The Turkish Bath Part 7

The heating apparatus of a private bath may be, for the simplest, a common laundry stove, as at Fig. 22 (A) and at Fig. 23; for bigger baths, a small convoluted stove, as at Fig. 24; or a furnace of firebrick with an iron flue, as at B, Fig. 22--a plan of the hot room (15 ft. by 12 ft.) of the bath which Sir Erasmus Wilson built at Richmond Hill. For elaborate baths, a small furnace wholly constructed of fireclay, such as that of which I have given complete plans in the chapter on "Heating and Ventilation," would be the best. A furnace of this description is shown in the design for an elaborate private bath, at Fig. 25. Should the bath be heated regularly every day, a firebrick furnace is certainly the best, as such furnaces retain their heat a long time. It should be "banked" at night. A bath only required at times, and quickly, is best heated with a thin iron stove. A portable iron stove and a long length of iron flue will rapidly raise the temperature. The simple baths ill.u.s.trated at Figs. 22 (A) and 23, are therefore very convenient and effective. The principle of heating by the transmission to the hot rooms of freshly-heated air is also a very convenient one for private purposes, as on this system the bath may be on an upper floor, and yet have its heating apparatus conveniently stowed away below, as at Fig. 24. A small furnace chamber, such as that at Fig. 6, _ante_, must be constructed, and a hot-air flue of large section built up to the hot room. If the bath be on the ground floor, the construction of any form of heating apparatus is rendered easier.

To prevent the transmission of heat to other apartments of the house, the precautions hereinbefore mentioned must be observed. Hollow walls must be provided round the heated chambers, to prevent loss of heat on the external side, and the transmission of heat through internal walls.

The floors above and below should--if not of solid fireproof construction--be formed as described in the section dealing with the design of the sudorific chambers, with puggings of slag-wool, asbestos, sawdust, or materials having similar properties. Windows should be double. Wherever possible, concrete floors should be provided to the hot rooms and washing rooms, so that they may be covered with tiles or mosaics, and on account of the spilling of water. It should be needless to point out the necessity of having most careful regard to safety from fire by the stoves or furnaces.

The ventilation of private baths should receive as much careful attention as those for public use. The hollow external walls may often be used with advantage for the extraction of the vitiated air, which must be let into the cavity at the floor level. If the bath be constructed on the ground floor, with nothing beneath, the system of carrying off the vitiated air by horizontal conduits--recommended for public baths--should be employed, as in the accompanying design for a large private bath, where the whole of the foul air is drawn into one vertical shaft of sufficiently wide section. Much that I have said on the heating and ventilation, and, indeed, on many matters in connection with the design of public baths, applies in the case of the private one, and the reader is therefore referred to preceding pages for many hints as to its construction.

In the accompanying figures I have endeavoured to explain the arrangement and construction of private baths, from those formed by converting existing rooms into bath rooms, to an elaborate and complete design. Fig. 22 (A) is a plan of Mr. Urquhart's cheap private bath, an apartment only measuring 11 ft. by 16 ft., yet forming an effective sudatory chamber, with simple iron stove, couch, seat, and sunk tank or lavatrina. On this principle I have arranged the plans of the baths adapted to existing rooms in a house, shown at Fig. 23. One plan shows a hot room built on to an existing ordinary bath room. A doorway is formed in the old external wall, and the new chamber constructed with hollow walls, with glazed bricks internally. An extra room would, of course, be thus formed on the floor below. A fireproof floor would be provided, and the pipes from iron stove conducted to old fireplace in bath room, which would become the lavatorium, and undressing room if necessary. A double-doored lobby is formed in the latter apartment, and the slipper bath used as ordinarily. It will be seen that by appropriating the adjoining bed room, a frigidarium is obtained, by taking away the flue-pipe to a new chimney, and knocking a doorway through the old part.i.tion wall, thus making a complete set of bath rooms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 23.

Methods of constructing Turkish Baths in existing Houses.]

