Care of Infants in 1837

Alken, The Infant

Loretta reports:



Well into the 20th century, a great many children did not survive infancy. In this context, the idea of "strengthening" and "hardening" a child makes sense, though we may find some of the practices a little alarming.
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A child is constitutionally weak and irritable to a high degree: hence we should endeavour to strengthen, and diminish this irritability, in order to procure it the greatest happiness of life,—a firm body, which may resist all the influence of air and weather. Such management is highly advantageous, as it will enable children, when adults, to support every species of fatigue and hardship...

All attempts to render children hardy, must, therefore, be made by gradual steps. Nature admits of no sudden transitions. For instance, infants should by imperceptible degrees be inured to the cool, and then to the cold bath…

The child's skin is to be kept perfectly clean, by washing its limbs morning and evening, and likewise its neck and ears; beginning with warm water, till, by degrees, he will not only bear, but like to be washed with cold.

After he is a month old, if he has no cough, fever, nor eruption, the bath should be colder and colder, (if the season is mild) and gradually it may be used as it comes from the fountain. After carefully drying the whole body, head, and limbs, another dry soft cloth, a little warmed, should be used gently, to take all the damp from the wrinkles, or fat parts that fold together. Then rub the limbs; but when the body is rubbed, take special care not to press upon the stomach or belly. On these parts, the hands should move in a circle, because the bowels lie in that direction. If the skin is chafed, hair-powder is to be used. The utmost tenderness is necessary in drying the head, and no binding should be made close about it. Squeezing the head, or combing it roughly, may cause dreadful diseases, and even the loss of reason. A small soft brush, lightly applied, is safer than a comb. Clean clothes every morning and evening, will tend greatly to a child's health and comfort.—The Female's Friend, and General Domestic Adviser 1837

Image: Thomas Henry Alken, The Infant, from Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man (1824), courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Tudor Era Cleanliness

Frances, Lady Bridges 1587

Loretta reports:

Looking at the title of this post, some readers will wonder what cleanliness has to do with the Tudor era. It tends to be assumed that our forebears were dirtier and smellier than we are.

As has been pointed out in a number of 2NHG posts,* this may not be the wholly correct picture. It turns out that the lives of our ancestors are not always what we supposed they were. Sometimes our assumptions are mostly true, sometimes there’s an element of truth, and sometimes what we take to be true is, essentially, historical myth.

How To Be a Tudor

Certainly, this piece by historian Ruth Goodman, on Tudor-era cleanliness, made me rethink my ideas about the Tudor era. I offer it in place of the Friday Video.

Ruth Goodman, by the way, has written other books about her experiences living the life of the past. How To Be a Tudor  is the most recent. How To Be a Victorian is next in line on my History Books TBR shelf.

*Some samples of our posts about cleanliness are here, here, here, here, and here.

Image: (Unknown artist) Frances, Lady Bridges 1587, courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Medical Advice About Bathing in 1813

Warm Bath

Loretta reports:

Recently, I posted about shower baths in the 1800s.

Those of you who’ve followed our various posts on bathing are aware that our ancestors were not necessarily filthy and smelly, although they did not generally take full baths or showers every day.

But cleanliness wasn’t the only reason for bathing. In 1800s medical literature, one encounters discussions about the medicinal value of baths, of various temperatures. My post on the Royal Waterloo Bath included the quote, “Bathing is so essentially connected with health ...”

Going to Bath or another spa town to take the waters might include bathing in as well as drinking the healthful waters.

This Medical Report, a monthly item—at least for a time—in Ackermann’s Repository, offers both a glimpse at the ailments a physician encountered and his thoughts on bathing. Please note the last several lines, where he describes what bathing cures and what dangers it holds.

1813 Medical Report

Image from Poetical Sketches of Scarborough in 1813, courtesy Internet Archive.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will allow you to read at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Taking a shower in the 1800s

Loretta reports:

Shower-bath at Scarborough

Recently, Isabella sent me to the website for the House of Dun in Scotland to look at this shower bath (please scroll down the left side of page), thereby reminding me I’d seen some 19th century shower-baths before, and setting off a nerdy historical search.

