 
sides of the tank and a passage carried all around the swimming 
bath, onto which the dressing rooms open, and which is only to be 
used by bathers who are undressed. The dressing rooms are about 
4x5 feet in size and contain a chair or seat, clothes hooks, boot 
jacket, mirror, comb and brush. A second passage around and out- 
side the dressing rooms should serve for the communication of the 
bathers before undressing and after the bath. The swimming bath, 
therefore, requires an abundance of space, which, in centres of 
cities, where the price of land is very high, cannot always be obtained. 
Where tub baths are the chief feature, bathing cells or apartments 
are provided, generally on both sides of a large, wide corridor. 
Here each apartment must be sufficiently roomy not only for un- 
dressing, but also for holding the bath tub. It is quite desirable 
that each tub bath should also have an overhead shower, or at least 
a flexible hand spray; first, so that at the end of the bath the per- 
son can spray the body with pure water and wash off any impuri- 
ties attaching to the skin from the soiled water of the tub, and sec- 
ond, so that the bather may avoid catching cold by closing the pores 
of the skin with the aid of a final cool or cold shower. The smallest 
size of apartment suitable for tub baths is 6x6 feet, but they are 
sometimes made as large as 8x10 or 12 feet. For shower baths the 
size of the apartment is from 4x6 feet to 5x8 feet. 
The greatest possible cleanliness must be maintained in public 
bathing establishments, and tubs in particular must always be 
thoroughly scrubbed and cleaned by the attendants after each bath. 
people’s baths. 
Luxuriously appointed baths in costly monumental buildings 
are suited for well-to-do people, but not for the requirements 
of the working class of laborers, mechanics, factory operatives, 19 
who often are employed in the midst of dirt or dust of all 
kinds and are always exposed to different sources of unclean- 
liness. As with men, so it is with women. While the rich 
women have ample bathing facilities at home and at the Turkish 
baths, the needs of the working classes, of the sewing women, the 
saleswomen aDd the factory girls are too often forgotten. Even for 
our domestic female servants opportunities for bathing and cleanli- 
ness are seldom thought of, even in the most richly appointed 
houses and mansions. This explains in part why women bathe less 
nowadays than in olden times. The poorer classes of the popula- 
tion are debarred from using the public bathing establishments by 
the price charged for a bath, as well as by other reasons. About the 
need and desirability of people’s baths, therefore, there can be no 
question. Bathrooms in private houses, public bathing establish- 
ments, swimming baths, sea and river baths do not suffice, for they 
either provide bathing facilities for a part of the year only, or they 
are limited to the rich class, or in some cases they are located at a 
distance from the homes and are difficult or expensive to reach. 
It is very seldom indeed that tenement houses have any baths; 
even the so-called “model” tenement houses do not provide bathing 
facilities. In most tenement houses hot water is unknown, and 
their occupants have merely the city river baths to go to, which are 
available only a few months in the year. 
Bathing may be rendered more popular by erecting people’s baths. 
These should be simple, unpretentious, yet inviting structures, with 
all necessary means for cleanliness and comfort, but without super- 
fluous luxury. Many hold that such baths should not be free, as the 
respectable poor unconsciously shrink away from anything that looks 
like charity. A moderate fee may be charged, sufficient to cover the 
cost of maintenance. If there is at present too little appreciation of 
the healthful effects of bathing in the lower classes of population, it 
is largely on account of the lack of baths in our cities. Let bathing 
opportunities at reasonable expense be provided, and the people will 
surely make use of them, and bathing will once more become pop- 
ular with the masses, as it was centuries ago. With increased care 
of the body and bodily cleanliness will go hand in hand cleanliness 
in the clothing and underwear, as well as in the habitations, and this 
in turn will lead to a vast improvement in ventilation and in the gen- 
eral health conditions of a community. It will also tend to lessen the 20 
ravages of contagious diseases, which are particularly marked 
where there is absence of cleanliness.* 
The question here arises, what form of bath is best adapted for 
people’s baths? It is plainly evident that the marble or tile-lined 
swimming tank, filled with limpid and crystal-like water, is not well 
adapted to the needs of the workingman, for it is not a cleansing 
bath; in fact soaping and cleansing are excluded, besides it requires 
very large quantities of water, which must be heated, and it is gen- 
erally expensive in construction and maintenance. Neither is a por- 
celain-lined, pure white bath tub suitable, for good tubs are expen- 
sive, and in these a workingman cannot so readily become clean; in 
fact he would be immersed, toward the end of the bath, in his own 
befouled water. He would require several changes of the water in 
the tub, hence more water and correspondingly more time to become 
clean. After he is through with the bath it would require a good 
deal of cleaning and scouring to remove the dirt attaching to the 
sides of the tub; hence would result increased labor of the attend- 
ants to restore the tubs to their former purity and greater cost of 
running expenses. 
