Japanese Physical Training/6
CHAPTER VI
WATER, NATURE'S GREATEST REMEDY
While the samurai of ancient Japan believed to some extent in the "herbs and simples," they did not pin their faith to what we are prone to regard as "medicines." The lower classes had their charlatan advisers, to whom, in times of sickness, were paid such fees as the poor merchants, artisans, and labourers could raise. Shinto and Buddhists priests secured their fees for restorative miracles. The samurai patronised neither charlatans nor the wonder-workers of the temples. While these little athletic knights of old Japan made use of some of the herbs of field and forest as simple restoratives, they knew the greatest medicine of all—and they took no pains to impart the secret.
Under the circumstances, perhaps the samurai are not to be blamed for their extreme taciturnity. They were not a strong class numerically, and it was necessary for them to keep the masses in subjection to the will of the ruler. It was an early discovery of the followers of jiu-jitsu that the greatest medicine nature provides is water. This remedy they employed both internally and externally, and with results that gradually made their class the wonder and the envy of the commoners.
At a very early date the samurai discovered the value of drinking a very considerable quantity of cool, pure water in every twenty-four hours. The amount consumed to-day by the average disciple of jiu-jitsu will reach the gallon mark. Ice-water was not known to the ancient Japanese as a summer beverage. It is not in favour to-day. All that is required is that the water shall be cool enough to be agreeable to the taste. Summer drinks, composed of shaved ice covered with fruit syrups, have crept into the life of the larger Japanese cities, but their use is not extensive, and the student of a jiu-jitsu school will have none of them. He is better taught.
It has been charged against the Japanese, by many writers, that the people of Dai Nippon bathe in stagnant pools and drink impure water. To some extent the charge is true, but these hydropathic abuses are practised by only the most ignorant. From times of great antiquity the athletic samurai understood the benefit of drinking only the purest of water. It is a matter of ancient history that a samurai army, resting on its march, has sent a deputation of its men in command of a swarm of coolie porters to the nearest spring where the water was known to be wholesome. Priests were sent along to bless the waters, and it was centuries before the more or less observant coolies began to get a notion that the water of certain springs was healthful whether or not it was blessed.
Japan is thickly studded with springs in which the water is as pure as Nature can supply directly from the earth. The waters of many of these springs possess mild but excellent medicinal qualities. It is within the experience of the writer, when serving as a war correspondent in the Philippines, that Japanese mineral water shipped to Manila was most eagerly purchased by all officers and by most of the men who returned to the capital from duty in the field. The tropical heat made them drink freely of this very pure water. Any one who used the water persistently for a few days found the troubles of his intestinal system mitigated. As the author was president of an army mess for some time he is able to testify that the Japanese water, for its effect, was preferred to any European or American mineral water that was obtainable in Manila.
Yet the Japanese of to-day believe that it is not necessary for a suitable medicinal drinking water to contain marked mineral properties. It is needful only that the water be pure; and any spring water, from its long upward filtration through clean sand is likely to answer all requirements—that is, unless there are contaminating surface influences. Mineral waters are expensive in this country. Distilled water is much cheaper, and is the purest that is known either to Nature or to chemists. This water should be reasonably cooled. If it is found that distilled water is too flat in taste, there are many manufacturers who use distilled water as the basis of their syphon products. Carbonated water will be found much more palatable.
After a few days of internal treatment with water in sufficient quantities the investigator will note a great change in the action of the kidneys—and a change much for the better. The bowels, and, in fact, all parts of the complicated intestinal system are greatly benefited. A Japanese student of jiu-jitsu, when he finds a slight illness coming on, does not go to the doctor. The author is in the habit of drinking, normally, a gallon of water in twenty-four hours. Very recently he was threatened with tonsilitis. By practically abstaining from food, and by adding a half-gallon of water a day to the usual quantity, he prevented the threatened illness without resort to any "medicines." And this treatment was begun after the throat had become slightly ulcerated.
From time past the backward limits of history Japanese troops have been reputed to be, in all kinds of weather, proof against rheumatism. In summer they forded streams and slept in the open through heavy rains. In winter these same men have always been able to sleep in snow-covered fields. When bivouacking in the snow the modern Japanese soldier sets up a shelter tent when it is possible so to do. The samurai of ancient Japan used brushwood and available articles of clothing in the place of the tiny tents of to-day. Both the modern soldier and the old-time samurai have one practice in common when camping on a snow-clad field. The ground on which the men are to camp is scraped as nearly bare as possible, and the snow so taken up is piled in a bank that will shield the men from the prevailing breeze.
Rheumatism is comparatively unknown among the two younger generations of the Japanese. Only the oldest people are afflicted with this disease. Even among the aged rheumatism does not occur with sufficient frequency to make such an illness greatly dreaded by the grandfathers. The Japanese attribute their remarkable comparative immunity from rheumatism to the fact that they use water very freely, both inside and outside, and they are not afraid of any kind of fresh air or of damp or cold. The abstinence from meat diet adds to this immunity. They regard meat as a stimulant, and claim that abstinence from all forms of stimulants will inure one to cold, dampness, and "draughts."