I distinctly remembered seeing one in the TV series, Regency House Party, and the connected book. When you view the image (second one down) at Jane Austen’s World, you may understand why it sticks in my memory. The blog post offers detailed information, which I won’t repeat.

Domestic Sanitary Regulations

But I will call your attention to the quotation from Godey’s, regarding the “high-peaked or extinguisher caps.” (Please see Leech caricature at left.)These were made of oil cloth.  As we’ve discussed before, hair washing wasn’t as frequent in the past (and we’re debating now whether we wash our hair too often nowadays), and there was strong disagreement about whether it was a dangerous practice. There did seem to be agreement about not having a large amount of water pour down on your head.

Christina Hardyment’s Behind the Scenes shows the Erdigg Shower Room.

This image from the Wimpole Hall Bath House, allows you to use a directional to view the shower-bath from all angles.

This page, at item 2485, explains how a certain shower bath works. This may enlighten us a little about the Scarborough picture at top.

The Mechanics Magazine, Volume 40, 1844, offers a diagram of a shower-bath.

New shower-bath from Paris

The clipping at left, from the 1830 Spirit of the English Magazines, notes the latest thing from Paris.

In 1839, the author calls daily bathing "indispensable."

For more about past bathing practices, you might want to read our Annals of Bathing:

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

As well as posts here and here, as well as some others I've probably missed.

Image upper left from J.B. Papworth, F. Wrangham, and W. Combe's  Poetical sketches of Scarborough  (1813).

Caricature, Domestic Sanitary Regulations, from John Leech’s Pictures of Life and Character, Volume 1

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will allow you to read at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Royal Waterloo Bath—from the Archives

Royal Waterloo Bath, London

Loretta reports:

A great many structures were named after the 18 June 1815 Battle of Waterloo, whose 200th anniversary we commemorate this week. Many still exist.  This doesn't.

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Plate 34.—ROYAL WATERLOO BATH.

This very elegant floating bath is stationed near the north end of the Waterloo-bridge, and has recently been built and completed with entirely new and substantial materials, in a style of superior accommodation, at a very considerable expense: it contains a plunging-bath, 24 feet long by 8 feet wide, and two private baths, 10 feet long by 8 feet wide. The depth may be regulated at pleasure by machinery, which raises or depresses the bottom as required, secured by cross timbers, and bound with iron. To each of the baths are attached small dressing-rooms, commodiously fitted up, with proper persons to attend upon visitors. These baths are so constructed, that the water, being a running stream, is changed every two minutes. The advantage of bathing in a flowing stream is obvious, and gives a decided preference over a cold still bath, which is frequently dangerous from the violence of the shock. The terms of bathing, as our readers will see, are extremely moderate: they are—

                                             £     s.    d.
In the plunging-bath .  0     1     0
For the season . . . . . .  1    11    6
In the private baths .   0     1     6
For the season. . . . . .    2     2     0

Constant attendance at Waterloo-bridge to convey visitors to and from the bath.

Bathing is so essentially connected with health, that we cannot but congratulate the public on this new establishment. It is singular that so few of the kind should be known in London, while there is scarcely a street in the French metropolis that has not its cold, warm, vapour, Chinese, and Tuscan baths, with a variety of others, suiting the capricious tastes of the inhabitants. Yet how deficient they are in the most important article connected with bathing everybody knows, while we have a noble river filled with the purest and most wholesome waters in the world. The want of baths in London has led to the incommodious and indecorous practice of public exposure in the Thames.

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—Ackermann's Repository, Vol. 7, June 1819

You can expect more about 19th century bathing in a future post.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will allow you to read at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Bathing Advice in 1834

British Nymphs at a Roman Bath

Loretta reports:

Along with the recommendations for bathing, we get a little reminder that not every household had its own bathing facilities.  London had a number of public bathhouses at this time, as the page from Leigh’s New Picture of London demonstrates.

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As a preservative of health the value of cleanliness must be obvious to every sensitive mind, whether indeed it be considered in a medical, a moral, or a cosmetical point.

Personal cleanliness, and every thing connected therewith, is a principal duty of man: an unclean and dirty person is never in health, and, at best, is always a loathsome and disgusting sight. It is better to wash twenty times a-day, than to allow a dirty spot to remain on any part of the skin...

