Sweating Baths - Benefits

From John Kellogg's book, Rational Hydrotherapy, 1890.

Sweating baths are of the highest value as a means of ridding the skin of its accumulated impurities, opening up the obstructed lymph channels and spaces, thereby encouraging the circulation of the nutritive fluids and the development of normal nerve and gland structures, unloading obstructed sebaceous follicles of their hardened contents, as well as arousing to activity the nerve ganglia and the secreting cells of the internal organs, through the reflex movements set up by the cutaneous sensory impressions made. 

A diseased state of the skin is always connected with a congested or otherwise disordered condition of important internal viscera, and the restoration of the skin to activity is the most important means of relief from visceral congestion and other functional disturbances.The value of heating measures as therapeutic  means has not generally been sufficiently appreciated by those who have undertaken to employ water in a scientific manner. Indeed, many hydrotherapeutists, as Fleury and his followers, have held that scientific hydrotherapy is confined to the use of cold water exclusively. On the other hand,there are a large number of those employing baths, in this country at least, who make excessive use of hot applications, particularly the Turkish- bath, the Russian bath, hot mineral baths, mud baths, etc. A vast deal of harm has unquestionably been done by the depressing effects of frequently repeated and prolonged hot baths without the association therewith of the cold douche or some other means of producing tonic effects whereby the excessive sedative and spoliative effects of the hot applications may be antidoted or antagonized. This very serious fault exists almost universally in the methods employed at mineral bath establishments and other popular bathing resorts, especially those connected with natural sources of hot water. 

The author was pleased, however, in visiting various European bathing establishments some years ago, to note an exception to the general rule, in the practice prevalent at Leukerbad, Switzerland. At this quaint old resort, the patient sometimes spends six or eight hours ''soaking" in a great tank filled with alkaline waters derived from artesian wells at a temperature of about 100 °F., but on leaving the bath the massage douche is employed, and produces decidedly tonic effects. The massage douche consists of the application of a jet douche chiefly to the spine and the posterior parts of the body and over the region of the liver, the water being applied with high pressure while the attendant vigorously rubs and kneads the tissues with the hand covered with a hair mitten. In taking the massage douche, at the end of an hour's seance in the tank, I found it necessary to lay fast hold of a strong iron bar arranged for the purpose, and to keep my feet firmly braced, to avoid being thrown down and carried away by the force of the large stream of cold water directed upon me by the attendant. By a powerfully tonic application of this sort, the debilitating effect of the warm bath is prevented; but it is certain that equally good effects might be produced by less tedious means and milder measures. 

The cold bath in some form should be universally employed after sweating baths, except when contraindicated, as in Bright's disease, rheumatism, neuralgia, and cases in which the sedative effect of heat is desirable.


Hot Baths of dropsy, great care must be exercised, especially in cases of cardiac disease. The appearance of dropsy in a case indicates that the small blood-vessels have lost their power of active contraction, and the heart is weak and dilated. The stimulating effect of strong applications of heat may cause still further dilatation of the heart, which is already so weak as to be unable completely to empty itself of its contents, while the depression resulting from the atonic reaction of heat will still further weaken the organ, and may result in so embarrassing it as to induce grave symptoms. Death from cardiac weakness has not infrequently occurred in Turkish bath establishments. The danger is even greater in the Russian bath, and the vapor bath is not wholly free from 
danger. 

Attention should be called to the fact that in cases of edema due to anemia, especially when associated with obesity, sweating baths, even when quite prolonged, are often home without inconvenience and with decided benefit. The same is true of cases in which edema of the legs is associated with chlorosis, provided that marked cardiac weakness from fatty degeneration or other cause is not also present. 

A cold application following a hot bath in dropsy due to cardiac disease is especially important as a means of increasing the tone of both the blood-vessels and the heart; but it must be remembered that a severe cold application to the surface brings, for the moment, a very great strain upon the heart during the primary contraction of the small vessels which is induced throughout the entire body; hence the application must be managed with great care, and extreme temperatures should not be employed.