THAT COLD BATH

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 September 1934, Page 2

THAT COLD BATH

WHEN IT SHOULD CEASE. “When should a man give up bathing? There ought not to be any hard and fast rule. Somei men bathe with advantage in the seventies; others cannot bathe without discomfort after they have passed 40,” writes the medical correspondent of “The Times” Trade and Engineering Supplement. “Everything depends on what is called reaction or after-glow. The chief merit of cold water is that it whips up the circulation to a higher degree of activity. But this occurs only when the circulation is healthy and in good tone. A weak circulation does not react well to severe stimuli, and in consequence its possessor, after his bathe, feels no glow of health. On the contrary, he goes about looking blue and cold for hours. ' “This man has done himself harm and not good. -He ought to give up bathing or restrict his bathing to warm days and warm seas. Not for him tho plunge into cold deeps.

“For it is certainly true that each time a weak circulation is over-stimu-lated it is further weakened. Instead of getting better, the reactions of the possessor of such a circulation, if he persists in bathing in cold water, are likely to get worse. “It is important that this aspect of the case should be borne in mind, because there are few activities so hedged about with preconceived ideas as this activity of bathing. Some people attach moral values, to ‘tho cold tub,’ and declare that the courage necessary to jump' into cold water, if one is weak, does good, no matter how little sign of good may be apparent. This is sheer, and dangerous, nonsense. There is no virtue in cold water other than the after-glow it is capable of bestowing. If that is lacking there is positive damage. “This applies to children as well as to grown-up people. Many a child has had its circulation over-strained for life by the moral enthusiasm of its parents or schoolmasters. It seems to be impossible to convince some of these good people that tlieir stoical methods are merely clumsy cruelty, and they are usually distressed when the child, freed at last from their authority, promptly abandons their teaching. “It has been uphill work getting medical questions settled on medical and not. on moral lines. But the battle, happily, is now nearly won.”