Regency Health and Medicine: The Vapour Bath

By | |

For Domestic Use as a most Efficient VAPOUR BATH for Local or General Purposes the Writer can recommend the JEKYLL BATH 7 The above shows Captain Jekyll's Patent Portable Vapour Bath price Twelve Guineas with Seat Curtain and Dresses complete accompanied with a book of cases and ample directions The FUMIGATING Baths are necessarily Fixtures But the above represents a PorTABLE Vapour Bath of very superior construction and manufacture suitable to Invalids who cannot leave their room or for persons travelling as a VAPOUR BATH can be thus had in any place where there is a fire and in as short a space of time as a tea kettle can be made to boil and during which time the bath is put in readiness It co be used in a drawing room without soiling the cleanest carpet As a VAPOUR BAT it leaves nothing more to be desired and is so durable as to be handed down fro family to family and including the seat for taking the bath it occupies but a foot aa half square The whole is packed in a mahogany box which slides and pa between the legs of the seat It can be used locally or generally and with the inclosed or not at the discretion of the bather They were invented by the propr an amateur engineer of acknowledged excellence and never made with a vi profit and since the decease of Dr Kentish are only to be had by order to and Dr GREEN No 40 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATE A The Bath as being taken 3 Folding Tube with Key to B The Boiler with the safety valve and Vapour connecting tubes 4 The Disperser into which C The Apparatus shown in perspective 5 The foot stool 1 The Elbow Joint which attaches to the 6 Caned seat Boiler 7 Telescope upright with 2 Connecting Tubes suspend the Curtain be put ARY A Short Account of Fumigating, Hot Air, and Vapour Baths (1837) 

Originating from the Roman bath or a Turkish bath, the vapour bath was essentially a sauna or steam bath that in the late Regency era into the Victorian era was created to be very portable to treat a variety of ailments.

I was able to find several publications from the Regency era citing the benefits of the vapor bath particularly for gout and rheumatism, but also for arthritis and congestion.  Some papers also made other claims about the healing properties of the dry pump or vapour bath.

The most common vapour bath in the UK during the Regency was a solitary bath, rather than a communal bath, to be employed either in a specially built room or with apparatus as described above.

VAPOUR BATH The Vapour Bath in use in this country is simple in construction and effectual in its application it is well adapted for the use of hospitals and dispensaries and is calculated from its simplicity and efficacy to bring into general use an agreeable and salutary practice as well as a powerful remedy in many obstinate diseases It is an apparatus to which the
steam of boiling water either simple or medicated is conveyed through pipes from a common digester or steam boiler modelled from one invented by the honourable Basil Cochrane In this apparatus the stimulant power of heat is modified and tempered by the moisture diffused through the air and as the elastic vapour like air is a less powerful conductor of heat than a watery fluid the effect of vapour in raising the temperature of the body is much less than that of the hot bath Its heating effect is also farther diminished by the copious
perspiration which ensues so that on all accounts the vapour bath is safer as it is in most cases more effectual than the hot water bath and may be employed with success where the hot bath would be attended with danger The vapour bath may be applied to the whole body or to any part of it its immediate effects are to excite or increase the action of the superficial arteries by which the determination of blood to the deeper seated parts is diminished this increase of circulation at the surface of the body produces a copious perspiration which may be continued as it is excited at pleasure It should however always cease before debility begins The utility of this application is obvious in all cases of internal inflammation it draws a great quantity of blood to the surface and relieves the internal parts by the secretion of the skin which is the mode nature takes to resolve inflammations and fevers Besides an increased
perspiration other effects are produced on the system equal and due action is restored to the surface and a highly agreeable sensation is produced which renders the influence of cool air safe and desirable An Essay on Warm, Cold, and Vapour Bathing (1820)

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.