The present invention relates to bathing devices of the type used to massage and wash the back portion of an individual and which does not require electrical power for its operation.
As is well known, since it is difficult for individuals to reach all the portions of their back, this portion of the human body is often left unscrubbed which can be very detrimental to an individual's health where one works in a congested or dirty environment. In addition, for many people, the massaging of the back during a shower or a bath is very beneficial particularly where the person is suffering from muscle tension, back injuries or the like.
A large number of back scrubbing device have been proposed in the prior art but none, to my knowledge, have been successfully marketed to the public. Among the reasons for this deficiency is the fact that in some of the prior art devices, electrical power was required to provide rotary motion to the scrubbing brush. Such a requirement not only renders the installation of the brush mechanism expensive but also is very inconvenient to maintain in a safety condition. In other types of back scrubbers, manual operation of the brush has been relied upon but this is clearly unsatisfactory where the person utilizing the brush is an invalid or is recovering from an illness or injury.
In still other arrangements, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos.
2,068,757 of June 26, 1937; PA1 3,042,949 of July 10, 1962; PA1 3,085,269 of Apr. 16, 1963; and PA1 3,768,462 of Oct. 30, 1973;
Water under pressure has been employed to power the brush or scrubbing devices. While such arrangements have been useful in that they have overcome the disadvantages of using either electrical or manual power to effect the scrubbing action, such devices have still been extremely expensive to manufacture and complicated to install on the one hand, or, on the other, appear to be unable to provide adequate scrubbing action to the user as a result of inefficient utilization of the water pressure available.
The present invention provides a back scrubbing device which overcomes the foregoing disadvantages and provides a back scrubbing device that can be inexpensively manufactured but which will reliably operate to provide sufficient scrubbing action to a user without resorting to complicated valving or plumbing connections and which can use ordinary tap pressure as the power source.
In a preferred embodiment, the apparatus of the present invention includes a housing which can be movably mounted on a wall of a bathing enclosure. A separate compartment of the housing encloses a turbine device which consists of a wheel having a plurality of radially extending blades. The blades are concavely shaped on one side and, at their free ends, are each formed with an opening to permit the passage of water past the blades so that, in operation, at least a portion of the fluid stream impinging on the turbine blades will pass through an immediately facing blade to thereby reduce pressure and turbulence and increase the force of the liquid striking the next succeeding blade mounted on the wheel. The turbine housing also includes a fluid outlet to minimize, if not eliminate, undesirable splashing of the water used to power the turbine. Fluid outlets are provided in the housing to assure that water is provided to the gear mechanism that rotates the brush as well as for providing liquid to the face of the brush to maintain the bristles or scrubbing portion thereof in a moist and softened condition. The meshing surfaces of the gears may be lubricated by the addition of a detergent to the interior of the housing. Of particular importance is the fact that the velocity of rotation of the brush can be easily adjusted by virtue of the fact that the turbine axle is connected to a drive gear which has a much smaller diameter than the gear connected to the axle of the brush which latter gear is substantially of the same diameter as the brush. With this arrangement, a very firm scrubbing action will be achieved without rotating the brush surfaces at an undesirably high speed.
The foregoing and other advantages will become apparent as consideration is given to the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which: