The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-19 00:00:00

People forget that it is by exposing the body to be
gradually cooled after heat produced by exertion,
and not by external means, that we become liable
to cold. The great and essential thing, however, in
a Turkish (or more properly speaking, a hot-air)
bath, is the application of heat to restore the skin to
a healthy state of activity. If the skin were var-
nished. completely, death would ensue in a few
hours from suffocation—a fact which proves that
we not only throw off waste particles by perspira-
tion through the skin, but actually breathe through
it. What then must be the effect of even partially
allowing the pores of the skin to be stopped ?
In a primitive state of society, when flowing robes
are worn, or when very little clothing is used,
the impurities which pass by perspiration and
respiration go off into the air at once ; but in civi-
lised countries, where tight clothing is used, the
respiration is partly choked, and a hard varnish-like
coating is deposited on the skin, which no amount
of ordinary washing or bathing will remove. Nothing
will carry it away but first subjecting the body to
great heat, and them rubbing it with the hand, as
the shampooers do in a Turkish bath. A clear proof
of this, that a man who is even in the habit of wash-
ing his whole person with soap and water every
morning will find, to his surprise, on going to a
Turkish bath, that the shampooer will rub off black
flakes of old skin and dirt, which must impede the
free action of the living skin ; and if a man less
scrupulous go to the bath for the first time, the de-
posit which is as it were peeled off him would, if
collected, make a ball as large as an average snow-
ball, though not as white. The Romans were aware
of the necessity of removing this deposit from the
skin, and hence took the bath (which was in all
essentiallthe same as the Turkish) generally once a
day, and used an instrument to rub the skin called
a " strigil." It is somewhat strange that this insti-
tution, after hdving been introduced into England
2,000 years ago by the Romans, who themselves
took it from the East, should again be making its
appearance, and, it would seem, with a greater pro-
bability of becoming permanent. What is now
looked upon in England as a novelty can be shown
to have existed 4,000 years. Although it has been
lost sight of in the greater part of Europe for hun-
dreds of years, it has existed from time immemorial
all over the East—from Morocco to Tartary, and
from Constantinople to India. Something of the
same kind has also been in use in Russia and Fin-
land, amongst the Red Indians, and, even until a
few years ago, in the remote parts of Ireland. An-
other very plausible but erroneous supposition is
that the Turkish bath is weakening, if taken often,
on account of the loss of perspiration. Perspiration,
however, is only one of nature's means of getting
rid of the impurities or waste matter in the body,
and the removal of those impurities cannot be
weakening. The best answer to this objection is
the fact that the shampooers in the bath, who
work in the hot air more than twelve hours a day,
are remarkably strong and free from illness. The
Turks, too, who take the bath regularly= at least
once a week, are noted for their health and lon-
gevity. The armies of the Romans, who, as we said
before, used the same kind of bath even more fre-
quently than the Turks, had no sick list and no
ambulances ; for, had there been any hospital service
equivalent to that of modern times, we should find
it mentioned in the military and political writers of
antiquity. The Turkish army is generally in so good
a state of health that, on one occasion, when 50 men
out of 3,450 were in hOspital, the circumstance ap-
peared alarming, and an extraordinary consultation
was held. One sick man out of 70 is by no means
an extraordinary proportion in the British military
hospitals. When the Russians occupied the Princi-
palities conjointly with the Turks, it sometimes hap-
pened that, on the same day, after a parade, 30Q
Russians would go into hospital, out of whom 160
have died in a few days, while there was not a single
case of death in the Ottoman army. If there be a
complaint for which, on prima facie evidence, one
might suppose the bath would be useless or injurious,
it would be consumption, yet it would appear from a
letter which was published in the Lancet, in Dec.,
1863, that the bath has been known greatly to alle-
viate the sufferings of consumptive patients, and cer-
tainly attendant with most beneficial results. Dr.
Leared states that if he himself were attacked by
phthisis he would give the bath the fullest trial. It
would seem, therefore, conclusively proved by facts
that this mode of bathing is not weakening ; and
when it has been recommended as almost a specific
for many diseases, such as rheumatism, sciatica, and
dropsy, by such men as Erasmus Wilson, Dr. Mil-
lengen, the Sultan's physician, Sir John Fife, and
even the superintendents of public lunatic asylums,
it is time that the public and the medical profession
should give the subject their most serious conside-
ration.
THE 4 4 ATHENEUM" ON THE DISCOVERY OF
DANTE'S BONES.—The discovery of Dante's bones
continues to occupy the Italian press. Not to speak of
the mystical light in which some of the papers, espe-
cially the Gazetta del Popolo, view the matter, look-
ing upon the coincidence of the Dante-Jubilee and
the discovery of the poet's remains not as a thing of
chance, but as the result of " certain mysterious,
invisible, impenetrable laws which rule the destinies
of the earth," we gather a few more facts concern-
ing the interesting discovery. Several physicians
were present at the examination of the bones ; they
took measure of the skeleton and found its length,
from the skull to the heel, F 55 metres. Besides the
piece of the lower jaw, a small piece of the skull is
wanting, as well as three finger-joints of the right
hand. The Franciscan monk, Santi, by whose tes-
timony, in his inscriptions on the box, these human
remains were known to be those of Dante, was a
great scholar, according to some old Ravenna au-
thors, viz., Serafino Pasolini in his " Lustri Raven-
nati dall' nno 600 all' Anno 1689." In the records
of the convent, autograph manuscripts of Santi were
found, which correspond exactly with the writing in
the wooden box which contained the bones. It was
Bernardo Bembo who, in 1483, had the monument
for Dante erected at his own expense, by Pietro
Lombardi. Later, when it had fallen into decay,
the Cardinal Corsi, a Florentine, legate of Ravenna,
had it restored, in spite of the opposition of the
Franciscan monks, who claimed the monument as
their property. This happened in 1692. Then fol-
lowed the Cardinal Valenti Gonzaga, who built the
present chapel at his own expense, which was com-
pleted in the year 1780. The bones, it appears, had
been removed before Corsi began his work in June,
1677, as the inscription informs us, but Corsi came
to Ravenna only in 1687. And now a half-for-
gotten rumour is at once remembered at Ravenna,
the rumour that the Dante Mausoleum in the Dante
Chapel did not contain the poet's remains, and that
this rumour dated far back ; in 1780, it is said, when
Cardinal Valenti restored the chapel, the urn had
been opened and found empty, and that all the by-
standers had been sworn not to reveal what they
had seen, .or rather what they had not seen. But
one of them, then sacristan of the convent, confided
the fact to his missal, in the cover of which it has
been found. All these smaller instances correspond
exactly with the historical events, long confirmed
and established, thus corroborating the fact that