sitate to avow similar sentiments.

The objections of Dr. Dewees to cold bathing are the following. 1. There
often exists a predisposition to disease, which cold bathing is sure to
rouse to action. Or if the disease have already begun to affect the
system, the bath is sure to aggravate it. 2. Some children have such
feeble constitutions that they are sure to be permanently weakened by
it, rather than invigorated. 3. To those in whom there is the tendency
of a large quantity of blood to the head, lungs, liver, &c., it is
injurious. 4. In some, the shock produces a species of syncope, or
catalepsy. 5. The _reaction_, as shown by the heat which follows the
cold bath, is, in some cases, so great as to produce a degree of fever,
and consequent debility. 6. It never answers the purposes of
cleanliness--one great object of bathing--so well as the warm bath. 7.
It is always unpleasant or painful to the child; especially at first. 8.
It sometimes produces severe pain in the bowels.

This is a very formidable list of objections; and certainly deserves
consideration. There is one statement made by Dr. D. in the progress of
his remarks on this subject, in which I do not concur. He says--"The
object of all bathing is to remove impurities arising from dust,
perspiration, &c., from the surface; that the skin may not be obstructed
in the performance of its proper offices."

But the object of cold bathing, with many, is to _harden_; consequently
it is not true that cleanliness is the _only object_. If he means, even,
that cleanliness is the only _legitimate_ object of all bathing, I shall
still be compelled to dissent.

If the cold bath could be used, always, by and with the direction of a
skilful physician, I believe its occasional use might be rendered
salutary. And although as it is now commonly used, I believe its effects
are almost anything but salutary, I do not deny that if its use were
cautiously and gradually begun, and judiciously conducted, it might be
the means of making children who are already robust, still more hardy
and healthy than before, and better able to resist those sudden changes
of temperature so common in our climate, and so apt to produce cold,
fever, and consumption.

Cold bathing, in the hands of those who are ignorant of the laws of the
human frame--and such unfortunately and unaccountably most fathers and
mothers are--I cannot help regarding as a highly dangerous weapon; and
therefore it is, that in vi