In the Berlin Health Exhibition of 1883 the solution of the prob- 
lem of providing cheap baths for the masses was first indicated 
by the people’s baths of Grove-Lassar. The novelty consisted in 
the use of the inclined overhead tepid spray in place of the tub or 
the plunge. This was not strictly new, as it had been used pre- 
viously in prisons and military barracks, but the suggestion to use 
it for people’s baths was decidedly novel. 
No form of bath is better adapted, from a hygienic and econom- 
ical point of view, for working people than the tepid shower or rain 
* While I was preparing this article for publication, a bill was signed and ap- 
proved on April 18 by the Governor of the State of New York, which provides for 
the establishment of free public baths in cities, villages and towns in the State. 
The Act, which is known as Chapter 361 of the Laws of 1895, provides substan- 
tially that all cities of the first and second class shall establish and maintain such 
number of free public baths as the local Board of Health may determine to be nec- 
essary; that eacn bath shall be kept open not less than fourteen hours for each day, 
and that both hot and cold water shall be provided. It also states that the erection 
and maintenance of river or ocean baths shall not be deemed a compliance with the 
requirements of the law. 
This law, I am informed, was advocated and persistently pushed by Mr. Good- 
win Brown, member of the New York State Commission in Lunacy, and to him is 
due the credit of having secured the first legislation on the subject of baths ever 
had in this country. Three years ago he secured the passage of a bill making the 
erection of public baths permissible, while the present law makes it a mandatory 
measure. W. P. G. ■bath. It is the simplest, quickest, cheapest, cleanest and withal best 
bath for people’s bath houses; the one which requires the least space, 
the least time, the least amount of water, the least fuel for warming 
water, the least attendance, the least cost of maintenance. Standing 
under such an inclined spray the bather can soap and rub his body, 
rinse it with more clean warm water, which falls down in a gentle 
yet invigorating rain or fine jets from the neck downward, and 
finally let some pure colder water flow to increase the mechanical 
and tonic effect and to prevent catching cold. All waste water flows 
away immediately. Such a simple bath at once cleanses, refreshes 
and invigorates the person; it therefore has the cleansing and tonic 
effect combined. The rain bath has, for all these reasons, become 
the modern favorite method, and is destined to be the bath of the 
future for people’s baths. 
Success or failure of a people’s bath will largely depend upon its 
suitable location and construction. In order to popularize bathing, 
and render people’s baths useful, serviceable and well patronized, 
they should be located within the centres of the most crowded city 
districts, preferably on streets forming the main line of traffic. The 
State or municipal government should erect such baths, or at least 
provide the building site, on which charitable associations may put 
up the building. The aim should be to make all people’s baths self- 
supporting, and medical societies and public health associations can 
accomplish much by encouraging their erection. 
The exterior of the building should be easily recognizable in order 
to be readily found, but all outward display of lavishness in the ar- 
chitecture of the building must be avoided, as it would only have a 
tendency to keep poor people away. The construction and fitting 
up of the interior should likewise be economical, yet substantial, 
cleanly and inviting, but without any of the refinement of details 
found in the large public bath houses. 
Where a source of steam supply is available, as for instance near 
electric light and railroad stations, near waterworks pumping sta- 
tions, disinfecting stations, and at all larger industrial establish- 
ments, the running expenses of the baths, for heating water, warm- 
ing the building, etc., may be reduced by making use of the exhaust 
steam of the boiler plant. 
A building containing people’s baths requires the following 
rooms, viz.: 1. For use of the public or bathers: Entrances, vesti- 
21 22 
bules and waiting rooms with benches or seats, reading table and 
drinking fountain, generally separate for men and women, except 
where in the same bath different days of the week are assigned to the 
sexes; corridors leading to the bath apartments; bath apartments with 
douches and dressing rooms; water closets and urinals, which must 
never be omitted, and which should have simple and automatic 
plumbing. 
