if warm water is taken into the stomach considerably beyond the wants of the system, so long as it remains in that viscus it dilutes its contents, lessens their excitant influence on the secretory function, and causes a diminished production of gastric juice, and consequent defect of digestion. Penetrating the gastric tissues, it relaxes both the mucous and muscular coats, and thus also impairs the function, while it directly weakens the organ. The nervous structure is involved in the same depressing influence, which makes itself felt, through the extensive sympathies of the stomach, in nausea, feebleness of the pulse, paleness and relaxation of the surface of the body, general languor, faintness, and muscular prostration. These effects are sustained by the rapid absorption of the water into the veins, and the consequent dilution of the blood, which is thus rendered less excitant, and less able to support the various systemic actions at their healthful standard. Few agents are more depressing to the whole system than warm water taken freely into the stomach. At length, however, if continued, it is apt to provoke vomiting, partly by its nauseating effect, and partly by the distension of the organ; after which there is usually a disposition to repose, if not sleep. The water which has entered the blood is eliminated from the system either by perspiration or urine; the one or the other of these excretions being promoted, according as the surface of the body is kept warm or cool. The excess of water having been thus thrown off, the system gradually rises to its normal condition, without any tendency to exceed that point.

The external application of warm water is productive of the same effects, qualified by the extent of surface affected. I shall treat first of its application, in the form of bath, to the body generally, and afterwards of its more restricted use.

Warm Bath. The term warm bath is usually employed when the temperature is high enough to produce a decided sensation of heat, that of tepidbath when it is somewhat lower, so as scarcely to occasion any sensation whether of heat or cold. For our present purpose, it is not worth while to make the distinction. The warm bath, as the term is here understood, implies any temperature which, at the moment of immersion, occasions neither a feeling of coolness, nor a disagreeable feeling of heat. As expressed by degrees, this temperature varies considerably, according to that of the surface of the body at the time. What would be cool to a patient in a fever, would be hot to another in a chill. in general terms, it may be said that the heat of the warm bath, as here meant, may vary from 85° to 100° F.; the mean perhaps being in health between 90° and 95°. Generally speaking, a moderate sensation of heat at the first entrance is not amiss; for the stimulant effect is slight, and passes off in a short time, so that the influence very soon becomes purely sedative; while, for the purposes for which the bath is usually employed, it is desirable to avoid the least sensation of chilliness. immediately after immersion, there may be a slight excitation of the pulse and of the surface; but this is of no account in reference to the general effects. These are very soon of a calming or soothing character. An agreeable feeling of languor is experienced; the pulse becomes slower, softer, and weaker; the respiration is similarly diminished; and after a time a disposition to sleep is not unfrequently induced. The skin becomes softer, swells, and wrinkles; and the volume of the body is increased. A considerable portion of water is absorbed, and a disposition to micturition often takes place, with the passage of light-coloured and transparent urine. The general depression gradually increases, till at length uneasy sensations begin to be experienced, nausea and faintness are not unfrequently felt, and cramps in the limbs indicate that the nervous centres are suffering. How long this depressing influence can be supported it is impossible to determine exactly; but days have been passed in the water.

The length of time for remaining in the bath has no precise limit. it may be for fifteen or twenty minutes only, or may be protracted for hours. The patient before entrance should try the temperature, so as to ascertain that it corresponds, as nearly as may be, with that of his body. During the immersion, care should be taken to maintain the proper temperature by withdrawing, from time to time, portions of water from the bath, and replacing it by warmer water. Upon being removed, the patient should be placed between blankets, or warmed sheets, and wiped dry with warm towels; and no sense of chilliness should be permitted to be felt. Hence it is important that the air of the chamber should be warmer than is required under ordinary circumstances; not less, probably, than from 76° to 80° F.

Local baths, as the half-bath, hip-bath, and foot-bath, have similar effects, though proportionally less in degree. They of course act most powerfully upon the parts to which they are applied, softening, swelling, and relaxing the tissues, depressing the capillary circulation, and lowering the nervous force; but they in some degree also influence the system, partly perhaps by the absorption of water, though probably still more by interfering with the ordinary influences sent to the nervous centres. it may be presumed that, in health, these centres are kept in their just equilibrium by an influence sent up to them from all parts of the system in reciprocation of their own. The loss or diminution of this influence, from any one portion of the body, depresses the centres correspondingly; and more or less of a general sedative effect is thus produced. Even the foot-bath, continued for some time, sensibly affects the system.

Cataplasms and fomentations are other methods for the local application of water, with a view to its sedative effect. The former is the more efficient of the two, because longer and more continuously employed. For this purpose, cataplasms should be made with materials entirely bland, and simply serving as a vehicle for the water, which is the only effective agent. For materials suitable to the purpose the reader is referred to the class of emollients. Through the absorption of the water, the skin is softened and thickened, the blood in the part is diluted, the activity of the capillary circulation diminished, and the nervous power depressed. Any one familiar with the effects of poultices, kept too long in contact with wounds and opened abscesses, will readily understand their sedative influence. in an opened paronychia, for example, under constant poulticing, the tissues swell and soften, the whole finger is enlarged and acquires a mush-like feel, a fungous mass forces itself out of the incision, and all disposition to heal ceases. The parts are depressed to such a degree that they have not energy enough to take on the reparative process. Substitute a stimulant application for the emollient, and a rapid change for the better is experienced. The same sedative influence is exercised by cataplasms applied on a larger scale. Nor are their effects confined to the seat of their application. On the principle stated in the preceding paragraph, they probably exert an effect, greater or less according to their magnitude, on the general nervous centres. They certainly, I think, operate on certain interior organs in the same manner, or rather with the same effect, as upon the seat of their immediate application. A sympathy seems to connect the interior parts of the body with the portions of surface respectively corresponding to them; so that an impression made on the latter is propagated to the former without change of character. The sedative effect, for example, of water or of cold to the epigastrium, is felt by the stomach itself in a similar manner. Cold has the disadvantage that it drives the blood into the interior by contracting the exterior vessels, and thus in some measure obviates the sympathetic depression of the inner organs by the congestion it occasions. Water is not liable to this objection. its effects are purely sedative both externally and internally; for the vessels upon which it immediately acts are relaxed, not contracted; and the quantity of the blood in the part, though circulating less rapidly, is not diminished. Hence, emollient cataplasms are safer sedatives, in cases of over-excitement of the viscera of the chest or abdomen, than cold water, except in the case of hemorrhage, in which the sympathetic constriction of the cold is wanted.