IMPROVEMENTS IN HOT AIR OR "TURKISH " BATHS
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Thomas Maccall at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 28th March 1882.
THOMAS MACCALL of Matlock Bank in the County of Derby, Doctor of Medicine
IMPROVEMENTS IN HOT AIR OR "TURKISH " BATHS
My invention consists of the construction and arrangement herein after described
of the parts of hot air or "Turkish" baths whereby tho working of the bath is
facilitated and simplified and the original cost reduced.
My improvements are especially applicable to portable Turkish baths but are
also applicable to fixed baths.
I make the bath ordinarily of two rooms side by side These rooms are of
unequal size, the larger being used as the "Flue room" the "hot room
" and the
"
warm room" and the smaller one being used as the "doucho" and shampooing
room. When the bath is to be portable I construct these rooms of an imperfect
conductor of heat, such for example as wood covered with thick felt. When the
bath is fixed I prefer to construct it of brickwork, but I do not limit myself to the
use of any particular materials.
I heat the flue room preferably by gas burners These burners are situated on
the floor and preferably at one side of the room and occupy the bottom of a
chamber or stove opening near its lower end into the room and having a flue
passing out of the top of the room and opening into the atmosphere. In this
chamber or stove, a series of flues is fixed, the tops of the said flues opening into
the room, their lower ends communicating with the external atmosphere by a
horizontal flue into which they open
By this arrangement fresh air enters the room only through the vertical flues
and becomes heated during its passage through the said flues, while the air supporting
the combustion of the gas burner is drawn from the room and after passing
through the stove is delivered to the external atmosphere. There is thus
established an incoming current of fresh heated air and and out going current of
vitiated air. By means of the stopcock regulating the supply of gas the different
temperatures of the three rooms of an ordinary Turkish bath can in turn be obtained
in the one room; namely the temperatures of 180° F, 150° F, 120° F or other

page_text: required temperature. Slides or valves are also provided by which the fluo room
may be put into communication with the external atmosphere for rapidly reducing
the temperature of the room and also for putting the flue room in connection with
the "douche" room to give the said douche room any required temperature.
The rooms are lighted by means of skylights and gas jets. In the latter case I
prefer to supply air to the gas jets and. to remove the products of combustion by
means of small flues independent of the arrangements herein before described.
The douche room has hot and cold water cisterns on its top and is provided with
the usual jets and appliances.., Where the bath is portable the hot water cistern is
heated by a gas jet but the hot and cold water cisterns on the top of the douche
room may be dispensed with and hot and cold water supplied from the house in
which the bath is built.
The douche room may have a wasto water receptacle beneath its floor. Where a
house is fitted with supplies of hot and cold water the second or douche room may
be dispensed with.