2. For use of the management: Ticket office; room for attendant, 
boiler room or place for warm water apparatus; closets for storage 
of towels, soap, etc.; drying rooms, laundry and ironing rooms, and 
place for storage of fuel. 
Vestibules are required to prevent drafts and to protect the bath- 
ers against catching cold. Spacious, cheerful and warm waiting 
rooms are required in which the public may wait for a bath and also 
sit to cool off after a bath. The floors, walls and seats of the wait- 
ing room must be so arranged that they can be frequently washed 
to insure constant cleanliness and inviting appearance. 
The ticket office should, wherever practicable, be so arranged that 
the agent can overlook the waiting room and the corridors leading 
to the bath. 
The bath apartment proper should, for the sake of privacy, be di- 
vided off by partitions into a number of separate compartments. 
Each compartment is again subdivided and contains an outer dress- 
ing room and in the inner room the bath proper. All floors, walls, 
partitions and ceilings must consist of non porous material, which 
is not readily destroyed by the action of soap, warm water, or 
dampness and vapor. Perfect drainage arrangements are indispen- 
sable and each bath compartment must have its own separate waste 
pipe. Good daylight and artificial illumination are desirable, though 
too many large windows have a tendency to create chilling drafts. 
Abundant provision for ventilation is necessary, and all partitions 
must be raised from the floor to promote the circulation of air. 
The floor should be water-tight and may be either of cement, as- 
phalt, terrazzo, marble mosaic or of unglazed tiles. In the bath 
proper the floor is frequently moulded in cement in such a way as to 
have a depression or sunk basin, suitable as a foot bath. 
For the finish of the walls of the bathroom slate, marble, an- 
nealed glass or tiling is desirable, whereas the dressing room may consist of enamel-painted iron, or of iron ribs, iron lathing and hard 
plaster or cement, or else It may be of wood, well oiled. 
On the ceiling unprotected iron should be avoided, as it rusts from 
vapor of condensation and also causes disagreeable dripping. 
The size of the bath compartment should be approximately 4 feet 
wide and 8 feet deep. The entrance from the corridor should have 
a light flap door, with an inside latch and a lock on the outside, for 
which the attendant has the pass key. The bath proper is separated 
from the dressing room either by a fixed partition, with door, or 
more usually merely a curtain of rubber or cheese cloth made water- 
proof. 
The shower bath should contain the inclined overhead spray, with 
or without regulating valve and additional cold water shut-off; on 
the women’s side it is desirable to add an ascending douche or bidet. 
There should be a hinged seat for the bather, or else a footstool, and 
where the floor is not shaped in basin form, a small galvanized iron 
foot tub is often provided. Each bath should have a perforated 
soap cup. 
The dressing room should contain a seat, hat and clothes hooks, 
bootjack, cuspidore, a wooden latticed grating or a cork mat, and 
sometimes a shelf, with mirror, brush and comb. On the outer side 
of the bath apartment door a slate should be hung, on which the at- 
tendant notes the time when the bath is occupied in order to con- 
trol the bathing. One-half hour is generally fixed as the limit for 
each bath. 
TENEMENT BATHS. 
A great step forward in the improvement of tenement houses 
would be made if they were provided with bathing facilities. 
As at present constructed, even the best of them, including 
some of the so-called “ model tenement houses,” have absolutely 
no bathing facilities. The reason for this is, I presume, to be found 
not so much in the first cost of tubs, as in the fact that tubs with- 
out hot water would rarely be used, except during the heated term. 
It is also probable that the bath tubs would not be rightly used, that 
the waste pipes would soon stop up, that the bath tub would not be 
properly cleaned, and finally that, being abused in other ways, it 
would soon become unfit for use. 
I am firmly convinced that the rain or shower bath offers many 
advantages for tenement houses. It is not necessary to provide 24 
each tenement with a bath. A few simple and inexpensive, clean 
and inviting shower baths erected in a well-lighted corner of the 
basement would give the tenants opportunity for frequeut thorough 
ablutions in tepid water, and would have a tendency to lead to in- 
creased cleanliness in the tenements, and thereby to an improve- 
ment of the morals and a possible reduction in crime and vice. 
