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I would repeat the caution that it is very necessary to beware of complications in these water-fittings and appliances. Some of the more "fussy" contrivances as, for example, the elaborated needle bath as above described require so much regulating, and so many valves and stop-cocks, that it is quite an undertaking for the attendant to set them going.
For this reason, and also because a corner is admirably adapted to receive an appliance of the shape of a needle bath, it is better, often, to fit it up in an angle of the lavatorium. But of these additions I shall have much to say anon, as one of the most important points about a bath is the arrangement of the water-fittings.
Handsome, large, and well-made water-fittings conduce, in no small degree, to the effect of a bath. There should be no attempt at hiding away of pipes, &c. They should be made features of the bath, and be designed with care and neatly finished. Every pipe, joint, and connection should be prearranged, and the means of fixing and supporting the same carefully designed.
Of water-fittings I shall speak under the head of "Appliances." In a combined shampooing and washing room the benches and basins will be required together. The basins may be fixed under a hole in the marble slabs, or affixed to the walls, as may be convenient.
For pure lavatorium purposes these basins, cocks, &c., are all the water-fittings to be considered; but in an apartment combining the purposes of douche room and perhaps a plunge bath chamber as well as a washing and massage room, more or less of the fittings about to be described will have to be accommodated.
Of the lavatory fittings in the cooling room, and of the "sanitary" water-fittings, it is unnecessary to speak, except to say that, in a place devoted to the attainment of cleanliness, plumbing of this nature should be as perfect as possible. A drinking fountain is a desirable feature in the tepidarium of a bath of any pretension.
The water-fittings of a Turkish bath include a boiler of some form for heating the water, a cold-water cistern, and a hot-water tank; supply-pipes, flow and return pipes, and branch pipes; lavatorium fittings, comprising bowls, basins, and cocks; douche room fittings, as the "needle" bath, shower, douche, spray, and "wave" baths; a warm shower-bath for bathers entering the bath, or desiring such a shower at intervals; and the fittings of the plunge bath.
For hydropathic purposes the lavatorium is generally required to have rather more elaborate water-fittings than other baths. The needle bath should include the ascending shower, the back shower, and the spinal douche a small nozzle behind the rose of the vertical shower.
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