This title caught my attention in the Project Gutenberg new ebook feed. I thought of The Captain in The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Close but not quite. This book is a description of the Victorian Turkish bath [1] AKA Roman bath [2], which is classified as a water cure AKA hydrotherapy [3].
By this simple process [of wet sheet packing] the pulse is often reduced from 120 pulsations per minute to sixty-five, in the short period of three-quarters of an hour, the circulation equalized throughout the body, and a soothing effect produced on the patient, which language fails to describe [and without drugs].
Interesting! I wonder if this uses the same physiological reflex as the hug machine [4] and weighted blanket [5]?
The wet sheet packing process is described in detail in the following two books [6] [7].
The truth will ere long be acknowledged, that it is our mode of life that makes us fit subjects for cholera, and that it is our mode of treating it alone, which makes the disease so dangerous. The wretch who is cast uncared for in a ditch, exposed to all tine inclemency of the weather, with water along to quench his burning thirst, has ten chances to one in favour of his recovery, compared with the well-cared patient who is dosed with brandy and the favourite specifics of the apothecary's shop.
Interesting, a self-critical look at Victorian lifestyles.
Do not run away with the idea that it is Islamism that prevents to use of [alcohol]--it is the bath. It satisfied the cravings which lead to those indulgences, it fills the period of necessary relaxation, and it produces, with cleanliness, habits of self-respect which are incompatible with intoxication. ... In Greece and Roman, in their worst times, there was neither "blue ruin" [8] nor "double stout." The Turkish bath supplies this stimulant, the desire for which prompts intoxication, and so becomes, as Mr. Urquhart [9] argues, a powerful engine in the promotion of temperance; by improving the general health, it also removes the desire for stimulus.
The Turkish bath is, in short, an antidote for the unwholesome lives we live--a peace-offering to outraged nature for our non-compliance with her laws. To ladies, to invalids, and men of business, whose sedentary occupations preclude the possibility of healthful exercise, the Turkish bath presents an inestimable boon.
author: Diogenes
source: ftp://ftp.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/7/3/2/5/73251/
title: Life in a Tub