Every large manufacturer who is interested in the welfare 
of his employes should consider the question of providing baths 
for his workmen. Many work people living in tenements have 
at present no facilities for keeping the body clean. Factory 
employes are particularly exposed to soiling and defilement of 
the skin through the nature of their occupations. They usually 
perspire very freely while at work, and the increased action of the 
skin, combined with the dirt and dust of their surroundings, make 
it particularly desirable that they should bathe in order to become 
clean, to keep in health, and so as to be in best condition for the 
hard manual labor performed in the factory. The manufacturer 
would secure higher results in the work performed by his operatives 
if he would provide plain facilities for frequent bodily ablutions. 
Neither bath tubs nor swimming baths are well adapted to the 
needs of workingmen in factories. A dusty or dirty laborer, a fac- 
tory operative manipulating animal or vegetable matters, paints or 
chemicals, and the engineer and fireman who spend the day in the 
hot engine or boiler room, stoking the fires, shoveling coal and oil- 
ing the engine, would soon, if they take a bath in a tub, sit immersed 
in a dirty fluid, and cleanliness would be under such circumstances 
difficult to attain. For these the tepid douche or rain bath offers 
immense advantages, which are so plain and apparent that it seems 
unnecessary to waste any words about it, except to point out that, 
inasmuch as waste or exhaust steam is always available in manufac- 
turing establishments, the heating of water for bath purposes can be 
very cheaply and quickly effected. The expense of providing and 
maintaining tepid rain baths for workmen in manufacturing estab- 
lishments would therefore be very small. 
FACTORY BATHS.] 
Experience teaches that the air of schoolrooms is badly con- 
taminated by the emanations from the children’s bodies and 
SCHOOL BATHS. 25 
by the odor from their clothing. All attempts to improve the 
sanitary condition of schools will fail to accomplish their object 
thoroughly if means are not provided to cleanse the bodies of the 
children. Cleanliness of school children will make the ventilation 
of the schoolrooms an easier problem, and further than that, it will 
tend to increase the appreciation for cleanliness in the lower classes, 
and thus indirectly stimulate bodily—and often moral—purity in the 
home circle. 
The first one to suggest the advantages and necessity for school 
baths was, I believe, Dr. Alfred Carpenter, of Croydon, England. 
In his lectures on “Preventive Medicine in Relation to Public 
Health,” delivered in 1877, he discussed the subject as follows: 
“ Every public elementary school ought to have a proper washing place, so that 
the childien might wash the whole of the body at least twice a week, as well as 
their hands and face. There should also be a washing place for clothes, with a dry- 
ing closet attached, which could dry the clothes as quickly as possible, and be so 
arranged that cloth clothes might be cleansed and disinfected, as well as linen 
clothes washed. 
“ Is the custom of wearing the same dirty garments day after day, getting dally 
more filthy, an unavoidable one? It is this custom which makes the air of rooms 
so unwholesome in which the lower classes of children assemble, and which fre- 
quently produces the first seeds of evil in the constitution, especially when they go 
into the room damp from the effect of a drizzling rain. Every one accustomed to 
a badly ventilated schoolroom knows that it is the smell from damp and dirty 
clothes which is the principal source of the offensive atmosphere. Even if the 
clothes will not wash, an exposure in the drying closet to a temperature of 350 de- 
grees will not hurt their texture, whilst it will entirely destroy any lurking seeds 
of infectious disorders which might be clinging to them, as well as destroy the seed 
beds themselves; and in the possible case of infection being brought into the school 
in the clothes, would, in the majority of instances, prevent it from spreading 
among the pupils.” 
“ I contend that a public elementary school should possess: 
“ 1. Access to a bath, in which every child should be required to bathe twice a 
week. Every day would be better still. 
“ 2. A washing place, in which they should be obliged to wash daily. 
“ 3. A room in which the hair should be combed and the head cleaned every day, 
or oftener if necessary. These operations should be superintended by some person, 
who should see that the elder children attended to the younger as well as them- 
selves, and so teach them to be careful of others. 
“ 4. A laundry, in which the clothes which required it could be washed. 