The body, and particularly the joints, ought to be frequently washed with pure water, especially in summer, when the perspirable matter, being of an unctuous, clammy nature, obstructs the excretion by the pores. The face, neck, and hands, being most exposed to the air, dust, and the like, ought to be daily washed, morning and evening…

The whole head ought to be frequently washed and cleaned, as it perspires much, and is, besides, exposed to the dust and other particles in the atmosphere. Washing opens the pores, while the comb, by its close application to the skin, removes the viscid humors and renders them fluid.

The use of baths, too much neglected, ought to be more generally introduced. It is not sufficient for the great purposes of cleanliness and health, that a few or more wealthy families repair every season to watering places, or that they even make use of other modes of bathing, either for health or amusement. A very different method must be pursued, if we sincerely wish to restore the vigor of a degenerated race: we mean here to inculcate the indispensable necessity of domestic baths, so well known among the ancients, and so universally established all over Europe a few centuries ago.
 
—The Toilette of Health, Beauty, and Fashion 1834

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Here’s more on public bathing. Clicking on the Bathing label at right will take you to our many posts on the subject.  And here are directions to what may or may not be a Roman Bath in London.

Illustrations:
Thomas Rowlandson, British Nymphs at a Roman Bath, courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
Leigh’s New Picture of London, public baths.

Casual Friday: After the Ball

Loretta reports:

I happened on this little bit of early filmmaking, clearly made to titillate.  There seemed to be a good deal of that happening in the early days of cinema:  lots of scantily clad women.  There are certainly some oddities in this one—like, what is that stuff the maid is pouring on her?  But ye persons of historical nerdiness will appreciate this golden opportunity to see what layers a woman would be wearing in the late 1800s, and what went over and under what.

Après le Bal is a film by George Melies, whose name film buffs and anybody who's seen Hugo will quickly recognize.

Illustration is a possible image for during the ball:  Albert von Keller's Lady Dancing, 1900.

Readers who receive our blog via email might see only a rectangle or square where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Risqué bathing at Bath in 1825

Loretta reports:

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Who would ever have thought, in these moralizing times, when the puritans are raising conventicles in every town and village, and the cant of vice societies has spread itself over the land, that in one of our most celebrated places of fashionable resort, there should be found baths where the young and the old, the beauteous female and the gay spark, are all indiscriminately permitted to enjoy the luxurious pleasure together. That such is the case in Bath no one who has recently participated in the pleasures of immersion will dispute, and in order to perpetuate that gratification, Bob Transit has here faithfully delineated the scene which occurred upon our entering the King's Bath, through the opening from the Queen's, where, to our great amusement and delight, we found ourselves surrounded by many a sportive nymph, whose beauteous form was partially hidden by the loose flannel gown, it is true; but now and then the action of the water, produced by the continued movements of a number of persons all bathing at the same time, discovered charms, the which to have caught a glimpse of in any other situation might have proved of dangerous consequences to the fair possessors. The baths, it must be admitted, are delightful, both from their great extent and their peculiar properties, as, on entering from the Queen's Bath you may enjoy the water at from 90 to 96 degrees, or requiring more heat have only to walk forward, through the archway, to obtain a temperature of 116.  . .  The notices to prevent gentlemen from swimming in the baths are, in my opinion, so many inducements or suggestions for every young visitor to attempt it. Among our mad wags, Horace Eglantine was more than once remonstrated with by the old bathing women for indulging in this pleasure, to the great alarm of the ladies, who, crowding together in one corner with their aged attendants, appeared to be in a high state of apprehension lest the loose flannel covering that guards frail mortality upon these occasions should be drawn aside, and discover nature in all her pristine purity—an accident that had very nearly happened to myself, when, in endeavouring to turn round quickly, I found the water had disencumbered my frame of the yellow bathing robe, which floated on the surface behind me.
—The English Spy, by Bernard Blackmantle, illustr. by G. Cruikshank.  (To read the full piece, please scroll down to page 320.)

King William's private place

Loretta reports:

State apartments are all very well, and I can be easily awestruck by, say, a magnificent painted ceiling, or candle stands that tower over my head.

