Chapter II: Part 2

The hydropathic treatment causes the elimination of all foreign matters from the body, and thereby promotes contraction, without which there can be no health, which Dr. Billing has shewn to demonstration; he states "that the proximate cause of _all_ disease is relaxation and enlargement of the capillaries: the indication of a cure, therefore, is to constringe the capillaries, and cause them to contract, and resume their healthy state."

"As all organic action is contraction, all organic or animal strength depends upon the power of the different parts of the body to contract." If it be true, that the effect to be brought about in the treatment of _all_ disease is to unload and constringe the capillaries, how can this be better achieved than by the sweating or wet-sheet process, and the cold bath; Dr. Johnson says--"The hydropathic treatment, which unloads the capillaries by sweating, and constringes them by cold, is clearly an efficient substitute for bleeding, purging, vomiting, uva ursi, digitalis, antimony, mercury, arsenic, nitrate of silver, sulphate of copper, iodine, iron, and multitudes of other remedies, enumerated by Dr. Billing, merely by their power of unloading and constringing the capillaries."

Priessnitz's theory:--

1st. That by the hydropathic treatment, the bad juices are brought to,
and discharged by, the skin.

2nd. A new circulation is given to the diseased or inactive organs, and
better juices infused into them.

3rd. All the functions of the body are brought into a normal state, not
by operating upon any particular function, but upon the whole.

If these are the results of hydropathy--and that they are so, has never been disputed; nay, the truth is even proved by the following great medical authority unconnected with the water cure: it must be admitted that the sooner drugs are dispensed with the better.

_British and Foreign Medical Review, and Quarterly Journal, October,
1846.--Extract._

"The water cure is a _stomachic_, since it invariably increases the appetite.

"It is a _local calefacient_ in the wet sheet covered by a dry one.

"It is a _derivative_; cold friction at one part, by _exciting increased action there, producing corresponding diminution elsewhere_; _the compress_ frequently acting, if not like a blister, at least _like a mustard poultice_.

"_It is a local as well as a general counter-irritant._

"_It is essentially alterative_ in the continual removal of old matter: its renewal is shewn in the maintenance of the same weight.

"An important hydropathic principle is, that almost all its _measures are applied to the surface_. One of the most formidable difficulties with which the ordinary physician has to contend is, that nearly all his remedies reach the point to which they are directed _through one channel_.

"The only means of relieving certain diseases is _by inundating the stomach_ and bowels with foreign and _frequently_ to them _pernicious substances_.

"Hydropathy employs a system of most extensive energetic general and local counter irritation.

"A fifth physiological feature of hydropathy is the number of coolings. The _generation of caloric has been traced to its right source_. It results from the burning up of waste matter, which by accumulation would become injurious.

"It is singular enough that almost all arguments used against cold bathing are the strongest theoretical arguments in its favor. Dr. Baynard, a most sarcastic writer, gives us the following anecdote:--

"Here a demi-brained doctor of more note than _nous_, asked, in the amazed agony of his half-understanding, how 'twas possible that an external application should affect the bowels, and cure pain within? 'Why doctor,' quoth an old woman standing by, 'by the same reason that, being wet-shod or catching cold from without, should give you the gripes and pain within.'

"If a rude exposure of the surface to cold and wet is capable of producing internal disease, there is no _doubt that a close relation exists between these agents and the morbid_ conditions of internal parts."

After devoting upwards of thirty pages to prove the value of Hydropathy, the reviewer sums up as follows:--

"After what has been said and written in favor of Hydropathy.--_Judgment must therefore be entered by default against its opponents, and hydropathy is entitled to the verdict of harmlessness, since cause has never been shown to the contrary._"

IV.--HOW ARE THE EFFECTS DESCRIBED IN THE LAST CHAPTER PRODUCED?

Are the effects, as described by hydropathists and by the British and Foreign Medical Review, produced without purging, vomiting, drugging, or the lancet--or by what other means are such essential results to be attained? We answer, by hydropathy alone are they to be produced, through the medium of the external and internal skin or mucous membrane, the most important organ in the human structure, and the most neglected by the guardians of the public health; and by the promotion of all the secretions and excretions.

The Abbé Sanctorius, a Florentine, might be said to have spent twenty years of his life in a balance determining the amount of matters thrown off by the pores of the skin. To ascertain this, he first cleaned and then placed small glasses, some not longer than thimbles, on various parts of the human frame, when the result proved that every man ought to pass off from his person, daily, from six to seven pounds. Two and a half pounds are supposed to be released by the ordinary modes of evacuation, and the remainder by the pores of the skin. Now, if this exhalation is impeded, and the necessary amount not eliminated (which must happen if the skin has lost that energy, which exercise of the body and cold ablutions can alone support), what becomes of the superfluous juices thus retained in the system? The answer is easy; they circulate through the internal organs and become the source of fevers, inflammations, dropsy, and all sorts of diseases. Medical men see these effects, but do not suppose them to have resulted from suppressed perspiration. Instead of attacking the skin, they assault the stomach and bowels, weaken the digestive organs, and by that means create disease; whilst water, on the contrary, is a remedy, possessing at once dissolving and strengthening properties, which would seem to neutralise each other, but that we have daily evidence to the contrary.