“ 5. A drying closet, capable of being heated to 400 degrees F., in which washed 
clothes and also all damp garments could be quickly dried. This would be a great 
boon to the children on wet days.” “ I contend that all these are necessary for the education of the great mass of our 
poor, as much as, if not more than, a knowledge of geography and astronomy, or 
even of history. It will be impossible for the people to be godly until they are 
instructed in the way of cleanliness. Cleanly children will acquire a dislike for 
personal dirt and retain it to the end of their lives. They will make more effort to 
raise themselves from below the level of brutes to that of Christians than they 
otherwise would do if allowed to remain accustomed to filth. Use becomes second 
nature, and second nature in a century or two becomes instinctive. 
“ It is only by educating our poorer classes in cleanliness in early life that we shall 
make them, as a whole, love it for its own sake, and hate dirt and those habits 
which tend to make man lower than the heasts of the earth, too often now arising 
from an acquaintance, an intimate association, with dirt and dirty homes among 
the poor. Poverty may be clean, and with cleanliness the first step will have been 
taken to do away with the evils which follow in its train, and that health secured 
which riches without cleanliness cannot possibly purchase*” 
Of the three classes of baths, namely the tub bath, the shower 
bath and the swimming bath, the first named, viz., tubs, are not 
well suitable for schools, as it would require a very large number of 
fixtures to bathe all the children, for which the space cannot always 
be found in a school building, and the process would be 
slow and result in serious inconvenience, also because tub baths 
would require the outlay of a vast sum of money. 
Swimming baths in schools would be good as far as giving an op- 
portunity for bodily exercise is concerned. For a cleansing bath, 
however, the swimming bath is not well suited, for reasons ex- 
plained heretofore, and here again the tepid shower or rain bath of- 
fers immense advantages. 
To Prof. Flfigge and Mayor Merkel, of the German University 
town of Goettingen, belongs the credit of having first tried the ex- 
periment of rain baths in the public schools, about 1885. 
Groups of children are bathed together, and care is taken not to 
give the baths at the end of the school session, so that the children 
will not catch cold in going home. After some use of the baths it 
is found that the children enjoy them, that their minds become more 
active and attentive; that the baths induce better cleanliness in cloth- 
ing and underwear; that the parents pay more attention to the 
cleanly appearance of their children; and finally, that the air of 
schoolrooms is greatly improved. 
At first some teachers and Boards of Education raised trivial ob- 
jections to the introduction of bathing in schools. They claimed 
that the school was not the place to educate children to appreciate 
26 27 
the cleanliness obtained by bathing, that this belonged to the fam- 
ily; fear was expressed lest the children would catch cold, whereas 
experience has proven that the bath hardens the body; others ob- 
jected to the cost, claiming that people’s baths and not school baths 
were required; a few* finally, objected to the bathing being made 
compulsory, while experience in the schools demonstrated the fact 
that the children soon all become eager to bathe. 
In German schools bathing has become very popular and the 
movement is rapidly extending, so much so that recent school build- 
ings are rarely constructed without rain baths for boys and girls in 
the basement. 
In this country there are as yet but few school baths. One on the 
rain bath principle was erected in a high school at Scranton, Pa., a 
year or two ago. At Manistee, Mich., a company erected people’s 
baths on the rain bath principle in 1885, and one of the aims of the 
company was to get as many children as possible to take regular 
baths by distributing tickets to the school children. 
From a paper in one of the Michigan State Board of Health re- 
ports I learn that while the Emeline Bath Co., of Manistee, Mich., 
furnishes tub baths for those who desire them, it heartily recom- 
mends the shower bath as preferable, enumerating the following ad- 
vantages: 
“ 1. In cases where one bather follows immediately after another the atmosphere 
of the shower rooms is the purest, as the spray from the shower absorbs the impur- 
ities of the air and carries them into the sewer on the same principle that the rain 
purities the air outside. 
“ 2. The patron of the shower bath does not come in contact with any thing that the 
former occupant came in contact with, except the rack which he stands upon and the 
seat which he sits upon. This seat is varnished with shellac, and may be showered 
by the occupant. 
“ 3. The water of the shower bath is continually changing, so that the bather is 
using fresh water to every part of the body. 
“ 4. The occupant of the shower room has easy access to all parts of the body, ow- 
ing to the upright or sitting posture, while the occupant of the tub can reach only 
one-half of his body at a time, being obliged to turn in the tub to reach the other side. 
“ 5. The occupant of the shower bath has no resistance of water pressure to con- 
tend with, while in the tub bath the feet and that portion of the body resting upon 
the bottom of the tub are under the pressure of nearly one-half pound to the square 
inch, which of course to a certain extent resists the throwing out process of the 
pores.” 
