Bathing

Thn Journal of Chemütry says : Regular bathiug, so far as the people of thia country is concerned, is certainly a habit of pure modern adoption. The fatherg and inothers, and grand fathers and grand mothers of those who have reached middle life, scldom or never bathed except in the warm mouths of summer. Their dwellings aflbrded no conveniences for the act if thoy feit the nood of performing it. As a general thing the hoalth was unaffected by this omission. Why wasthis? cause oí their ocupations and methods oL living. They were activo workers, they wore a small amount of clothing, they lived mucb in the open air, and their dwellings wero without stovo or furnace heat. If any one in theso days will exorcise in the open air, so that each day he will perspire moderately, and if ho will wear thin undergannents, or none at all, and sleep in a cold roora, the functions of the skin will suffer littlc or no irapodiment if water is withheld for months. Indeed bathing is not the only way in which its healthful action can be niaintained by those living under the condition at present existmg. Dry friction over the whole surface of the body once a day, is often of more service than the application of water. The reply of the centenarian to the inquiry, to what habit of life he attributed his good health and extreme longevity, that he believed it duo to "rubbing hiinself all over with a cob every night," is significant of au important truth. If invalids and persons of low vitality would use dry friction and Dr. Franklin's " air-bath " every day for a considerable cious use of water is to be oonuuended ; but human beings aro not amphibious. Naturo indicates that the functions of the skin are to bo kept in order, mainly by muscular exercise, by exciting natural perspiration by labor ; and delicious as is the bath, and healthful under proper regulation, it is no substituto for that exercise of the body, without which all the functions become abnormal.