Organs like eyes, head, anus, vagina, spine are given separate baths to cure specific problems. Here is a summary :
Eye Bath
It is necessary to take eye bath like other parts of the body. It cures eye diseases and increases eye-sight. There are two methods of taking eye bath.
First
Fill clean water in a bowl of glass or earth and keep it on a table or some high place. Dip your both eyes in this water. Keep on shutting and opening of your eyes in water upto 5 or 7 minutes, give them rest and avoid to go out in sunshine and avoid blows of wind. If something falls in eyes it comes out by eye bath. It relieves pain in eyes and soothes them. Water for eye bath should be clean, cold and fresh. One should not take bath in the water of ponds, etc.
Second
Purchase an eye glass from the market. Fill it with clean water and open and shut your eyes in it turn by turn for five to seven minutes. Throw the water of eye glass after the bath of one eye. Fill it again for the bath of the other eye. Rose water, Trifla water and solution of Fitkari are also used.
Head Bath
Take this bath weekly or after ten days. Wash your head with cold water, rubbing the scalp with your fingers for five to seven minutes. This bath gives relief in all diseases concerned with head as headache, falling of hair, untimely greying of hair, deafness, madness and weakness of the eyes. To remove dryness of hair, one should massage head with pure mustard oil twice a week.
Anus Bath
The patient takes cold water in a vessel. He takes a little water in his hand and throws it at the exact place from where he passes stool. Then he rubs that place with his hand vigorously. He repeats it for two to five minutes. Ater that he puts his finger in cold water and inserts it in the anus and takes it out. He performs this action for a minute. This therapy clears the bowl and removes constipation. Persons, who do not like to take enema, can take the benefits of enema through this anus bath.
Vaginal Bath
Vaginal tube is availabe in the market just like an enema instrument. Water from an enema instrument through this vagina tube is inserted in to the vagina, and the vagina is cleaned and washed by this water. It strengthens the vagina and ovary too. All diseases concerned with the vagina are cured by it.
Madu Basti — Bath of Penis
Like vagina bath, tip of penis is washed by a stream of cold water. It removes the diseases of male organ and urinary diseases of bladder.
Bath of Spine
There are many methods of spinal bath. Some of them are as following :
First
Wet a large towel with cold water and squeeze it. Catch both the ends of the towel with both hands and take them to the back side. Now rub the backbone with the towel. Wet the towel after one or two minutes. Do it for five minutes and wash head with cold water. Finish it by cold rubbing bath.
Second
Make a cushion one foot wide, two feet long and half inch in thickness of a dhoti or clothsheet. Spread it on clean floor or a wooden bed and wet this cushion with cold water well. Lie on it with naked back. The cushion should be under the back and the head and feet should be away from it. Now cover the whole body with a blanket except head. Lie down under the blanket until warm. At last, wash the head with cold water and finish this bath by cold rubbing bath.
Third
Keep feet on a board and sit naked with folded legs. Ask someone to pour cold water with a jug in a thin stream continuously for five minutes on your backbone. After that, rub that place with a dry cloth. Wash the head with cold water and take cold rubbing bath.
Fourth
Take a tub six feet in length, three feet in breadth and six inches in height. Fill it upto three inches with cold water. Lie down on back naked in it and cover the tub and body with blanket. Keep your feet out of the tub. Wrap a wet cloth on chest and abdomen. After every two minutes sit in the tub and dry your back with a dry towel and lie down in the tub again. Continue for 10 minutes, wash your head with cold water and take cold rubbing bath.
Friction Hip Bath
It is called Cune bath also as it is named after its inventor Lui Cune, a resident of Leipzig a town in Germany. It is necessary to rub the lower part of the abdomen in this bath, so it is called friction bath.
Method
Take a chair type tub. Fill it with water. The water should reach thighs and navel on sitting. The temperature of the water should be 64 to 68°F. It may be fresh water of a well which is generally of this temperature. One should not use freezing cold water-for this bath. It is called cold back bath also.
Sit in the tub naked. Keep your back on chair. By doing this, spine is also bathed. This doubles the process of disease prevention. Keep your feet outside the tub on a stool, brick or ckowki. Cover every part of the body outside the water with a cloth, except head and face. Generally, for natural treatment, it is necessary first to take bath in lukewarm water having temperature 100°F and afterwards in cold water. It is sufficient to cover the dry parts of the body with a large blanket (if the patient is suffering from fever, he can bathe without blanket). If the feet remain cold, wear socks.
