THE USE OF BATH TUBS

Shannon News, 24 September 1926, Page 4

THE USE OF BATH TUBS

; -♦ i NEW YORK PROBABLY LEADS. New York probably leads all other cities in America in- the number of baths per capita in its dwellings and hotels. v An advertisement for a new apartment on upper Fifth, Avenue announces three to five baths in four to seven room suites. The hotel with a bathroom for every sleeping room is of course an American commonplace. , The first tub appeared in the United States as late as the 1 840’s. Tt was built of mahogany and lined with sheet lead. People looked askance at the neW. device,/ newspapers criticised it as “a luxurious and undemocratic novelty.” According to TheHospital Review it was even assailed by physicians who called the use of it a ‘‘menace to health.” Philadelphia in '1.843 enacted a law prohibiting bathing between November 1 and March 15. / Soon afterward .an ordinance passed in Boston required on behalf of public health that should be taken only when\ prescribed by a physician. An English newsletter of her period stated that “Queen Elizabeth built herself a bath where she doth bath herself once a month whether she requires it or not.” A current press controversy in London indicates that the bathtub appeared, in England between 1860 and 1885. France used the individual bathtub generally toward the end of the. eighteenth century. Marat, it will be recalled : was stabbed by Charlotte Corday, while writing in his bathtub. From the days of Roman bath pools until the sixteenth century the bath was practically unknown in West Europe and was considered dangerout, but Russia and and Japan maintained community baths. Russian hotel bathrooms are elaborately equipped,, mostly with marble, : and have to be engaged in advance like seats at the opera. Each Japanese native hotel has a general pool.