BATHS AND BATHTUBS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 2, 28 September 1937, Page 10

BATHS AND BATHTUBS

The early Romans and Greeks were great for bathing, and spent many hours in their baths and going to healing springs and medical medicinal pools, says Dr. W. E. Aughinbaugh in the “Chicago Tribune.” Indeed, many Grecians and Romans of the better class provided baths in their homes, and Senacca, in one of his writings, complains bitterly of the “man who sings while taking ablution.” Oriental people enjoyed their baths too, and it is said that one of the rajahs of India invented chess while bathing, In the Middle Ages throughout Europe the bath, for some reason, fell into disrepute, and the French court practically abandoned water for bathin and cleaning purposes, and took to strong and agreeably-scented perfumes and toilet waters, using them as a disinfectant against body odours. In this manner toilet powders and colognes originated. This was also true of the English court before and during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It was quite common to have body lice in the ungainly wigs and elaborate mounds of hair worn by members of the nobility of that time. Many of the European lower classes went through life without ever having a bath. I had a patient, the wife of a President of a Latin American republic and an Indian by birth, whose Scottish maid told me that in her four years of service she had never known the lady to get in a bathtub or to completely wash herself from head to foot. But she did drench her body several times each day in toilet waters and perfumes. Another American male pationt of mine, who amassed a fortune, always refused to get in the bathtub, saying: “Only dirty people ever bathed.” He did, However, wash. hi< face and hands in the morning and coning.

Daily bathing in the United States is of comparatively recent origin. The first bathtub, made of mahogany and lined with sheet lead, was installed in Cincinnati in 1842, and the city fathers immediately passed a law prohibiting citizens from bathing more than once a week. Papers referrer] to bathtubs a.s “undemocratic vanities.” Culture' 1 Boston after 1845 permitted bathing in tubs only when ordered by a physician. Virginia imposed tin annual tax of 30 dollars on each bathtub.