The other plan, given at Fig. 23, shows an existing room divided into a combined hot room and washing room, and a cooling room. Three of the walls being ordinary external walls, the hot room is lined with lath and plaster on quartering, leaving an air-s.p.a.ce between to prevent loss of heat by absorption and radiation. One or two of the s.p.a.ces between the quarters should be formed into lath and plaster flues, for the withdrawal of the vitiated air, being connected below with the hot room, and above lead into the open air. A pugged part.i.tion and double-doored lobby separate the rooms. s.p.a.ce is left in the hot room for a full-length couch opposite the radiating stove, which has a metal screen around to protect the more adjacent walls from the heat. A lavatrina is provided, as shown at the enlarged section. A nook is formed for a shower. This recess could be fitted with enamelled iron screen and hood, as at the end of elaborate slipper-baths. A couple of couches, lavatory, and toilet table are compactly arranged in the little frigidarium.

Where these plain iron radiating stoves are employed, the fresh air should be admitted as near the stove as possible, and if the inlet be connected with a s.p.a.ce formed round the stove by a sheet-iron jacket, the air will enter the room at a considerably raised temperature. The temperature of the incoming air in a bath where the heat radiates directly from the stove or furnace to the body of the bather, is not a matter of such vital importance as it is in cases where the heat is transmitted through the agency of the air itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 24.

A complete Private Turkish Bath.]

Cost of construction being now so constant a factor in every consideration, I have been led to give the above plans and descriptions of cheaply-formed baths as suggestions for the adaptation of other rooms. But plans of more elaborate baths are occasionally required, and at Fig. 24 I give the plan and cross section of a bath constructed as an appendage to, and at one and the same time as, the house. In this plan all necessaries are liberally provided for, but there is no extravagant outlay on elaboration of features and decoration. It is arranged on the first floor of a projecting wing off the main building. The frigidarium is cut off from the corridor or landing of the house by a lobby, which provides a w.c. and a s.p.a.ce for boots and shoes and linen and towels.

Between the frigidarium and bath rooms is a double-doored lobby of a kind that is very useful in both public and private baths. Hung with heavy curtains over the inner face of either door, it forms a perfect preventive against the entry of the air of the hot rooms into the cooling room. Between the combined tepidarium and lavatorium and the laconic.u.m is a glazed part.i.tion with a doorway, fitted with a curtain if necessary. The walls are 18 in.--9 in. and 4-1/2 in., with 4-1/2 in.

cavity, used for ventilation. The bath rooms are lined with glazed brickwork. The floor is of fireproof, iron and concrete, construction.

Enamelled iron sheets are screwed to the ceiling joists in the hot rooms, and pugging placed over. Under the laconic.u.m is the stokery and furnace chamber, fitted with a small convoluted stove, a hot-air shaft leading to the bath room. Fresh air comes to the stove by horizontal flues from either side of the building. The windows in the bath rooms are double. In the laconic.u.m are two felt-covered wooden benches, as at Fig. 21 (E), _ante_, and a similar bench occupies one side of lavatorium, opposite which is the lavatrina, 18 in. deep, partly sunk into the floor and partly raised. The shower should be placed over this.

In the frigidarium are two couches, hooks for clothes, lavatory, and toilet tables, &c. This would be a very effective plan for a comfortable private bath.

The ordinary "slipper," "length," or "shallow" bath is out of place in the rooms of a Turkish bath; but where the bath has to be adapted with economy to an existing bath room, as at Fig. 23, and in cases where, say, some members of a family take the Turkish bath and others the ordinary warm bath, it may remain as at the last-named figure, and serve the purposes of a lavatrina. The lavatrina, as designed in the plan of the large Turkish bath appended, however, is the most convenient apparatus to facilitate the orthodox method of lathering and washing oneself in this style of bathing, as distinct from the ordinary method of immersion in a large body of water; and as the former manner is the most economical of water, it is unnecessary, in providing a Turkish bath in a house, to make any increased provision for the supply of hot and cold water over and above that which would be allowed for an ordinary slipper-bath.