Herein lies the great secret of hydropathy: by its modes of application, morbid humours are drawn to the surface and eliminated, the body is cooled, and the skin put into a state to perform its indispensable duty. In internal inflammations, the morbid heat from the internal skin or mucous membrane is drawn off by the application of cold and irritation to the surface, and the disease subdued without charging the stomach with anything but pure spring water, which in contradistinction to drugs, produces the most salubrious effects.

The following extract shows that the skin is the great drain through which matters injurious to the system, and superfluous heat are drawn off and accounts for hydropathy being so universal a remedy.

_A Practical Treatise on Healthy Skin, by_ ERASMUS WILSON, _1 Vol.
1845_.--_Extract._

"The structure of the skin and the diseases to which it is liable, have latterly received from many of the medical profession considerable attention. The skin is that soft and pliant membrane which invests the whole of the external surface of the body, as also the interior which is called mucous membrane.

"The construction of these two membranes may easily inform us, without having recourse to fanciful hypotheses, how disease, affecting any part of this membrane, either internally or externally, may pass to any other part and affect the whole; and thus how a faulty digestion in a lady, a disease of the investing or mucous membrane of the stomach, may show itself in eruptions on the face. We see at once, too, how it happens that, calling into more active action the shower bath and flesh brush, dyspepsia may be avoided or cured. It serves also to explain the circumstance noticed by Fourcroy and Vauquelin, that the skin, with all its products, 'is capable of supplying the office of the kidneys,' and carrying off, as we know it to imbibe nourishment, the indispensable excretions for which the proper organs may be deficient.

"In explanation of this circumstance, we must remark, that the skin, internal or external, in which terminate all the arteries and commence the veins, in which too, the nerves of sensation commence, and the nerves of volition terminate, not only envelopes the whole body internally and externally, but is also the secretory organ of every part, and the immediate means of communication with the external world.

"The skin is the organ of contact with the external world, and the means of making us acquainted with every part of the universe. The senses of touch, of hearing, of smell, of taste, are all exercised by the skin.

"By the vessels terminating in the skin, or of which it is formed, all the phenomena of nutrition, and decay of appetite, and sensation, health and disease are produced.

"Whatever may be the climate or temperature in which the body is placed, it is kept at nearly one uniform and vital heat by the varying and adapting operations of the skin.

"The skin is the organ by which electricity is conducted into and out of the body.

"Its functions are, in short, proportioned to its vastness; and as it envelopes every part, so manifold are its purposes.

"The structure of the skin is highly curious; it consists of two layers; the one horny and insensible, guarding from injury; the other highly sensitive, the universal organ of feeling, which lies beneath; the latter feels, but the former dulls the impression.

"The following will show how, by the perspiratory organs, excess of water is removed from the blood, and the uniform temperature of the body preserved.

"Taken separately, the little perspiratory tube with its appended gland, is calculated to awaken in the mind very little idea of the importance of the system to which it belongs; but when the vast number of similar organs composing this system are considered, we are led to form some notion, however imperfect, of their probable influence in the health and comfort of the individual; the reality surpasses imagination and almost belief.

"The perspiratory pores on the palm of the hand, are found to be 3,528 in a square inch; now each of these pores being the aperture of a little tube of about a quarter of an inch long, it follows that in a square inch of skin on the palm of the hand, there exists a length of tube equal to 882 inches, or 73-1/2 feet. Such a _drainage_ as 73 feet in every square inch of skin, assuming this to be the average for the whole body, is something wonderful; and the thought naturally intrudes itself, What if this _drainage were obstructed? Could we need a stronger argument for enforcing the necessity of attention to the skin?_ On the pulps of the finger, where the ridges of the sensitive layer of the true skin are somewhat finer than the palm of the hand and on the heel, where the ridges are coarser, the number of pores on the square inch was 2,268, and the length of tube 567 inches, or 47 feet. To obtain an estimate of the length of tube of the perspiratory system of the whole surface of the body, I think," says Dr. Wilson, "that 2,800 might be taken as a fair average of the number of pores in the square inch, and 700 consequently of the number of inches in length. Now the number of square inches of surface in a man of ordinary height and bulk is 2,500, the number of pores therefore, 7,000,000, and the number of inches of perspiratory tube 1,750,000, that is 145,833 feet, or 48,000 yards, or nearly 28 miles.

"This is only a specimen of the extraordinary structure.

"Besides the perspiratory vessels, the skin is provided with vessels for secreting an oily substance, which is of a different nature at different parts of the body; with vessels to repair abrasion and provide for its growth, and carry off its decayed parts; with nerves and blood-vessels that are probably as numerous and extensive as the perspiratory vessels.

"It must at the same time be remembered, that the interior skin or mucous membrane, is provided with equally numerous and complicated vessels, to answer some analogous purposes. The whole of them may be affected by applications to the external skin."

Dr. Wilson has, in his work, introduced some equally curious and instructive passages, as to the formation and uses of the oil-glands, the structure and functions of the hair, the influence of diet and clothing, and the effect of exercise and cleanliness on the health of this extensive organ.

V.--IS HYDROPATHY A PANACEA? AND WHAT COMPLAINTS ARE CURABLE BY IT?

Dr. Rauss, author of a work on hydropathy which passed through several editions, says, "It is almost impossible for any one to die of an acute disease, in whom reaction can be produced, and who from the commencement is treated Hydropathically.