It is good to make the lower part of abdomen under navel, warm by dry rubbing before sitting in the tub. One should start it without wearing clothes. After sitting in the tub, take a small khadi towel or a folded piece of soft jute in your right hand and wet it. Rub it from right to left and left to right on navel in half circular manner. Simultaneously both the hips upto anus and thighs upto outer part of pelvis organ should be rubbed with it. This rubbing or friction should be done a bit forcefully but avoiding bruising of the skin. Lower part of abdomen is proper for this friction bath, as our intestines are situated in this part of abdomen in which excreta is stored. To cure and clean intestines and kidney by making their work of excretion easy and proper, this friction bath is the best remedy. In the beginning, this bath should continue upto 5 to 10 minutes. Increase the duration by two minutes after each two or three days. The duration of this friction should not be more than twenty minutes.
Chronic and old diseases can be aggravated by this bath and it is a good symptom. After bath one should come out of the tub and wash the body upto back with cold water. Wash both arms, head and at last both the feet. After friction bath one should take full bath and rub the body with a dry towel. Wear clothes and try to warm the body by doing exercise in open air, walking or dry massaging. The body can be warmed by wearing woollen clothes or by covering the body with a blanket.
Special precautions
• The lady whose menses have commenced, should not take this bath upto four days.
• It is beneficial to take friction bath punctually at a fixed time.
• Old persons can take this bath in lukewarm water.
• One should observe chastity during the period of this bath.
• It benefits more if a bandage of clay or earth is laid on the abdomen prior to it.
• It is not beneficial to take this bath if you are on fast.
• One should take this friction bath regularly at a fixed, particular time for a month and then it should be stopped for a week. Again start it and continue it in this manner until the disease is fully cured.
• In serious diseases this bath should be taken at early intervals many times and in old diseases once or twice only. It should continue until the disease is fully cured.
Benefits
1. It removes constipation certainly.
2. It improves blood circulation in liver, spleen and intestines which help in keeping diseases away.
3. This friction hip bath improves the whole nervous system which helps in curing all diseases of body.
4. The patient suffering from piles should use tepid water to sit in.
Friction Mahen Snan (Cune)
This bath is called sex organ’s bath. This is beneficial in female diseases also.
Method for Females
A stool of one foot height is kept in the bath tub. Cold water is filled upto the level of the stool. The person should sit naked on the stool and keep the feet on some bench or stool outside the tub. She should take a small towel or thick handkerchief. She should wash again and again softly and continuously the outer portion of the child-procreating organ. She should not touch inner side of the organ. The skin of that place should not be rubbed vigorously. It should be rubbed from five to twenty minutes. Rub the body from neck to hips slowly with a wet cloth. Above portion of body and feet should keep dry. If the hips get wet, it does not affect the effect of bath. The dry portion of the body should be warmed by exercise or by covering the body with some quilt after the bath.
One should not take this bath during menstruation. Water should be cold but not freezing cold.
Method for Males
A male should sit on the stool kept in the bath tub filled with water naked just like a female. He should catch the tip of penis by two fingers of left hand and wash it with the wet cloth again and again gently and slowly.
Persons whose skin of the tip of penis has been cut off due to Khalna (a ceremony among Mohammedans) or due to some other reason should wash the skin between testicles. Keep the lower part of the back under water upto three inches. It would wet the hips. But the legs and above portion of the body should be dry. One should try to avoid wetting the major portion of the testicles.
After taking Mahen Snan (Cune bath) once or twice, generally the symptoms of the disease at the spot of friction or nearby may appear. It is a good sign. If some portion of the hips remains drowned in water, it shows the effect of bath soon. Alter bath the patient should walk in open ground for twenty minutes to warm himself. One can be warmed by covering his body with a blanket or quilt.
Benefits : For this Mahen bath the procreating organ was selected, because many nerves end at the tips of this organ. It is very scientific to give the bath to this part of the body. It affects the nerves of each and every part of the body.
This bath removes the heat of impure substances or toxins in body. It strengthens the nervous system and thus paves the way for a healthy life. It pacifies the mind and is very beneficial if it is taken before sleep.
Other things of this bath are like friction hip bath.