In a private bath the lavatorium will also serve the purpose of a tepidarium. This chamber should therefore be as large as possible. In it may be required a shampooing slab, and, possibly, a small plunge bath, in addition to the lavatrina, reclining-bench, and what water fittings are to be provided. All that will be required are hot and cold water taps over the edge of the lavatrina, which should also have a waste and overflow. Having to be worked by the bather himself, the shower arrangement should be such as shown at Fig. 17, _ante_. This will serve all purposes, unless a douche and a needle are desired, when the regulating valve of this appliance must be placed conveniently within the bather's reach while standing in the bath.

The private bather, unless he can afford to engage a bath-man, must look upon shampooing as a _luxury_ but not a _necessity_ of the bath. Dr. W.

J. Fleming, in a lecture on the "Physiology of Turkish Baths," read before the Glasgow Physiological Society some years back, said that the accessories of shampooing, &c., are, despite the popular opinion to the contrary, non-essential. A shampooing slab--which must be of marble--is therefore not a necessary provision in any but very elaborate private baths.

A complete private bath must contain the _piscina_, or plunge. Unless s.p.a.ce and expense be no object, this cannot well be made capable of affording a vigorous dive; but endeavours should be made to secure a bath of such dimensions as will admit of a refreshing immersion of the whole body. It will be constructed and fitted exactly as a small public plunge bath.

The frigidarium of a private bath should be as pleasant, cheerful, and comfortable as possible. It should be a cosy place where the bather may recline and cool, and smoke and read, or otherwise divert himself to his heart's content. If so preferred, it might be arranged like an Eastern divan; or it might be a simple, homely room, fitted with one or two comfortable couches. A fireplace may here be a desirable feature, for appearance sake, during the winter months. The room should be _really_ ventilated--viz. well supplied with pure, fresh air, and with effective means of withdrawing the vitiated atmosphere, since, as I have pointed out in the chapters on public baths, the cooling process is, in its way, as important as the heating, it being essential that the bather should expose the whole surface of his skin to volumes of pure cool air.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 25.

DESIGN FOR A PRIVATE TURKISH BATH

LONGITUDINAL SECTION.]

At Fig. 25, pages 130 and 131, I give plans of a large private Turkish bath. It is such a building as would be a most desirable and pleasing addition to a country mansion; and considering the money prodigally lavished over the appurtenances of the modern mansion house, it is indeed surprising that more has not been attempted in the way of appending a feature that is at once a talisman of health, a cure for disease, and an untold luxury. The public bath may be a blessing, but for comfort and luxury it cannot compare with the well-appointed private bath.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Design for a Private Turkish Bath.]

The design I give as a suggestion, to be modified and adapted to any style of design. The building could be connected to the house by a corridor, or by a glazed _xystos_, either ab.u.t.ting on to the main wall of house or a little detached. Off the lobby to the frigidarium are recesses for boots and for linen. The frigidarium--about 15 ft.

square--has benches fitted up like one side of a divan, bay windows with s.p.a.ce for plants and flowers, lavatory and toilet-table, and an ornamental fountain. A lobby separates this apartment from the bath rooms, and off it are a w.c. and a towel closet, which latter could be supplied with hot air. The combined lavatorium and tepidarium--14 ft.

square--is a domed chamber, with semicircular recesses containing the plunge bath and lavatrina. A shampooing bench is shown. A marble dado surrounds the walls, and marble corbels are provided to pendentives of dome--which could be of brick or terracotta and concrete--and marble springers to horse-shoe arches. The shower is placed over the lavatrina.