"Those unacquainted with this treatment will naturally doubt its wonderful power; and the physician, when he reflects upon the number of patients who in acute diseases have perished under his hands, will no doubt treat it with derision; nevertheless," says the Doctor, "as I am not advancing a doctrine that may be controverted, _I here publicly make known that I am ready, by deeds as well as words, to prove all that I have stated_." "_To state_," adds the Doctor, "_what diseases are curable, would be a tedious occupation; I shall prefer pointing out those which are not, viz., all diseases of the lungs, all organic defects, and all diseases in people whose muscles and sinews are past all power of reaction, and from whom vitality has passed beyond recovery._" The cure of all acute diseases, of whatever nature or kind, with these exceptions, is to Priessnitz merely child's play; in no instance of nervous fevers or inflammations, in any stage, was he ever known to lose a patient; and what is worthy of remark in acute cases, a cure is effected in a few days without the subsequent debility which results from other treatment. Whilst I was at Gräfenberg, all descriptions of acute attacks came under my immediate notice, and I assert, without fear of contradiction, that they were all cured, with but one exception,--and that a highly valued friend of my own, a medical man, who was attacked with inflammation of the lungs. The doctor, who was advanced in life, retained his old prejudices, and consequently refused to submit to the treatment until too late. Confident in the power of Hydropathy for the last six years, whenever occasions offered (and they were not few during my sojourn in Ireland), I applied the treatment with invariable success. A case of inflammation of the mucous membrane is worthy of notice. One M. D. declared his belief that the patient would not live two hours; the other, that he could not exist until the evening. On the application of the wet sheet and tepid bath, the resuscitation of the man was as by miracle. In a case of diarrhoea, the rubbing sheet and its bath acted to the astonishment of the family. A young man had been under medical treatment for diarrhoea for a month, when he could not sleep more than a quarter of an hour at a time. He abandoned drugs, and was cured by hydropathy in three days. Dr. Engel of Vienna, and many other writers on the subject, are quite of the same opinion as Dr. Rauss as regards acute disease. This mode of treatment is efficacious in chronic diseases accompanied by atony; in all nervous affections, spasms, pains of which medicine will not discover the cause; in cases of obstruction of the bowels, and all the systematic evils which arise from them, such as indigestion, hypochondria, piles, jaundice, &c; in gout, rheumatism, scrofula, and most diseases affecting women; in fact, it is successful in a number of complaints altogether beyond the reach of medicine. I have had frequent occasions for admiring the result of the treatment in cases of ague, nervous, typhus, putrid, and scarlet fevers; but its most signal triumphs are obtained over those serious derangements of the system produced by the abuse of drugs, or when consumptions are produced by iodine, arsenic, or the consequences of mercury, tartar emetic, or other dangerous medicaments, have manifested themselves."

It may be stated without the fear of contradiction (not a word has been written to the contrary), that in small-pox, scarlatina, measles, croup, and all the complaints incidental to children; in fevers, inflammations, cholera, cholic, dysentery, diarrhoea, and, in fact, all acute diseases, hydropathy competently administered is omnipotent; and that in chronic complaints it effects more than can be obtained by any other means. The question is frequently put, "Will hydropathy cure all complaints?" I answer it is no catholicon, no panacea; nor is any cure for all diseases to be found.

"As man, perhaps, the moment of his birth,
Receives the lurking principle of death,
The young disease that must subdue at length,
Grows with his growth and strengthens with his strength."

Thus Pope viewed it, and thus it must be viewed by all who think on the subject. What the advocates of hydropathy assert is, that sudden fevers, of whatever nature they may be, diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, English or Asiatic, in fact, all complaints that are termed acute, when the vital energies can be roused are sure of being cured; and that in old-standing complaints, usually denominated chronic, the water cure will do all that can be done by drugs, and that it is all-powerful over many complaints which are beyond the reach of all pharmaceutical remedies.

VI.--IS HYDROPATHY NEW? WHY IS IT NOT GENERALLY ADOPTED?

It is frequently said, by way of detracting from the merits of the Water-cure, that it is not new, that ages buried in the past have been witnesses to its merits. To this it may be replied, its advocates admit that the application of water to the cure of disease is as old as the hills;--but let me ask, breathes there a man who can point to the page, or call the dirty manuscript, from cavern or chest, wherein lies hid the present process of Hydropathy's main arms, the wet sheet, sweating process, the douche, etc.? Where shall we find the sage of ancient or modern times, buried in herbalistic lore and practice, that ever succeeded so completely in the cure of diseases, by thrusting nothing upon his patient's stomachic organs but pure unadulterated water, as Priessnitz? We seek not to prove its novelty, but its utility.

It has been shewn that water as a curative agent, has been known from the remotest period; but its means of application were insufficient. In the days of Pliny, it agitated the Roman world. In the sixteenth century, great efforts were made in our own country to introduce it into practice, and again more lately, the subject was agitated, but it did not advance. Thus it has been with all great discoveries--witness Steam. Le Caus, who discovered its powers two hundred years ago, was consigned to a mad-house. The French Academy of Science denounced Fulton's discovery as a chimera and absurd, as it did Hydropathy a few years since. Others, anxious for the existence of a hidden treasure, were ever in search of it, each step conducted slowly nearer the goal; but a Watt, was required to give full and vigorous development to its powers. Thus, it has been with water, which, unaided by its present manifold modes of application, was nearly as ungovernable as the steam without the engine.

All nations recognised and many partially profited by the healing properties of water; but the genius of a Priessnitz was required to explore its capabilities and resources, and, by reducing them to a science, confer an inestimable boon on mankind and scatter to the winds the accumulated fallacies of ages.

If all these effects which we have shown, are to be produced by Hydropathic appliances, is it not evident there is something to be learnt? An acquaintance with its details, its _modus operandi_, can only be acquired by study and experience, as Lady Morgan says, "knowledge is a fruit which no longer grows upon trees; on the contrary, it partakes more of the nature of the truffle, and must be dug for by those who are desirous of tasting it."[2]

[2] The following letter, extracted from Miss Costello's "Summer among
the Bocages and Vines," chronicles another melancholy instance of
persecution:--

"Paris, Feb. 1641.

"My dear Effiat,

"While you are forgetting me at Narbonne, and giving yourself up to
the pleasures of the court, and the delight of thwarting M. le
Cardinal de Richelieu, I, according to your desire, am doing the
honours of Paris to your English lord, the Marquis of Worcester; and I
carry him about, or rather he carries me, from curiosity to curiosity,
choosing always the most grave and serious, speaking very little,
listening with extreme attention, and fixing on those whom he
interrogates two large blue eyes, which seem to pierce to the very
centre of their thoughts. He is remarkable for never being satisfied
with any explanations which are given him, and he never sees things in
the light in which they are shown him, you may judge of this by a
visit we made together to Bicêtre, where he imagined he had discovered
genius in a madman. If this madman had not been actually raving, I
verily believe your marquis would have entreated his liberty, and have
carried him off to London, in order to hear his extravagancies from
morning till night, at his ease. We were crossing the court of the
mad-house, and I, more dead than alive with fright, kept close to my
companion's side, when a frightful face appeared behind some immense
bars, and a hoarse voice exclaimed, 'I am not mad! I am not mad! I
have made a discovery which would enrich the country that adopted it!'
'What has he discovered?' I asked of our guide. 'Oh,' he answered,
shrugging his shoulders, 'something trifling enough; you would never
guess it; it is the use of the steam of boiling water.' I began to
laugh. 'This man,' continued the keeper, 'is named Solomon de Caus; he
came from Normandy, four years ago, to present to the king a statement
of the wonderful effects that might be produced from the invention. To
listen to him, you would imagine that with steam you could navigate
ships, move carriages--in fact, there is no end to the miracles which,
he insists upon it, could be performed. The Cardinal sent the madman
away without listening to him. Solomon de Caus, far from being
discouraged, followed the Cardinal wherever he went with the most
determined perseverance; who, tired of finding him for ever in his
path, and annoyed to death with his folly, ordered him to be shut up
in Bicêtre, where he has now been for three years and half, and where,
as you hear, he calls out to every visitor that he is not mad, but
that he has made a valuable discovery. He has even written a book on
the subject, which I have here. Lord Worcester, who had listened to
this account with much interest, after reflecting a time, asked for
the book, of which, after having read several pages, he said, 'This
man is not mad. In my country, instead of shutting him up, he would
have been rewarded. Take me to him, for I should like to ask him some
questions.' He was according conducted to his cell, but after a time
he came back sad and thoughtful. 'He is indeed mad now,' said he,
'misfortune and captivity have alienated his reason, but it is you who
have to answer for his madness: for when you cast him into that cell,
you confined the greatest genius of the age.' After this, we went
away; and since that time he has done nothing but talk of Solomon de
Caus.

"Adieu, my dear friend and faithful Henry.

"Make haste and come back, and pray do not be so happy where you are
as not to keep a little love for me.

"MARION DELAMORE."

A Medical Education does not necessarily assist in the knowledge of Hydropathy; on the contrary, it acts as barrier to the acquirement of a perfect insight into it. Hydropathy and Allopathy in their practice are like the poles asunder.

The question is frequently mooted, if Hydropathy is so harmless and yet so certain in its operations, how is it that the medical professors, whose object is to relieve their fellow-men, and prolong their lives, do not take it up? To this it might be answered, "It is a difficult thing to force any to believe the evidence of their own senses, if their instincts or their interests (which are one and the same) happen to point another way."

In the practice of Medicine, as in every thing else, there are vested interests, those in the receipt of large sums of money are content with things as they are, those in more limited practice have not the courage to enter upon anything new, however persuaded of its utility. Others are deterred by the fear of being considered Quacks, or losing cast[e] with their brother practitioners, and all see, that, in the ordinary occurrences of life the application of Hydropathy is so simple, that were it generally practised, nine tenths of the faculty would have to throw up their briefs. A writer in Chamber's Journal justly observes,--"If the subject be new and startling, and still more so, if any interest or prejudice be disturbed by it, the clearest demonstration on earth is of no avail."

Since the education of medical men (totally at variance as it is with all the principles of the Water-cure), gives them no advantage whatever over a non-medical man in judging of what is, or what is not a fit case for Hydropathy; or, in prescribing its practice, any opinion from the faculty, opposed as their interest, and prejudices are to it, ought to be received for as much as it is worth, and no more. One thinks Hydropathy available in gout--another doubts that, but believes it to be good in fevers or inflammations--a third would not hesitate to apply it in dysentery or diarrhœa--a fourth, for a cold--and so on through the whole category of disease; but, with the gravity of true sons of Esculapius[Transcriber's note: Aesculapius], to their own patients they recommend caution, which at once deters them from trying it. When these practitioners are asked, how they arrived at the conclusion, that the complaints they name may be cured by this treatment, their reasons are entirely speculative; and when pressed as to why they do not apply it, inasmuch as they admit it to be good, they argue the impossibility of contending with public prejudices.

