CHAP. V. Of hot Baths.

THe heat of hot Baths is diversly spoken of by Authours. Aristo∣tle thought it proceeded from Thunder, which is false, for the force of Thunder is pestilentiall, any man may know it, that be∣holds Wine corrupt by Thunder. It makes men mad or dead, but these are healthfull, as experience daily shews. Also there are many places that were never touched with Thunder, for that never descends above five foot. Sennert. Scient. natural. l. 4. c. 10. thinks it comes from two waters that are cold to be felt, but grow hot in their meet∣ing, from repugnancy of the Spirits, as we see in oyle of Tartar, and Spirit of Vitrial, and in Aquafortis and Tartar, and of the butter of Antimony and Spirit of Nitre, all which, though they are cold to the touch, yet if you mingle them, they grow hot, and so that if you sud∣denly powre oyle of Tartar into Aquafortis, wherein Iron is dissolved, it will not only boyle, but the mixture will flame, which also hap∣peneth if you pour fast the spirit of Nitre into the butter of Antimony. Some impute it to the native heat of the earth, or to a certain hot spi∣rit; so that these natural spirits of exhalations heating not violently but naturally, in some places the secret channels of the Earth grow hot: that this heat is communicated to the Walls of those concavities, by reason whereof a sufficient and continuall heat may be communi∣cated to the Baths, even as in an Oven heated, when all the flame is gone, the bread is sufficiently baked, Horstius de natur. Thermar: Others ascribe it to subterraneall fire; but whether it be so, may be known by what proceeded, Bartholin: de aquis.

Farther it may be shewed by an Example: Mingle salt-water with Clay, make of this clay or mud a ball, and hollow it within, then stop the orifice with the clay, and put in a narrow pipe into it, and put this ball to the fire; the pipe being from the fire, when the Page  54 ball waxeth hot, out of the ball by the pipe hot water will run, Sen∣nert. l. 4. scient. natural. c. 10. Baths have a taste by the mixture of Earths▪ and so have things in the Earth.

Hippocrates l. de natur. human. saith, That there is in the Earth, sweet, sowr, and bitter; and in the bowels of it there are divers fa∣culties, and many humours, l. 4. de Morbis. Every thing drawes its nourishment from the Earth in which it is. Hence in Ionia and Peloponnesus, though the heat of the Sun be very sufficient, yet Sil∣phium growes not, though it be sowed, namely, for want of such a humour as might nourish it. Yet there are in that earth juices, not onely for the vaporous, but also for the moyst and solid substance. Juices condensed are dissolved by waters, the moyst are mingled, Earths are dissolved, and scrapings of mettals are found. The good∣nesse of them differs sometimes; because those that in Summer are beray'd with the Suns heat, and attenuated, are the best: In Autumn they are lesse beat upon by its beams, because he is nearer to them: so in the spring. For the Earth is opened, the waters are purified, the healthfull light of the Sun approaches: but in the Winter they are worst: for they are heavier, thicker, and more defiled with earth∣ly exhalations. That they suffer changes, we may learn by divers examples.

Fallop. de Therm. c. 11. Savanarola saith, That the Bath waters in the Country of Pisa cause great diseases in those that drink them, and the Inhabitants are warn'd of it. For in March, April, and May, when they see the waters look yellow, and to be troubled, they foresee they are dangerous. Alcardus of Veroneus, a Physitian, who writ of the Cal•erian Baths, saith, That the water of Apponus is sometimes deadly, by the example of one Galeatius a Noble man, who with his Son in Law drank of it, and dyed.

The sharp waters of Alsatia are sometimes so sharp, that they cause the dysentery; and sometimes they are feeble, and are deprived of their wonted vigour, Sebizius de acidulis, diss. 50. s. 1. The causes are divers; amongst the ordinary, a rainy, cloudy, dark, Southern con∣stitution of the Ayr, too violent flowing of the Sea, inundations, Earth∣quakes.

It is wonderfull that is written concerning some hot Baths in Ger∣many, that they grew dry when there was a tax set upon them, Ca∣merar. horis subcis. cent. 2. c. 69. Something like this, fell out in shell∣fish at the Sluce; for when a kind of tribute was laid upon the col∣lecting of them, they were no more found there; they returned, when the Tax was taken off, Jacob Mayer. in Annal. Flandriae.