Plenty of s.p.a.ce is left for a bench or chair in this chamber. Adjoining is the laconic.u.m with a firebrick furnace, after the nature of that of which I have before given full detailed drawings. The vitiated air is drawn through flues in the floor, to a shaft on the opposite side to the chimney. The stokery and c.o.ke-store adjoin the laconic.u.m. Fresh air would be admitted to the furnace as explained in the detailed description of the furnace ill.u.s.trated at Fig. 10. If there were no available supply of water from house, a boiler and tank could be placed in the stokery, and a cistern on the flat roof. The flat roof, if of iron and concrete, would form an abutment to dome. If thought desirable, the same flat roof could be carried over the combined tepidarium and lavatorium. An air s.p.a.ce should be left between the masonry of dome and covering of copper or other material. The lights should be double glazed. With the radiating stove there is no objection to the loftiness of the dome. This bath could be perfectly ventilated and supplied with pure heat of a most hygienic character.

CHAPTER IX.

THE BATH IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSt.i.tUTIONS, ETC.

The bath for the hydropathic establishment will generally be required in connection with, and--what is of greater moment--_in harmony with_, other baths, such as medicated baths, Russian or vapour baths, and the ordinary douche, wave, spray, and needle baths, which, where the Turkish bath is included, may often be efficiently administered with the appliances usually provided in the shampooing and washing room.

Moreover, if the establishment include the pumilio-pine treatment, or system of pine-therapeutics, there will be required rooms or halls for the inhalation of dry pine and pinal vapour. The nature of the communication between these different baths, as the medicated, Russian, &c., and the Turkish bath, and their relative positions, must be carefully studied. It should be compact and the various pa.s.sages and corridors as short as possible, these pa.s.sages and corridors being provided with means for maintaining them at a suitable, and uniformly equable, temperature. This latter point we do not find so carefully studied in hydropathic establishments as its importance would warrant.

The consequence is that, in pa.s.sing backwards and forwards to and from the different bath rooms, the delicate invalid contracts a serious chill.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 26.

Plan of the Baths at the Hotel Mont Dore, Bournemouth.]

I give herewith, at Fig. 26, a plan of the baths at the Hotel Mont Dore, at Bournemouth, which, though not confessedly a hydropathic inst.i.tution, has yet a fine bathing establishment of the hydropathic type, as well as complete arrangements for the administration of the pine cure. These baths include a Turkish bath, with three hot rooms, a shampooing room, and cooling room, connected by an anteroom with the suite of miscellaneous bath rooms of the gentlemen's department. The latter comprise a room for the tonic water baths, such as the needle, douche, sitz, hip, and wave; a room or "hall" for the inhalation of pine vapour, whilst in a bath of condensed steam; and a room for the administration of the Mont Dore cure, consisting of the application of pulverised Mont Dore water, or spray, to the eye, nose, or ear, as may be required, this room being also used for the inhalation of dry pine. In addition are a range of slipper baths, in comfortably fitted bath rooms, for the purposes of electric and medicated baths, such as those of pine extract, sulphur, iodine, &c., &c., and for ordinary hot and cold spring-water and salt-water baths. In connection are arranged dressing and reposing rooms, besides necessary subsidiary apartments. A somewhat similar suite of rooms is arranged for ladies on the other side of the block. There is no separate Turkish bath, however; certain days of the week are set apart exclusively for ladies' use. The steam boilers, which supply the steam to the vapour baths and pine-vapour baths, and the water super heaters, as well as the hotel lift and pumping machinery, are arranged in a bas.e.m.e.nt under the stairs, anteroom, tepidarium, and shampooing room.

It will be seen that the compact little Turkish bath, which was arranged under the direction of the late Mr. Charles Bartholomew, is in direct communication with the other baths, allowing the bather to pa.s.s from the hot rooms, or shampooing room, to medicated or pine bath, or _vice versa_. In designing the plan of baths of the type of those at the Mont Dore, this intercommunication between the various baths is the point to be most carefully studied. Direct communication is required between the Turkish, and the Russian, bath, inhalation hall, and medicated baths, as some methods of treatment render this an absolute necessity.

