 - Suppose the matter of those ulcers, floating on
the water, comes in contact with my skin, when the pores are all open, I would
ask you what must be the consequence? - Good Heaven, the very thought makes my
blood run cold! we know not what sores may be running into the water while we
are bathing, and what sort of matter we may thus imbibe; the king's evil, the
scurvy, the cancer, and the pox; and, no doubt, the heat will render the virus
the more volatile and penetrating. To purify myself from all such contamination,
I went to the duke of Kingston's private Bath, and there I was almost suffocated
for want of free air; the place was so small, and the steam so stifling.
    After all, if the intention is no more than to wash the skin, I am convinced
that simple element is more effectual than any water impregnated with salt and
iron; which, being astringent, will certainly contract the pores, and leave a
kind of crust upon the surface of the body. But I am now as much afraid of
drinking, as of bathing; for, after a long conversation with the Doctor, about
the construction of the pump and the cistern, it is very far from being clear
with me, that the patients in the Pump-room don't swallow the scourings of the
bathers. I can't help suspecting, that there is, or may be, some regurgitation
from the bath into the cistern of the pump. In that case, what a delicate
beveridge is every day quaffed by the drinkers; medicated with the sweat, and
dirt, and dandriff; and the abominable discharges of various kinds, from twenty
different diseased bodies, parboiling in the kettle below. In order to avoid
this filthy composition, I had recourse to the spring that supplies the private
baths on the Abbey-green; but I at once perceived something extraordinary in the
taste and smell; and, upon inquiry, I find that the Roman baths in this quarter,
were found covered by an old burying ground, belonging to the Abbey; thro'
which, in all probability, the water drains in its passage: so that as we drink
the decoction of living bodies at the Pump-room, we swallow the strainings of
rotten bones and carcasses at the private bath - I vow to God, the very idea
turns my stomach! - Determined, as I am, against any farther use of the Bath
waters, this consideration would give me little disturbance, if I could find any
thing
