foot is raised in a similar way, and similarly supported; a board is then
fitted to the foot, through a hole in the centre of which the chimney of
the heating apparatus passes; the blankets are closely tucked round the
patient and the frame; the lamp is applied, and the process of bathing
commences. In this way, it will be seen that the patient is suspended in
the heated air, which is moreover applied to the back in the first
instance; there is no fatigue incurred; and when perspiration has been
generated and carried on as long as is deemed expedient, he is let down
again, without difficulty or danger, into his heated bed, and surrounded
with the warm blankets employed in the bath itself. The room in which we
saw the experiment performed, was at a temperature of 43° Fahrenheit; the
clothes of the bed were of the same temperature: the lamp is conical, and
has no tube; the wick is merely inserted in it; the charge is two ounces
of spirits of wine. In ten minutes after the lamp had been applied, the
thermometer at the foot of the frame on which the patient is made to
recline, was 136°; at the head, 116°; on the blanket, which covered the
bed, 96°. Were the vapour applied above the patient instead of under him,
the difference between the heat at the breast and back would be at least
40°. The temperature once raised, may be kept up at a very small expense;
so that the whole price of the bath, continued for half an hour or three
quarters of an hour, will not exceed eightpence or ninepence. There is a
very simple expedient, by which, when the temperature of the chamber
formed by the frame of the bath is once raised sufficiently high, steam,
either simple or medicated, may be introduced, and the lamp apparatus may
be applied either at the foot, the head, or the side, as is most
convenient. The grand recommendation, however, of the bath, is the
applicability of the vapour to the entire surface of the body; the
simplicity and ease of the application, both to the assistants and the
patient; the exclusion of the possibility of cold; and its cheapness. In
all these points of view, we look on it as a valuable invention.