Might we not ask, who are the authors of this state of things? Few people think for themselves, either in Law, Physic, or Divinity. As long as incomes from one thousand to thirty thousand pounds a year (and that there are the latter is proved by the returns of the Income Tax), are made by members of the profession, no reform with their consent can be expected. At one period, after the amputation of a limb, bleeding was staunched by the application of boiling pitch. Paré deprecated this treatment, and recommended the taking up arteries, as is now done. He was treated with derision: "What" said the old practitioner, "would you hang the life of a man upon a thread?" When Harvey propounded his theory, he lost caste with his brethren, and a medical writer doubts if any practitioner of the period, who had passed forty years, believed in the circulation of the blood.

Jenner, to secure himself from the fury of a mob, sought refuge in the house of Colonel Wilson; and there is still a minute in the books of the Foundling Hospital, the first public establishment that adopted Vaccination, stating that as its application could not be entrusted to the faculty, the Committee recommended that the operation of vaccination should be performed by the Clergy.

Lady Mary Wortley Montague was so persecuted, that she always regretted having introduced inoculation into the country.

VII.--The Lancet.

The use of the Lancet is a subject that ought to interest every friend to humanity in an especial manner. By this, our mortal foe, more have fallen than by the sword. The use of one is as unjustifiable as the other. "Blood is the life," this is the language of holy writ; he who sheds that, deprives us of a part of our existence.

"The use of the Lancet," says Dr. Dickson, "was the invention of an unenlightened, possibly a sanguinary age; and its continued use says but little for the after-discoveries of ages, or for the boasted progress of medical science.

"Will the men who thus lovingly pour out the blood, dispute its importance in the animal economy? Will they deny that it forms the basis of the solids,--that when the body has been wasted by long diseases, it is by the blood only it can recover its healthy volume and appearance?

"Misguided by theory, man, presumptuous man, has dared to divide what God, as a part of creation, has united; to open what the Eternal, in the wisdom of his omniscience made entire.

"It is on the face of it a most unnatural proceeding. How can you withdraw blood from one organ without depriving every other of the material of its healthy state?

"The first resource of the surgeon is the lancet. The first thing he thinks of, when called to an accident, is how he can most quickly open the flood-gates of the heart, to pour out the stream of an already enfeebled existence."

Capt. Owen, in detailing the mortality which took place among his people on the coast of Africa, by yellow fever, says, "he had not one instance of perfect recovery after a liberal application of the lancet.["] And in the subsequent report of the Select Committee on the Western Coast of Africa, there occurs the following passage. "The bleeding system has fortunately gone out of fashion; and the frightful mortality that attended its practice, is now no longer known on board our ships."

"Let the reader," says Dr. Gibbs, in his letters from Gräfenberg, "enter the crowded hospitals in England or the Continent, and see how mercilessly the lancet, the leech, and cupping-glass are employed in the diseases of the poor. Look at the pale and ghastly faces of the inmates."

Among the numerous diseases which bleeding can produce, Darwin says, a paroxysm of gout is liable to recur. John Hunter mentions lock-jaw and dropsy; Travers, blindness and palsy; Marshall Hall, mania; Blundell, dysentery; Broussais, fever and convulsion. "When an animal loses a considerable quantity of blood," says John Hunter, "the heart increases in frequency of strokes, as also in its violence." Yet these are the indications for which professors bleed. Magendie mentions _pneumonia_ as having been produced by it; and further tells us, that he has witnessed among its effects "the entire train of inflammatory phenomena;" and mark, he adds the extraordinary fact, "that this inflammation will have been produced by the very agent chiefly used to combat it." We read in scripture, "He that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." It has ever been supposed, that this applied to the assassin; but holy writ is deeper than this! and no doubt the time will come, when one man will no more think of bleeding another, than he would of committing any other act that should expose him to public ignominy.

The operation of blood-letting is so associated in the minds of most men with the practice of physic, that when a sensible German physician, some time ago, petitioned the king of Prussia to make the employment of the lancet penal, he was laughed at from one end of Europe to the other.

"The imputation of novelty," says Locke, "is a terrible charge against those who judge of men's heads as they do of their perukes, by the _fashion_; and can allow none to be right, but the received doctrine." Thus Hydropathy, like many other valuable discoveries, and even Christianity itself, must wait its time; a circumstance much to be lamented--because all that is sought by bleeding is effected without this soul-harrowing process. Let such as doubt the fact, go to Gräfenberg, there they will learn that during the whole course of Mr. Priessnitz's practice, not a single drop of human blood has been spilt; and yet all diseases for which the lancet is applied are hourly relieved. This is a fact so notorious, that no pen has ever been raised to deny it; so long as interest governs prejudice, practitioners may continue their destructive practice with impunity; but where are the feelings? As observed by a writer, "what a long dream of false security have mankind been dreaming! They have laid themselves down on the laps of their medical Mentors, they have slept a long sleep; while these, like the fabled vampire of the poet, taking advantage of a dark night of barbarism and ignorance, have thought it no sin to rob them of their life's blood, during the profoundness of their slumber."

