Bath Attendant Examinations

Interested in taking a bath attendant exam? You can choose exams from 1913, 1938, 1978, or 2017.

You will find the exam answers in a drop-down panel under each test.

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Why was an examination necessary to be a bath attendant?

Hot Springs' bathhouses served as medical facilities for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Patients who visited Hot Springs and took baths prescribed by physicians hoped the thermal waters from the national park could help or heal them.

To guarantee uniform application of the waters, and safety for workers and visitors alike, bath attendants had to pass an examination to work in the bathhouses.The men and women working in the bathhouses as attendants were required to learn and understand the different ways to administer the thermal waters medicinally. The exams were wide-ranging and detailed, demanding a great deal out of an applicant. Candidates who earned a 70% or above passed their test and became qualified bathhouse attendants, ready to treat patients in any of Hot Springs' bathhouses.

Try your luck at any of the exams below. Most of the answers are actual responses from bath attendants who passed their examinations. As you make your way through the exams, consider what kind of resources you would need to understand these questions and pass the test.

 

Bath Attendant Examination - 1913

1. Writing from dictation.
2. Spelling from dictation.
3. Find the sum of 683, 421, 709, 516.
4. Subtract 204 from 513.
5. At 15 cents each, how much money should you receive for administering 13 baths?
6. Where is the liver situated?
7. What is the temperature of the body in health?
8. How do disease germs originate?
9. How are they conveyed from person to person?
10. What is a disinfectant?

 

1913 Exam Answers

1. Write a paragraph exactly how someone says it.
2. Spell a number of words with varying degrees of difficulty.
3. 2,329
4. 309.
5. $1.95
6. Right side of the body, below the lung.
7. 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
8. A germ organism in the air, land, or water interacts with a person or animal and feeds off the host.
9. Tiny, microscopic germs we cannot see move from one person, animal, or environment to another.
10. Something that can kill tiny disease organisms.

 

Bath Attendant Examination - 1938

1. What organs are used in breathing?
2. What organ pumps the blood throughout the body?
3. Name five (5) important organs of the human body and locate them.
4. What is your understanding of the phrase "Personal Hygiene"?
5. What is your understanding of the phrase "Giving Service in a bathhouse"?
6. Describe in your own words how you would give a bath to persons not having a physician's bathing direction?
7. How long is a bather allowed to remain in the tub bath? The shower? Cabinets?
8. When is a tub cleaned and how is it cleaned?
9. Name the different kinds of douches and tell for what length of time each is given.
10. Why are mitts, cups, and towels kept seperate?
11. What parts of the bathhouse are cleaned by bathhall personnel?
12. Would you recommend a doctor to a bather?
13. Name the different kinds of packs and tell who supplied the materials?
14. In your own words state briefly your understanding of the relation between a bath attendant and a patient's attending physician.
15. Who has the right to change a physician's bathing direction and how is it done?
16. Why is it necessary to have a full physical examination before entering on duty as a bathhouse employee?
17. Why is it necessary for bathhouse personnel to see to it that the floors are kept dry from mopping, used linens and towels picked up and disposed of?
18. Describe just what you would do in case a bather of yours should happen to slip and fall or had other accident in the bathhall.
19. How would you prevent the wasting of water in a bathhall?
20. How would you handle a situation where a bather is argumentative and unruly, discourteous, and not agreeable to obeying the rules of the bathhouse?

 

