Effect of Tepid Baths

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 4, 1879

Effect of Tepid Baths.

We are much interested in the frequent reports which appear in various medical periodicals, especially the foreign journals, of experiments in the use of electricity, water, and other hygienic agents, which seem to indicate most clearly and unmistakably the increasing interest in this class of remedial agents. Great good is being done by these experiments, not only by calling attention to the utility of the remedies mentioned, but by the discovery of new properties and effects, and the confirmation by scientific investigation of practices long ago confirmed by empirical experience.

Very recently a German periodical of extensive circulation recorded the results of a series of experiments conducted by Dr. Von Liebig with the tepid bath. The doctor found that by the use of the tepid bath the temperature of the patient can be materially lessened, continuing to decline for several hours after, although possibly increased during the bath. The frequency of the pulse is also lessened, together with other changes which are indicated by the sphygmograph.

It appears from this to be demonstrated that temperature can be materially decreased without the use of a severe degree of cold, thus making the remedy serviceable in a great variety of cases in which cold applications cannot be borne. This fact has been long known to those familiar with the uses of water, but not heretofore demonstrated in a scientific manner.—Good Health.