"Baths have been widely used as part of coercive cultures, 
particularly within institutions. For example, cold plunges, sudden 
showers, and shockingly cold water have all been used as part of the 
history of the treatment of the insane. Though the justification for 
such techniques has often been in terms of shocking the patient back 
into reason, a clearly coercive, even sadistic, element is also often 
intensified by the use of machinery or the enforcement of humiliating 
bodily postures. Though Michel Foucault does not write of baths in 
particular, there is a strongly Foucauldian element in such 
treatments with their emphasis on the disciplining and control of 
bodies, as well as on the exercise of bio-power by key actors, 
including welfare professionals."

Faircloth, Aging Bodies, AltaMira, 2003, p 150

www.peoplewho.org