1938 Exam Answers

1. The lungs.
2. The heart.
3. The heart (left side), the lungs (in the chest), the liver (right side), the kidneys (the back on each side), and the bladder (below the stomach).
4. Keeping a neat and clean uniform every day. Clean shave, neat hair. Clean fingernails and keeping the body clean.
5. Giving baths according to doctor's bathing instructions and keeping with the rules and regulations of the Department of the Interior. And extrending courtesy to all patients.
6. Follow all bathing directions for a patient with a doctor's prescription, but ask if bath treatment "is desired."
7. In a tub: may not exceed 20 minutes. In the head-in vapor cabinet 2 minutes and a head-out cabinet for 3-5 minutes.
8. The tub is cleaned after each bath with whatever soap or powder furnished by the manager.
9. Scotch Douche to the affected parts with water at a temperature of 102-105 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 minute.
10. For safety, sanitation, and the protection of the bather.
11. The parts designated by the bathhouse manager.
12. No, I would recommend the patient to the bathhouse office for a list of doctors who can prescribe the hot waters. The office should have a list of all these doctors.
13. Dry packs, hot packs, and cold wet packs. The bather will furnish the towels.
14. There must be a mutual understanding with the bath attendant. 
15. Only a new written direction from the doctor can change bathing directions.
16. For your own health and safety and that of the bather.
17. To ensure you do not have any communicable diseases that would endanger yourself or the bather.
18. Make the bather as comfortable as possible and report the incident at once to the manager so he can call a doctor.
19. Make sure the faucets for the tubs, sitz baths, and showers are cut off. And give baths according to regulations.
20. Report the behavior to the head bath attendant so that he can report the problem bather to the manager in the office. 

 

Bath Attendant Examination - 1978

1. Bath mitts, drinking cups, sheets, and towels must be used by one bather only. Why?
2. A bather slips and falls to the floor in pain; what would you do?
3. If a bather asked you about treatment for his ailment, what would be your answer?
4. How would you handle a situation in which a bather is discourteous, or refuses to follow the prescribed bathing directions?
5. It is necessary that the floors of the bathhouses be kept dry, neat, and free of used linen and towels. Why?
6. A bather requests you to increase the water temperature from that prescribed in his bathing directions. What would you do?
7. What would you do about a bather who had fainted in the bathhall?
8. Packs may be hot or cold, wet or dry. True or false?
9. Only liquid soap is used in giving a bath. True or false?
10. A bather has had a stroke. On which side would you assist him?
11. Unless otherwise directed, all packs should be changed every five minutes. True or false?
12. How frequently should the bath tub be cleaned?
13. Park Service employees conduct frequent inspections of bathhouses. Why?
14. When you are employed as a bath attentent or helper in the bathhouse, who is your employer? The bathhouse or the National Park Service?
15. What is the maximum temperature and time permitted for a tub bath in the bathhouse?
16. Should hot packs be applied to a bather's legs or feet if these parts are discolored? State why.
17. Which portion of the bather's body would be covered for a shoulder pack?
18. Which portion of the bather's body would be covered by a knee pack?
19. What attention must a bathhouse attentant or helper give to his personal appearance and hygiene?
20. Describe your understanding of "Patron Relations or "Giving service in a bathhouse"?

 

1978 Exam Answers

1. Sanitation.
2. Call the manager or the office.
3. Tell them to ask their doctor.
4. Call the manager or the office.
5. Safety and sanitation.
6. Tell them to get a doctor's order.
7. Cold towels to the head and make sure the head is lower than the feet.
8. True.
9. True.
10. Their good side.
11. False.
12. After each bath.
13. To be sure rules and regulations are carried out.
14. Bathhouse.
15. 98-100 degrees Fahrenheit and 20 minutes.
16. No, not without a doctor's orders.
17. Over the back of the shoulder in question, down to the patient's tricep.
18. Completely around the affected knee. 
19. Come to work neat and clean.
20. Being kind, cheerfull, and understanding. 

 