Note.—The E. B. Co. does not recommend the use of soap. Instead, one-fcurth 
ounce of salts of tartar and one-fourth ounce of borax to one quart of water is found to produce an alkaline sufficiently strong to cut the oil of the body, and at 
the same time the borax is found to have a cooling effect on the skin. 
In February of the present year a Sub-Committee on Baths and 
Lavatories of a Citizens’ Committee in New York City made a re- 
port, recommending the erection of people’s baths in the tenement 
districts, and also the equipment of public schools, where practica- 
ble, with baths in the basements, and favored the adoption of the 
rain bath system, because “there is no waste of water, because the 
cost of erection is very moderate, and because the system is charac- 
terized by cleanliness and simplicity.” 
28 
BATHS IN MILITARY BARRACKS. 
For military barracks tub baths have repeatedly been tried and 
abandoned because of their expense. While the swimming baths 
are excellent for bodily exercise, no system is so well adapted to mil- 
itary buildings as the rain bath. This fact became apparent many 
years ago; shower baths were used in military barracks for cleaning 
purposes long before they were adopted for people’s baths. Dr. Du- 
nal, a surgeon in the French army; Dr. Bresgen and Dr. Munnich, 
of the German army, and Dr. John S. Billings, U. S. A., introduced 
or recommended the form of bath known as the “ rain bath.” 
It is obvious that th3 advantages of the rain or shower bath 
over the tub applies also to the bathing of prisoners. In some 
State’s prisons the inmates are given weekly baths by means 
of flexible hose sprays. The fixed overhead inclined shower Is a 
better arrangement, for two reasons: first, it does away with the 
need of an assistant to spray the person, and second, a fixed douche, 
under which the bather places his body voluntarily, does not give 
rise to the popular belief, which results from the use of a flexible 
hose spray in the hands of the attendant, viz.: that prisoners are 
often sprayed with cold water as a means of punishment. 
BATHS IN PRISONS. 
HOSPITAL BATHS. 
Hospital trustees or managers can do much to further bath- 
ing habits by providing ample and proper bathing facilities. 
In hospitals we find several forms of baths in use, such as the 
fixed and the portable bath tub, the latter being placed on roll- 
ers; also showers, sudorific and hydro-therapeutic baths. Tub 29 
baths are an expensive form of bath, and, moreover, they require a 
great deal of space, as the tubs in hospital bathrooms must stand 
entirely free in the room, so that the nurse or attendant can reach it 
on all sides. 
For that particular class of hospitals where the various forms of 
insanity are treated, i. e., in cases where the brain only is diseased, 
while the body may be in a healthy state, the rain bath offers many 
advantages. A rain bath for bathing patients has recently been 
completed under the direction of the writer at the State Hospital at 
Utica, N. Y.* In the fifty-second annual report of the managers of 
that institution it is stated that “the new bath house marks an epoch. 
* * * With this splendidly equipped spray bath patients can be 
bathed with the utmost convenience, safety and dispatch. It is des- 
tined to become the accepted method of bathing the insane in public 
institutions.” In the report of the Medical Superintendent, Dr. G. 
Alder Blumer, the new bath house is thus described: “The crown- 
ing glory of the year has been the completion of the general bath 
house. For a detailed description of this structure the attention of 
the managers is called to the accompanying elaborate special report 
by Mr. Wm. Paul Gerhard, C. E., who planned the work and su- 
perintended its execution. Briefly stated, it is the so-called ‘ rain 
bath,’ first popularized in Germany, which substitutes for the ordi- 
nary tubs a system of sprays which are supplied from specially con- 
structed generators with warm water. To Dr. S. Baruch, of New 
York City, is due the credit of introducing the system into this 
country. His pamphlet, 'A Plea for Public Baths,’ published in 
1891, was followed by the erection of a rain bath at the New York 
Juvenile Asylum. Others on a larger scale followed, some of which 
were planned and designed by Mr. Gerhard, who scattered much 
good seed through the medium of his pamphlets on ‘The Modern 
Rain Bath.’ The new system secured the immediate endorsement 
and encouragement of the State Commission in Lunacy. A copy of 
one of Mr. Gerhard’s pamphlets fell into my hands and led to the 
engagement of the author’s services at Utica. Our splendidly 
equipped bath is the result of that engagement. No one who has 
not had the opportunity to compare practically the old with the new 
method can form an adequate idea of the comfort and convenience 
* See the author’s pamphlet on “ The Rain Bath at the Utica State Hospital.” of the rain bath adapted to the needs of a large hospital for the in- 
sane. All ward bathing is now a thing of the past, only to be sanc- 
tioned in special cases. In a word, the rain bath is an ideal method 
of ablution." 