Bathing is a branch of hygiene in which the Japanese must be recognised as the greatest adepts in the world. The commonest Japanese labourer—the one who has to spend the greater part of his working hours in hard, manual labour—is in the habit of cleansing his body twice daily. If he does not, and the fact becomes known, he is looked upon, by his associates, as being something of a pariah. During the warmer portion of the year the more leisurely classes of the Mikado's people take three baths a day. Even three baths a day is by no means the limit. Sir Edwin Arnold cites the statement of a Frenchman to the effect that the Japanese devote to bathing so many of their waking hours that it is a mystery where the time comes in for eating and labour.
Frequent bathing is one of the essential principles of jiu-jitsu. If all of the impure matter that is exuded through the skin is not frequently washed away, so the Japanese claims there can be no perfection of health. It would seem that our own American idea that frequent bathing is weakening is wholly disproved by the results obtained by our little brown neighbours of the Orient. It matters not how many baths a Japanese has taken in a day, he is not afraid, when he wants it, to add another to the list.
While, in America, the latest tendency is all toward the cold bath for restorative effect, the staple item in the Japanese bath is hot water. In fact, the water is so hot that most Occidentals would call it boiling. In summer this hot bath is taken in a hogshead out in the back yard. The people of Japan are not in the least ashamed to have it known that they bathe frequently. The Caucasian passer-by on the street often glances into a back yard in time to see one of the daughters of the house leave the dwelling and cross over to where the barrel of hot water awaits her. The young Japanese woman wears, at such a time, no clothing at all, but if she espies the stranger she smiles, bows, and offers the prettily spoken greeting "Ohayo," her equivalent for "Good morning." Then she steps into the hot water, sinks down until it reaches her throat, and goes through the bath with the utmost unconcern. This bath is apt to be a protracted one, but if the visiting foreigner cares to linger he is privileged to see the same smiling, demure maiden trip back into the house.
While it might appear, from the foregoing, that the hot bath is the favourite in Japan, this is not by any means the case. The people of that country appreciate to an extreme the value of cool water. The hot bath is used for opening and cleansing of the pores. The cold bath is used for benefiting the pores to a lesser degree, and for general vitalising effect. In winter a Japanese who has taken a bath in nearly boiling water in doors springs out of the cask, runs out of doors, and rolls over and over in the snow. Then he returns to the house, dries himself, rubs down vigorously, and dresses himself. The olden-time samurai were wont to break the ice over streams in order to obtain the cold bath. Their descendants use creeks and rivers for the purpose of obtaining cold baths.
There is in Japan no city—hardly a hamlet—that has not its public baths. Some of these places are reserved for the wealthy, but in most of these bathhouses the greatest democracy prevails. Men and women who have spent the day at toil repair to the bathhouse. A slight amount of deference to Western ideas has resulted in the separating of the sexes. From the street a room like a long hall is entered. The visitor steps in and finds that the bathing is being all done at the further end of this hall. The sexes are separated by a partition in the area of the overhead showers, but both men and women are visible to the instepping visitor. Neither the men nor the women resent observation. They chatter and laugh like children, spend some twenty minutes under the dripping water, then dress themselves to go out, clean and wholesome, for the evening's few pleasures. While hot water is provided at these public baths, cold water is far more in demand.
It is worth the while of the visitor to one of these Japanese public baths to go close to the bathers and to study the anatomy of these people. In the company of a woman doctor the author visited several of these places. The average physique observed amounted almost to uniformity. The women were short, rather slight, and well-rounded. While of less height than our Western women, they furnished splendid nude models of proportion and grace. The men were characterised by swelling muscles, bulging chests, and slim waist-lines. The author's medical friend declared that she had never seen such perfect anatomical specimens of manhood or of womanhood.
There is another phase of hydropathy that the Japanese is taught in hot weather. Whenever he can, without polluting a drinking-supply, he dips the crown of his head in water, dashes out the surplus with his hands, places a few wet leaves inside his hat, and walks on. This practice reduces the number of sunstrokes in Japan to a minimum. Of course the rather general habit of carrying paper parasols in summer tends to lessen the effects of the sun's heat, but the Japanese would always choose wet hair as against the parasol.
If it be possible, the author wishes to lay greater stress than he has already done upon the Japanese idea of the necessity for the most frequent bathing that can be had. It is only a dozen years ago that the great American city of New York began to erect public baths. In Japan such places have been supplied since before the time when the authentic history of that country began. Tokio, to-day, supplies nearly nine hundred public bathing-houses for the use of its people. While cleanliness is regarded as one of the cardinal virtues, it has an even higher standing as the first requisite to health. On the sultriest of summer days the foreign visitor may find himself in the most densely packed crowd imaginable. Every one about him will be perspiring freely, yet there will be not the faintest disagreeable body odour.
Though the surface health of the body is so well looked after, it is believed by the Japanese that complete health cannot exist unless the internal system is most effectively cleansed by the imbibing of very frequent draughts of water, cool—not ice-cold. The intestinal tract is likened, by our clever little neighbours of the Orient, to the sewer, that requires vigorous flushing.