OCR Text |
Show HYGIENIC BATHING. Publio Swimming Pool Dangerous to Public Health. The dangers of the public swimming pool should not be forgotten by those suddenly interested in the subject of cleanliness among the poor of the cities. The proper methods of bathing bath-ing are four: (1) By the bath in ocean water at the seashore. For only a1 very few of the entire people, and for but one-fourth of the year is this possible. Such bathing, like I many other kinds of bathing, is not for cleansing the body. (2) By the bath tub with pure water, possible only for, the well-to-do, and a limited number in public bath houses. (3) By the spray or rain bath, the sole method meth-od advisable in public baths, and especially es-pecially if supported by the benevolent, benevo-lent, by the state, or by city appropriations. appro-priations. (4) By means of sponge or towel at home, even with only a few gallons of water. This method should be encouraged by hygienists, physicians physi-cians and all those who would discriminatingly dis-criminatingly help forward the cause of the public health. The free swimming swim-ming bath for the vast majority of our people is impossible to provide if the water shall be pure, and it is impossible impos-sible to keep the water pure when it is provided. We leave out of the count the not-to-be-sneered-at fact that unless un-less the bathing is done unclothed, soap and cleanliness are not thought of, and, even at best, modesty, that hardly-won virtue, is not encouraged in public bathing. The only incontestable incontest-able fact is that the public swimming pool is a danger to, not a promoter of, the public health. The newspapers, the politicians and the selfishly charitable charit-able are right in their efforts to encourage en-courage cleanliness, but the mere desire de-sire to do good nowadays does not prevent pre-vent the flanl result from showing wasted effort, and, not infrequently, positive evil. Science should ballast our sentimentalism, and nowhere more carefully than in socialistic experiment experi-ment and fervors. Philadelphia American Am-erican Medicine. |