I know nothing of the fcaphandre of M. de la Chapelle. I know by experience that it is a great comfort to a swimmer, who has a confiderable distance to go, to turn himfelf fometimes on his back, and to vary in other refpects the means of procuring a progreffive motion. When he is feized with the cramp in the leg, the method of driving it away is to give to the parts affected a fudden, vigorous, and violent fhock; which he may do in the air as he swims on his back. During the great heats of fummer there is no danger in bathing, however warm we may be, in rivers which have been thoroughly warmed by the fun. But to throw oneself into cold fpring water, when the body has been heated in the fun, is an imprudence which may prove fatal. I once knew an inftance of four young men, who having worked at harveft in the heat of the day, with a view of refreshing themselves plunged into a fpring of cold water: two died upon the fpot, a third the next morning, and the fourth recovered with great difficulty. A copious draught of cold water, in fimilar circumstances, is frequently attended with the fame effect in North Ame rica. The exercife of fwimming is one of the moft healthy and agreeable in the world. After having fwam for an hour or two in the evening, one fleeps coolly the whole night, even during the moft ardent heat of fummer. Perhaps the pores being cleanfed, the infenfible perfpiration increafes and occafions this coolnefs. It is certain that much fwimming is the means of ftopping a diarrhoea, and even of producing a conftipation. With refpect to thofe who do not know how to fwim, fwim, or who are affected with a diarrhoea at a feafon which does not permit them to use that exercife, a warm bath, by cleanfing and purifying the skin, is found very falutary, and often effects a radical cure. Ifpeak from my own experience, frequently repeated, and that of others to whom I have recommended this You will not be displeased if I conclude these hafty remarks by informing you, that as the ordinary method of fwimming is reduced to the act of rowing with the arms and legs, and is confequently a laborious and fatiguing operation when the space of water to be croffed is confiderable; there is a method in which a swimmer may pafs to great diftances with much facility, by means of a fail. This discovery I fortunately made by accident, and in the following manner. When I was a boy I amused myself one day with flying a paper kite; and approaching the bank of a pond, which was near a mile broad, I tied the string to a stake, and the kite afcended to a very confiderable height above the pond, while I was swimming. In a little time, being defirous of amufing myfelf with my kite, and enjoying at the fame time the pleasure of swimming, I returned; and loofing from the ftake the ftring with the little ftick which was fastened to it, went again into the water, where I found, that, lying on my back and holding the stick in my hands, I was drawn along the furface of the water in a very agreeable manner. Having then engaged another boy to carry my clothes round the pond, to a place which I pointed out to him on the other fide, I began to cross the pond with my kite, which carried me quite over without the leaft fatigue, and with the greatest pleasure imaginable. I was only obliged occafionally to halt a little in my courfe, and refift its progress, when when it appeared that, by following too quick, I lowered the kite too much; by doing which occafionally I made it rife again. I have never fince that time practifed this fingular mode offwimming, though I think it not impoffible to cross in this manner from Dover to Calais. The packet-boat, however, is ftill preferable. NEW NEW MODE OF BATHING. EXTRACTS OF LETTERS TO M. DUBOURG. London, July 28, 1768. I GREATLY approve the epithet which you give, in your letter of the 8th of June, to the new method of treating the small-pox, which you call the tonic or bracing method: I will take occafion, from it, to mention a practice to which I have accustomed myself. You know the cold bath has long been in vogue here as a tonic; but the fhock of the cold water has always appeared to me, generally speaking, as too violent, and I have found it much more agreeable to my conftitution to bathe in another element, I mean cold air. With this view I rife early almoft every morning, and fit in my chamber without any clothes whatever, half an hour or an hour, according to the season, either reading or writing. This practice is not in the leaft painful, but, on the contrary, agreeable; and if I return to bed afterwards, before I drefs myself, as fometimes happens, I make a fupplement to my night's reft of one or two hours of the moft pleafing fleep that can be imagined. I find no ill confequences whatever refulting from it, and that at leaft it does not injure my health, if it does not in fact contribute much to its prefervation.-I fhall therefore call it for the future a bracing or tonic bath. March March 10, 1773 I fhall not attempt to explain why damp clothes occafion colds, rather than wet ones, because I doubt the fact; I imagine that neither the one nor the other contribute to this effect, and that the caufes of colds are totally independent of wet and even of cold. I propofe writing a fhort paper on this fubject, the first moment of leifure I have at my difpofal.-In the mean time I can only fay, that having fome fufpicions that the common notion, which attributes to cold the property of stopping the pores and obftructing perfpiration, was ill founded, I engaged a young phyfician, who is making fome experiments with Sanctorius's balance, to eftimate the different proportions of his perfpiration, when remaining one hour quite naked, and another warmly clothed. He purfued the experiment in this alternate manner for eight hours fucceffively, and found his perspiration almoft double during thofe hours in which he was naked. OBSER |