The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-09-07
The Great Unwashed

From the Philadelphia Public Ledger
 Bath, England, was an appropriate place for the deliverance of Sir James Crichton-Browne on the subject or bathing. This eminent medical au- thority asserts that If everybody LOOK bath every day the epitaph or tu- berculosis would be written. The statement immediately gives a lot or the little fellows chance to bark at the heels of the big one in the hope of getting themselves notice; but, Of course, taking the statement by and large, as 1t was intepded to be taken, the speaker Is right. great many baths in water mean baths in the open air as well, and the idiotic agi- tation to make people cover them selves up when they bathe so that they can hardly breathe and the pores of the skin have no chance is blow at sanitation and at good morals, too, beneath the insufferable guise of the highest morality.
 The author of "An Outline History of Tubing" in the August issue or Gas Logic (New York) points out the curious fact that the first bathub in the United States was put In by Adam Thompson of Cincinnati. in 1s42. He had run the gauntlet of the severest medical censure and was told that the abhorrent custom would lead straight to the pulmonary and phthis- ical ailments which Sir James Crich- ton Browne now assures us 1t will drive away. In Philadelphia the com mon council, that perennial fount of all wisdom, actually debated with ve- hemence and failed to pass by the narrow margin of two votes an ordi- nance that would make bathing ill., gal from November l to March 15. In Boston a similar ordinance was not repealed until 1862. In the latter seat of learning it was unlawful to bathe except upon the prescription of a physician. But it is on record that some Bostonians dared the rigors Of the law and performed what in Bos- ton are referred to as personal ablu- tions of predominantly saponaceous character even before the Civil war. They prided thAmselves on having more space behind the ears than most of us.
 Though the bathtub was anathema, there were opportunities for bathing in Philadelphia even in the eighteenth century. George Esterly in Revolu- tionary times advertised Medical waters for drinking and bathing. making haste to add. ''He is deter mined to keep the best of liquors of all and every kinds He drove thriv- ing trade. NThe so-called Wigwam Baths were opened by John Coyle on the flowery marge of the Schuylkin in 17s1. Patrons might disport them- selves in two shower baths and a 'plunging bath;" but Priest in his travels could not see the water there. His annotation runneth thus: "On the table there were coffee, cheese, sweet cakes. hung beef. sugar, pick led salmon, butter, crackers, ham, cream and bread" One Coghlan, to the acceptance of the many, ran float ing baths at Windmill (Smith's) Island in 1926. eS The Philadelphian who bathes no longer feels that he is a daring inno- vator, like the hardy pioneers of 1S42 who put ,bathtubs in their houses and then stood back, arms folded, and said: Let the law do its worst" We
 have made some progress between 1S42 and 1921. We have transferred the storm center of controversy from the bathroom to the cellar.