Dr. Kitto, in his clever work on consumption says;--"On the subject of bleeding, purgatives, mercury, and a low course of diet, I shall have occasion to show, in the course of my observations, that these agents are not only unnecessary, but actually mischievous, particularly bleeding, which has proved more fatal than the pestilence or the sword. Nature is our best and surest guide; and if we would follow only her admonitions, we should not so frequently have to witness the impotence of our efforts to alleviate suffering; or to mourn the unfortunate results of cases, which, despite the boasted improvements in the healing art, but too frequently terminate in the grave."

VIII.--AUTHORITIES IN SUPPORT OF WATER AS A CURATIVE AGENT.

Thales, like Homer, looked upon water as the principle of every thing. The Spartans bathed their children as soon as born in cold water; and the men of Sparta, both old and young, bathed at all seasons of the year in the Eurotas, to harden their flesh and strengthen their bodies.

Pindar, in one of his Olympic Odes, says, "The best thing is water, and the next gold."

There was a Greek proverb to the effect that the water of the sea cured all ills.

Pythagoras recommended the use of cold baths strongly to his disciples, to fortify both body and mind.

Hippocrates, the father of medicine, who added friction to cold bathing, was accustomed to use cold water in his treatment of the most serious illnesses. It was Hippocrates who first observed that warm water chilled, whilst cold water warmed.

The Macedonians considered warm water to be enervating; and their women, after accouchement, were washed with cold water.

Virgil called the ancient inhabitants of Italy, a race of men hard and austere, who immersed their newly-born children in the rivers, and accustomed them to cold water.

Pliny, in speaking of A. Musa, who cured Horace by means of cold water, said that he put an end to confused drugs; and he also alludes to a certain Charmes, who made a sensation at Rome by the cures he effected with cold water. On being asked what he thought drugs were sent for, he said, "he could not imagine, except that men might destroy themselves with them when they were tired of living."

Celsus, called the Cicero of doctors, employed water for complaints of the head and stomach.

Galen, in the second century, recommended cold bathing to the healthy, as well as to patients labouring under the attacks of fever.

Charlemagne, aware of the salubrity of cold bathing, encouraged the use of it throughout his empire, and introduced swimming as an amusement at his court.

Michael Savonarola, an Italian doctor, in 1462, recommended cold water in gout, ophthalmia, and hæmorrhages.

Cardanus, of Pavia, 1575, complains that the doctors in his time made so little use of cold water in the curing of gout.

Van der Heyden, a doctor at Ghent, in a work published in 1624, states that during an epidemic dysentery, he cured many hundreds of persons with cold water, and that during a long practice of fifty years, the best cures he ever made were effected with cold water.

Short, an English doctor, 1656, states that he had cured the dropsy and the bite of mad dogs with cold water.

Dr. Sir John Floyer published a work, called "the Psychrolusic," in 1702, showing how fevers were to be cured with water. From that period to 1722, his work went through six editions in London.

Dr. Hancock, in 1722, published an anti-fever treatise upon the use of cold water, which went through seven editions in one year.

Dr. Currie of Liverpool, who published a work in 1797, on the use of water, introduced that element extensively in his practice with astounding results.

Tissot, in his "Advice to the People," published in Paris, 1770, shows the importance of cold water.

Hoffman, the famous German doctor, says that if there existed anything in the world that could be called a panacea, it was pure water: first, because that element would disagree with nobody; secondly, because it is the best preservative against disease; thirdly, because it would cure agues and chronic complaints; fourthly because it responded to all indications.

Hahn, who was born in Silesia, in 1714, wrote an excellent work upon the curative agency of water in all complaints, a copy was lately found upon a book-stall, and purchased by Professor Oertel, for little more than one penny, and has been re-published; it is interesting to all who regard with attention that great moral change which the Water-cure is calculated to effect.

In Dr. Hahn's work, it is stated that Pater Bernardo, a Capuchin monk from Sicily, went in the year 1724 to Malta, and there made some most astonishing water-cures, the fame of which spread throughout Europe: he used iced water internally and externally, and allowed his patients to eat but very little. He made a proposition that the doctors should take 100 patients, and said if they, by their mode of treating them, could cure forty, then would he undertake to cure sixty more easily and securely, and in a shorter time. His remedy of iced water, was just as effectual in winter as in summer. A case is cited of a man, ninety-two years of age, who was at the point of death from the virulence of a fever, and was cured with cold water only.

Evan Hahnemann, father of Homeopathy, in a work published at Leipsic, 1784, recommends fresh water, without which, he says, ulcers of any long standing cannot be cured, and adds, if there be any general remedy for disease, "it is water."

The Rev. John Wesley, A.M., published a work in 1747 (about a century ago), which went through thirty-four editions, called "Primitive Physic, or an Easy and Natural Method of Curing most Diseases."

After deprecating the manner in which drugs were imposed upon mankind, the mysteries with which the science of medicine is surrounded, and the interested conduct of medical men, the Rev. gentleman proceeds to shew, that he was fully aware of the healing powers of water; and from the long list which he has given, and which follows, it will be evident that he thought water capable of curing almost every disease to which human nature is exposed. He writes:--

"The common method of compounding and decompounding medicines, can never be reconciled to common sense. Experience shews, that one thing will cure most disorders, at least as well as twenty put together. Then why do you add the other nineteen? Only to swell the apothecary's bill! nay, possibly on purpose to prolong the distemper, that the doctor and he may divide the spoil.

"How often, by thus compounding medicines of opposite qualities, is the virtue of both utterly destroyed?

"Nay, how often do those joined together destroy life, which singly they might have preserved?

