Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-27

full the heat you can endure have seen
a man go up to nearly the boiling point or
water. (Remember. it is dry heaD. And
it is a common thing to stand from 60 to
50 degrees centigrade.
Electric Light Bulbs the Best.
Some practitioners and patients to get
heat quickly have tried at-without-light
radiators. Others have put in the big glass
cylinders of electric heating apparatus. IN
the end all have gone back to the ordinary
electric light bulbs OF sixteen candlepower
each, because ttlere seems to be no doubtl
the intense light itself has a secondary benz
eficial effect on the perspiring body that is
not to be despised and which the habitue
learns to demand.
One specialist I know--he has the finest
"sweat-box' salon in Paris-Caused octag-
onal boxes to be made for him. Around
the sides of il he alternates tho Edison
electric light bulbs with powerful arc lamps
producing intense white light and little
heat Before these arc lamps he has set
screens of blue glass. The whole is so
wired that, at WILL the current can be sent
to either the Edison lamp system or the
arc lamp system. Then. when one has
sweat well with the Edison lamps. he
shuts most of these off, keeps two small
radiators going to reinforce the heat and
starts the arc lamps buzzing.
A flood of blue light. not hot. pours over
the naked body in the box. Now. while
the scientific why's and wherefores are Just
here bit obscure il seems to be a fact
that the party in the sweat-box feels a
new and strange relief, a sort of special
well-being on account of this blue light.
1t certainly has given patience to impatient
subjects sweating under ordinary heat and
light. Those who have practiced i1Stick
+ to it, and you must not think that ssecial-
lists are without theories to explain It.
Cure for Neurasthenia.
They say that neurasthenia is unknown
among populations in which Turkish baths
form part of common, daily life. This fact
alone would recommend the sweating and
douching panacea to Parisians. with whom
nerve weakness has become scourge.
They grow blue. nervous. off their feed and
feeling strange, headachy and sleepless,
saying that they know they will die soon.
There are those who get terrible weeping
fits: who grip the doctor, moaning: DO not
leave met! They dare not, cannot walk
the street alone. They are terrified at large.
open spaces. They fear microbes in their
food. They feel If a string were tied
round their forehead. They have little shv-
ers. They feel like jumping out of their
skin.
Now that it is known that neurasthenia
Is very much OF toxic origin. the grande
nevrose of Paris makes a Decline for the
sweat-box, and the fad Is all the luckier in
this, that its strong reactions from the in
tense sweating to the necessary douching
with tepid- going on-to-cold water, respond
exactly TO the old neurasthenia treatment.
This is the attacking of the ptose Qoosen-
ing) of vein artery TUNES, like the outer
parts of telephone cables. They loosen
and your nerves loosen, so to speak. one
treatment was the rest cure. It never tight
ened up anything. The other has always
been the 'saisissement," the taking" the
shock or reaction of the tepId or cool water
striking the body after a douching with
hot or warm water. After the sweat-bOX
the douching makes a far greater reaction.
There you are, the sweating out of one S
own house-made poisons and the tighten
ing up of the arterial tunics. And mad
ame's blues fade into mauve to rose.
STERLING HELLO.