Bath Attendant Examination - 2017

1. Name four characteristics a bath attendant should consider when ensuring there is no criticism or just cause for a complaint? [options include politeness, promptness, moving quickly, good humor, relaxed, dignity, decorum, profanity and loud talking, arguments, discussions, antecdotes, etc., no prescribing medicines, keeping medical information confidential]
2. Bath attendants are employees of the ___________?
3. Before admitting the bather to the head-in / head-out cabinet the bath attendant must ensure the cabinet is filled with enough __________.
4. In a traditional bathhouse the following are the correct times and temperatures for the following bathing regiment:
   • Sitz Bath: _____ degrees for _____ minutes.
   • Vapor bath, head-in: _____ degrees for _____ minutes.
   • Vapor bath, head-out: _____ degrees for _____ minutes.
   • Needle shower: _____ degrees for _____ minutes.
   • Time in Pack Room: ______ minutes.
   • Time in Cooling Room: _____ minutes.
5. _________ are provided to guard against the bather slipping on tile floors.
6. What is the definition of Efficiency, according to the Compendium of Information to Guide Attendants in Using the Hot Waters of the Hot Springs?
7. The hot water has a peculiar ________ not present in any other hot waters.
8. What are the steps an attendant should take when a bather becomes visibly fleshy & full-blooded, has flushed face and is breathing hard or heavily?
9. It is best to begin applying packs ________ to prevent too sudden a _______ from the lower extremities to the vital organs.
10. Name five ailments which thermal water bathing and massages are not advised.
11. Unless otherwise directed the temperature of the bath should not exceed ______ degrees nor should the time in the tub exceed _______ minutes.
12. The effect of the potency in the water may cause _______, ________, and _________.
13. What is the mechanism used by the federal government to manage thermal water bathing in Hot Springs National Park?
14. All rubbing should be directed (towards or away from) the heart center unless otherwise desired by the bather.
15. What are the steps an attendant should take when a bather becomes visibly frail, delicate or pale, and is breathing lightly or is inaudible?

 

2017 Exam Answers

1. Choose four of the possible options
2. Bathhouse
3. Steam
4. Answers below
   • Sitz Bath: 108 degrees for 10 minutes
   • Vapor, head-in: 108 degrees for 1-3 minutes
   • Vapor, head-out: 108 degrees for 5-7 minutes
   • Needle shower: 98 degrees for 2 minutes
   • Time in Pack Room: 30 minutes
   • Time in Cooling Room: 30 minutes
5. Slippers
6. Give the best possible service to all parties concered in the usefullness of the hot waters.
7. Potency
8. Ask the bather quietly to retire to the cooling room. Then
   • Do not lower the head but raise it slightly
   • Apply ice pack to entire head
   • Apply hot wet pack to lower extremities
   • Wait for the doctor
9. At the feet / rush of blood
10. Acute infectious diseases, cancer, debilitation or senility, heart disease, hypertension, hyperthyroidism, inability to control bodily functions, menstruation, recent cerebral stroke, and severe anemia
11. 98 degrees / 15 minutes
12. Dizziness, fainting, and falling
13. The Compendium of Information to Guide Attendants in using the Hot Waters of the Hot Springs
14. Towards
15. Ask the bather quietly retire to the cooling room, give assistance if needed, then:
    • Lower the head at once by raising the foot with a chair or prop
    • Apply wet pack to the head
    • Apply hot wet pack to the lower extremities
    • Rub the extremities while preparing the pack
    • Await the doctor

 

Why do you think exam questions changed over time?

As you look over the four exams from 1913-2017, you will notice that the questions on each examination vary considerably. For example, in 1913 a number of questions centered on simple arithmetic, like this one:

"Subtract 204 from 513.":

But 25 years later, park officials focused on specific medical knowledge as questions like this appeared on the exam:

"Name five (5) important organs of the human body and locate them?"

And by 2017, etiquette played an important role along with medical expertise:

"Name four characteristics a bath attendant should consider when ensuring there is no criticism or just cause for a complaint?"

The questions on bath attendant exams offer insights into the changing priorities at Hot Springs National Park.

The first round of exams illustrated park officials' concerns about the intelligence of African American bath attendants. By the 1910s, African Americans faced separate and unequal facilities and accomodations in Arkansas and across the South, including in education. Some bath attendants were old enough to have been born enslaved and never had formal educational opportunities. In the 1880 Census, nearly 1/3 of the men and women listed as bathhouse workers in Hot Springs could neither read nor write. Hot Springs' African American community responded to these inequalities by holding night school classes where applicants learned basic skills along with aspects of physiology.

By the 1930s, millions were visiting Hot Springs, the nation's premier mineral springs health resort, to heal themselves through the use of the park's thermal waters. The 1938 exam reflected this, prioritizing an attendant's understanding around specific medical knowledge when administering the water. Exam questions were very specifc to the treatments and procedures offered in Hot Springs' bathhouses.

And as spa culture in the United States transitioned from a world of health to one focused on leisure, relaxation, and wellness at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, exam questions tested attendants' understanding of customer service coupled with hydrotherapy treatment standards.