In a small establishment the hydropathic appliances are movable, and used in ordinary bath rooms, the Turkish bath being the only feature requiring special design.

A true hydropathic establishment of any size should be provided with two Turkish baths, one for ladies and one for gentlemen, as the power and efficiency of the treatment may depend upon the regularity and persistency with which it is carried out. Where there is only one bath, it has to be set apart on different days for the use of ladies and gentlemen, and it is evident that the benefit of a course of baths may be greatly lessened by the occasional unreadiness of the bath. Two suites of rooms should, therefore, be provided. It may be that they will be most economically constructed and worked if arranged side by side, so that they may have their furnaces together, and be stoked with economy.

Where, as in country establishments, there is plenty of room, it is often convenient to arrange the Turkish and other baths on the ground floor adjoining the main building, a corridor of connection being placed, if necessary. It should be remembered, however, that invalids have to be taken--often carried or wheeled in movable chairs--to the baths, and allowance should therefore be made for the pa.s.sage of such a wheeled chair from the top story, by way of a lift, to the door of the baths.

In a large establishment, a full complement of rooms should be provided for the Turkish bath--viz. three hot rooms, a washing and shampooing room, and a cooling room. They will, of course, be on a small scale; but the whole number should be provided. A plunge bath should also be added, but in small hydropathics may be dispensed with altogether.

For hydropathic purposes the lavatorium is generally required to have rather more elaborate water-fittings than other baths. The needle bath should include the ascending shower, the back shower, and the spinal douche--a small nozzle behind the rose of the vertical shower. The regulating appliances for these various showers, sprays, &c., should be brought together, and conveniently placed for the attendant. A very ingenious appliance, suitable for a hydropathic bath, is a thermometer regulating valve, which indicates the temperature of the water being supplied to the bather. The waters mix in a ball, into which is inserted the bulb of a sensitive thermometer, which rises and falls as the hot or cold handles are turned.

If the shampooing and washing room of the Turkish bath is to be used for the administration of the tonic water baths to other bathers besides those taking the Turkish bath, it must be made of ample dimensions. So, also, if the cooling room is to be used as a reposing room for other bathers, it must be made of large size.

Perfect ventilation is of paramount importance in baths used for the treatment of disease. Purity of atmosphere in the hot rooms is a vital necessity, and so also is it in the miscellaneous bath rooms of a hydropathic establishment.

Unreadiness is a great vice in the Turkish bath appended to these inst.i.tutions. Hot rooms beneath their proper temperature, and lukewarm water, are unpardonable delinquencies, either in the early morning, in the evening, or during the day. For this reason I would recommend a furnace of fireclay, as it retains its heat for a long time, and is not subject to the rapid changes of iron stoves.

Much of that which I have said with respect to the hydropathic bath will apply to the design of the bath for hospital and asylum purposes. Here, however, efficiency is all that is required, and everything need be but of the plainest description. The conditions and exigencies of each case must determine the size, position, and nature of the suite of bath rooms. All that has been said upon the subject of the design and construction of the bath must be studied, and the principles, herein given, applied to the peculiar circ.u.mstances. So also in regard to Turkish baths for hotels, and for residential blocks of buildings, and for clubs.

There is a wide field for activity in Turkish bath building, in the increased provision of baths in hospitals, asylums, and public and private inst.i.tutions of one kind and another; and also in hotels, "flats," and clubs. The hydropathic establishments have long adopted the Turkish bath as a powerful remedial and curative agent in perfect harmony with the principles of the Water Cure. But it is only occasionally that such provision has been made in hospitals and asylums; and although within the last few years noticeable innovations have been made in this respect, the subject has heretofore been greatly neglected.

Seeing, too, the immense extent to which co-operative living has developed, and the consequent enormous increase in size of large hotels, residential blocks, &c., I cannot but think that the builders of such tenements could with advantage turn their attention to the supplying of small Turkish baths for the visitors and residents.

CHAPTER X.

THE TURKISH BATH FOR HORSES.