But the most fun for me in touring a historic site is looking into the less public spaces:  kitchens, for instance.  Wine cellars.  Bathrooms.

Not too long ago we looked into Queen Caroline’s (Caroline of Ansbach 1683-1737) bathroom at Hampton Court Palace.

Nowhere in my perambulations, however, did I come upon the King’s bathroom.  I did find his lavatory, though.

King William III (1650–1702) was not an extrovert.  He liked to be alone or with small groups of friends.  One of the places where he could have some privacy was what’s called the King’s Closet.  Here he’d meet with the privileged few and work at his modest-looking walnut desk.  His long-case clock nearby needs to be wound only once a year—highly advanced technology for the time.

And in this private area, not far away, and in plain sight between the jib doors* is King William's own actual close stool.  According to the brochure, “the Groom of the Stool was a senior courtier who not only ran the Bedchamber department but also had to personally attend the king on his ‘stool.’”

I leave you to surmise what attendance entailed.

*In architecture a jib door is a door made flush with the wall, without dressings or mouldings, often as a disguised or concealed door.—Probert Encyclopaedia of Architecture.

"Few virtues are of more importance to society": Cleanliness & Dr. Buchan, 1769

Susan reporting:

Seeing Queen Caroline's bath yesterday reminded me of Dr. William Buchan (1729-1805), left, last mentioned on this blog here discussing the importance of healthy perspiration. This Scottish physician became a household name in 18th c. Great Britain by writing one of the earliest bestsellers of medical advice, a straightforward volume that became the standard reference in thousands of homes. Domestic Medicine: or, A Treatise on the Prevention & Cure of Diseases by Regimen and Simple Medicines was first published in 1769, and went on to be reprinted over and over throughout the 18th and 19th c., selling an estimated 80,000 copies. Dr. Buchan was a firm believer in cleanliness and washing as promoting good health, as this excerpt demonstrates:

"Frequent washing not only removes the filth and sordes which adhere to the skin, but likewise  promotes the perspiration, braces the body, and enlivens the spirits. How refreshed, how cheerful, and agreeable does one feel on being shaved, washed, and shifted, especially when these offices have been neglected longer than usual!.... Cleanliness is certainly agreeable to our nature. We cannot help approving it in others, even though we should not practice it ourselves. It sooner attracts our regard than even finery itself, and often gains esteem where that fails. It is an ornament to the highest as well as the lowest station, and cannot be dispensed with in either. Few virtues are of more importance to society than general cleanliness. It ought to be carefully cultivated everywhere; but in populous cities, it should be almost revered."


Did all of Dr. Buchan's readers follow his excellent advice regarding cleanliness? Probably not. But then, how many modern readers of doctor-written bestsellers are following similar excellent advice regarding diet, exercise, and plenty of sleep?

Above: William Buchan, M.D., frontispiece from 1805 edition of Domestic Medicine.

Queen Caroline takes a bath

Loretta reports:

Susan & I have posted extensively about bathing. In our Annals of Bathing, We’ve looked at historical hygiene from various angles. (If you missed that investigation, you can get caught up by checking out Episodes One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and  Six.)  In the process of answering our readers’ questions, we learned that finding extant  pre-Victorian bathrooms is tricky—mainly because so many of the houses were modernized.

Luckily for us, Hampton Court Palace (I last blogged about it here) fell out of royal favor after the death of King George II’s (1682-1760) consort, Queen Caroline (1683-1737).

She, it seems was the life of the party, a cultivated, socially adept woman who amply compensated for her spouse’s unsparkling, reclusive personality.  After she died, the grieving king lost interest in Hampton Court Palace.  His successor, King George III, hated it.  Since the second George was the last British monarch to live here, it didn't undergo much in the way of transformation.  It's had a few restorations, but the rooms are much as they were then, with many of the same furnishings in their original places.

This means that, among other things, we can see a not-modern bathroom—if one takes a peek through the doors at the back of the Queen’s Dressing Room.

Queen Caroline liked to bathe—and here’s evidence that for her, this meant full-body bathing—to an extent that wasn't usual at the time in England and was considered rather strange.  The wooden bathtub is a replica.  (Note the linens lining it.)  The marble thing at the back is a cistern for cold water. 


Photos courtesy me.