30 
While club houses are often furnished with bathing facilities in 
the shape of bath tubs, the gymnasiums require, as an adjunct to 
bodily exercise and gymnastics, either a swimming bath or cold and 
tepid showers. 
BATHS FOR CLUB HOUSES AND GYMNASIUMS. 
It is usual, in our large cities, to provide in all hotels, as well as 
in the larger barber shops, bathing facilities, largely for the use of 
the traveling public, and bath tubs of various materials and fittings 
have in the past been fitted up for the ablutions of the body. 
Inasmuch as the cleansing of the skin is the chief consideration 
and object of these baths, the new form of tepid rain or shower 
bath appears to be eminently well adapted. 
BATHS FOR HOTELS AND BARBER SHOPS. 
MEDICAL BATHS. 
Those forms of medical baths in which the water used is derived 
from a mineral or hot spring, depend entirely for their location upon 
the locality of the springs. As it is not the object of this article to 
discuss medical baths in detail, the subject must be dismissed with 
these few words. 
RIVER AND SEA BATHS. 
The location of all river and sea baths depends upon the character 
of the water, upon the shape of the river banks or upon the condition 
of the beach. Baths situated upon the banks of a river should pref- 
erably be located above a city or town, or at least above the sewer 
outlets, and remote from drains or surface ditches carrying wastes 
from industrial establishments, chemical factories, gas works, etc. 
Such baths are either stationary or floating, and can in both cases be 
used by the public only during the summer season. 
In locating sea baths, it is well to choose a locality outside of the 
harbor proper, where the sea water is pure, where the beaches are 
not defiled by city garbage, where there are no treacherous currents 
or dangerous undertows and where the beaches are free from pebbles 
or larger stones. A sandy, hard beach, with gradual descent, forms 
the best bathing ground. 31 
River and sea baths are patronized by the masses in hot weather, 
because then the body cannot readily give off its heat, while the cool 
water draws out the surplus heat from the body, and thus refreshes 
and tones up the system. 
The beneficial effect of sea baths is due to a number of other fac- 
tors, such as the composition of the sea water, the invigorating 
shock caused by the impact or mechanical pressure of the waves 
upon the body, to the exercise in the open air and the breathing of 
the pure sea air. Thue, sea bathing may be considered an important 
aid to the preservation of health, and even the warm sea water baths 
taken in tubs may be of benefit to the constitution of weaker persons 
who cannot take the surf baths. 
THE END. WILLIAM PAUL GERHARD, C. E., 
Consulting Engineer for Sanitary Works, 
OFFERS HIS SERVICES AS CONSULTING AND SUPERINTENDING 
ENCINEER IN THE FOLLOWINC SPECIAL BRANCHES 
OF SANITARY AND DOMESTIC ENCI- 
NEERINC, VIZ: 
DKAINAGE AND SEWERAGE OF CITIES 
AND TOWNS, WATER SUPPLY, PLUMB- 
ING AND DRAINAGE OF BUILDINGS, 
FIRE PROTECTION OF WAREHOUSES, 
FACTORIES, THEATRES AND PUBLIC 
INSTITUTIONS. ARRANGEMENT AND 
FITTING UP OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE 
BATH HOUSES, AND OF RAIN BATHS 
FOR INSTITUTIONS; SEWAGE DISPOSAL 
FOR COUNTRY HOUSES, INSTITUTIONS, 
VILLAGES AND TOWNS, SANITATION 
OF SCHOOL HOUSES AND HOSPITALS, 
SANITARY INSPECTIONS. 
EXPERT REPORTS PREPARED UPON THE SANITARY 
CONDITION OF HOUSES FOR SALE OR TO 
RENT, IN CITY OR COUNTRY. 
PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS PREPARED AND 
WORK OF CONSTRUCTION SUPERINTENDED. 
OFFICG: 
36 Union Square, East, New York City.