"This occasioned that caution of the great Boerhaave, against mixing things without evident necessity, and without full proof of the effect they will produce when joined together, as well as of that they produce when asunder; seeing (as he observes) that several things which taken separately are safe and powerful medicines, when compounded not only lose their former power, but compose a strong and deadly poison."

In recommending to his followers the use of water, Mr. Wesley proceeds to state, "_that cold bathing cures young children of the following complaints_:--

Convulsions, coughs, gravel
Inflammations of ears, navel and mouth
Rickets
Cutaneous inflammations
Pimples and scabs
Suppression of urine
Vomiting
Want of sleep

"Water," he further adds, "frequently cures every nervous[3] and every paralytic disorder. In particular:--

Asthma
Agues of every sort
Atrophy
Blindness
Cancer
Coagulated blood of bruises
Chin cough
Consumption
Convulsions
Coughs
Complication of distempers
Convulsive pains
Deafness
Dropsy
Epilepsy
Violent fever
Gout (running)
Hectic fevers
Hysteric pains
Incubus
Inflammations
Involuntary stool or urine
Lameness
Leprosy (old)
Lethargy
Loss of speech, taste, appetite, smell
Nephritic pains
Palpitation of the heart
Pain in the back, joints, stomach
Rheumatism
Rickets
Rupture
Suffocations
Surfeits at the beginning
Sciatica
Scorbutic pains
Swelling in the joints
Stone in the kidneys
Torpor of the limbs, even when the use of them is lost
Tetanus
Tympany
Vertigo
St. Vitus' dance
Vigilia
Varicose ulcers
The Whites

[3] "And this, I apprehend, accounts for its frequently curing the
bite of a mad dog, especially if it be repeated for twenty-five or
thirty days successively."

"Water prevents the growth of hereditary

Apoplexies
Asthmas
Blindness
Consumptions
Deafness
Gout
King's evil
Melancholy
Palsies
Rheumatism
Stone

"Water drinking water generally prevents

Apoplexies
Asthma
Convulsions
Gout
Hysteric fits
Madness
Palsies
Stone
Trembling.

"To this children should be used from their cradles."

We then find the following prescriptions:--

"_For Asthma._--Take a pint of cold water every morning, washing the head in cold water immediately after, and using the cold bath.

"_Rickets in Children._--Dip them in cold water every morning.

"_To prevent apoplexy._--Use the cold bath and drink only cold water.

"_Ague._--Go into a cold bath just before the cold.

"_Cancer in the breast._--Use the cold bath. This has cured many. This cured Mrs. Bates, of Leicestershire, of a cancer in her breast, a consumption, a sciatica, and rheumatism, which she had had nearly twenty years.

N.B. Generally where cold bathing is necessary to cure disease, water-drinking is so, to prevent a relapse.

"_Hysteric colic._--Mrs. Watts, by using the cold bath two and twenty times in a month, was entirely cured of an hysteric colic, fits, and convulsive motions, continual sweatings and vomitings, wandering pains in her limbs and head, and total loss of appetite.

"_To prevent the ill effects of cold._--The moment a person gets into a house, with his hands and feet quite chilled, let him put them into a vessel of water, as cold as can be got, and hold them there until they begin to glow, which they will do in a minute or two. This method likewise effectually prevents chilblains.

"_Consumption._--Cold bathing has cured many deep consumptions.

"_Convulsions._--Use the cold bath."

And so on. In this valuable little work, from which are the above extracts, confirmative of the value I set upon cold water, Mr. Wesley prescribes the use of water for almost every complaint.

Slade, in his "Records of the East," very judiciously remarks, with reference to the Turks, that "notwithstanding their ignorance of medical science, added to the extreme irregularity of their living, both as regards diet and exercise, one day dining off cheese and cucumbers, another day feeding on ten greasy dishes; one month riding twelve hours daily, another month never stirring off the sofa; smoking always, and drinking coffee to excess; occasionally getting drunk, besides other intemperances--combining, in short, all that our writers on the subject designate injurious to health--the Turks enjoy particularly good health: and this anomaly is owing to two causes; first, the religious necessity of washing their arms and feet and necks, from three to five times a day, always with cold water, generally at the fountains before the mosques, by which practice they become protected against catarrhal affections; second, by their constant use of the vapour bath, by which the humours that collect in the human frame, no doctors know how or why, occasioning a long list of disorders, are carried off by the pores of the skin. Gout, rheumatism, head-ache, consumption, are unknown in Turkey, thanks to the great physicians, vapour bath and cold bath! No art has been so much vitiated in Europe, by theories, as the art of preserving health. Its professors, however, are beginning to recur to first principles; and when bathing shall be properly appreciated, three-fourths of the druggists will be obliged to close their shops."

The question here arises: how is it that with so much evidence in favour of water, it has never been brought into general use? Many reasons might be assigned, but the principal [Transcriber's note: originally 'principle'] one is, that until the present day no system of treatment has ever been based on scientific principles. It was in embryo, and, like Steam, wanted its time for development. If people studied their health as they do their interest, they would at least enquire into this, the best means of preserving it.

But in our present state of civilisation, nature is known by name only. None save those reduced to the last stage of poverty ever satisfy their thirst with water! Men, women, and children, rich and poor, old and young, all avoid water--perhaps because it costs nothing (for, in our artificial life, we are led to esteem things according to their venal price), and, like air and sun, is shared in common with our poorer fellow-kind.

