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1 Reasons for bathing

Bathing serves several purposes:

• Hygiene, and the neat physical apperence of cleanliness ("cleanliness is next to godliness");
• Decontamination from chemical, biological, nuclear or other hazards of a similar nature.
• recreation;
• therapy (e.g. hydrotherapy), healing, and relaxation;
• religious rites;
• celebration and socialization, e.g. running through fountains after winning the world series, or jumping through a hole cut in the ice on New Year's. After Canada won the World Cup hockey game on 2004 September 14th, hundreds of euphoric fans splashed around in the Dundas Square (known also as "Times Square North") fountains. Some brought chairs with them, and sat for 15 minutes or more, right on top of the fountain sprays. Additionally, the requirement (either by social convention, or by the inconvenience of having wet clothes) of removing at least some clothing to bathe, reduces the formality of the situation. This is said to allow people to get to know one another better.
• ensuring people are free of certain items such as weapons or other contraband: In Chicago, Russian baths were a safe meeting place for rival gang leaders. Weapons are difficult to conceal on a naked body. If the meeting resulted in reconciliation, the gangs would meet upstairs for bagels, cream cheese and borscht. [1] Many homeless shelters, and almost all prisons have an intake facility or intake process that includes a supervised shower with change of clothes to ensure that no contraband or contamination enters the facility.

Bathing is usually done in a bath (i.e. a place designed for bathing), but may also be done in places not specifically intended for bathing, such as rooftops (sunbathing and windbathing), a lake, river, or sprinkler connected to a garden hose.

One town known for its baths is Bath (Aquae Sulis), a Roman city in England famous for healing hydrothermal springs, and most recently for the Bath Spa Project consisting of a rooftop pool overlooking the city of Bath, as well as four circular clear glass steam baths.

2 Kinds of baths

There are various kinds of baths, which include:

• private baths;
• public baths;
• whirlpool baths;
• swimming pools (also known as swimming baths);
• shower baths;
• steam baths;
• sauna baths;
• decontamination baths;
• hot baths;
• cold baths.

Most bathing is done in hot water or hot steam. However, splash baths function like a cold shower to help people cool off on hot days. A jogger is shown, in this multiple exposureA multiple exposure is an exposure in which the sensitivity to light is reduced and then increased at least once during the window of sensitivity. Ordinarily cameras capture a sensitivity to light that follows a single rectangular sensitivity window. picture, running through the Dundas Square splash padA splash pad is an area for water play that has no standing water. This is said to eliminate the need for lifeguards or other supervision, as there is no risk of drowning. Typically there are ground nozzles that spray water upwards. There may also be othe to cool down.

A private bath is usually a tub for one person, often found in the privacy of one's own home. A public bath, such as a municipal swimming bath, may be used for recreational bathing. Some municipal swimming baths also have steam baths located near the main swimming bath.

A shower bath is a system that pours water down onto a bather from above, rather than having the bather lower himself, or herself into the water.

A steam bath is a hot room where bathers sit and where hot steam at a temperature of approximately 120 deg. F is pumped into the room.

A sauna bath is a bath of dry heat, and thus not really a bath according to the definition of bathing, other than the fact that sometimes water is thrown on the rocks that form the thermal ballast of the sauna heater. This results in a steam bath effect.