The Germans are water-drinkers, but the English have a distaste for it; few ever drank half a pint undiluted at one time, in their lives, imagining that water will cause inconvenience, whilst in the course of the day, they think nothing of drinking wine, soda water, brandy and water, and tea, to a great extent, all of which are injurious. A lady of my acquaintance carries her distaste for water so far as to ruin the health of her children by it. For some time the eldest, about four years old, had been sickly: when at Rome, the mother consulted a medical man, who said that the child wanted nothing but water, which was given it, and the child got well immediately. I met the same family at Kissingen, when at a spring the nursery-maid asked me if she might give the child water, saying the children were always asking for it, but her mistress did not like them to drink water alone. "Certainly," I replied, "give her as much as she chooses to drink."

In addition to cold water, fresh air and exercise are most important means of health. They are especially useful in giving life and activity to the skin, which seldom meets with proper attention, people generally not being aware of the evil consequences attending their neglect of that most important organ of the human frame.

By protecting the skin from the air, we concentrate on it the heat that is ever exhaling from the body, and thus complete what warm baths, spirituous liquors, want of exercise, close rooms, and heavy nourishment, have begun. We do not perceive that by keeping the body warm, we weaken the skin, which becomes so sensitive to external changes, that we are incessantly obliged to augment the thickness and number of its coverings. At last, a time comes when nothing more can be added to the clothing already too heavy. Then weak and irritable persons, whose numbers--our erroneous system daily augments!--remain at home, not aware of the innumerable inconveniences to which such a resolution exposes them, and not knowing that the habitual washing of the body in cold water, would enable them to leave their heated apartments, abandon flannel, and expose themselves, without the slightest danger, to the healthy effects of fresh air.

It is the enervating softness and delicacy of modern customs, which present the greatest obstacle to the use of cold water. Man looks for agreeable impressions, and avoids whatever does not produce them. But with a little courage, he would discover that the inconvenience of a more rigorous and simple mode of life was but momentary, and when he had found his health of mind and body improved by it, it would soon become agreeable, whilst from luxurious sloth ensue enervation and disgust. Being unable to change the nature of the elements, we should harden our bodies, familiarise ourselves with the inclemency of the seasons, and turn them to the benefit of our health. It is in vain that the man whose fortune permits him to change the climate, looks for a milder sky; if his effeminacy accompanies him, he will be like a lady of whom Priessnitz speaks, who near the fire was cold. A warmer air would enervate his skin more and more; and then he would be as sensitive to cold, even in a Neapolitan climate, as, with a hardened body, he would be at his ease in the hut of an Esquimaux.

Another obstacle to the external use of cold water, is the false belief that colds, which are the sources of much illness, result from it. People cannot understand that a cold bath, followed by suitable exercise, warms the feet and the body, and that there is _no_ surer preservative from cold.

The same incredulity is affected with regard to the revulsive effect of the cold foot-bath; nevertheless nothing is better proved than its efficiency in relieving the head. Every one knows that, after having washed the face and hands in cold water, an agreeable warmth ensues, which is not the result of warm water. That after any part of the body has been exposed to cold, rain, or snow, it becomes hot; and that the reverse is the case after the use of warm water; which accounts for people in Summer feeling cool after a warm bath.

When we wash the body with cold water, we should do it quickly, lose no time in dressing, and afterwards take exercise. Washing should be avoided when the parties are cold, because then the re-action or re-production of heat is slower. These precautions would prevent the most delicate persons from taking cold, though not in the habit of using cold water.

Professor Oertel was the first to publish to the world the astonishing cures which were effected at Gräfenberg; and he was followed by Brand, Kroeber, Kurtsz, Doering, Harnish, and a host of others, whose writings contributed to establish the reputation of Priessnitz, who by means of the various forms in which he administers water, attacks all diseases susceptible of cure, and very frequently establishes the health of those who have been declared incurable.

IX.--ABLUTIONS.

There can be no doubt, if the public were in the habit of using cold ablutions every morning, their health would be improved, and the number of consumptive cases much diminished.

There are many ways of using ablutions, according to the health and strength of the parties.

Strong people ought to go into a cold bath the moment they get out of bed; then rub themselves well for three or four minutes. If not in their usual health, the bath should be protracted, and more friction used.

Another or general mode is to have a washing tub, water only two or three inches deep, put a towel into the water, leave the bed quite warm, step into the tub, take up the towel with as much water as possible, and squeeze it over the head and shoulders several times, rub the body well with the towel, then sit down in the tub, and with wet hands rub the abdomen, etc., for a minute or two.

Delicate persons may be washed all over with wet towels; sometimes it is desirable to wash first with tepid water, then with cold.

Where there is a great whiteness of skin, which indicates a want of circulation, or parties feel themselves indisposed, dripping sheets are prescribed; the friction here used arouses the vital energies, and in general produces a most refreshing feeling throughout the system.

Priessnitz never prescribes cold immersion till the body be prepared for it. When patients have been desirous of bathing in a river, he has always opposed it; saying, "Bathing excites nervous sensibility; too much bathing excites the system to an injurious extent." The various baths resorted to in hydropathy, are to effect an object, and as such are medically applied. Sea bathing for some constitutions is remarkably wholesome, but to others it is injurious.

X.--USE OF COLD WATER FOR DRINKING AND INJECTIONS.

Dr. Arbuthnot, in his work on aliments, says that "Water is the chief ingredient in the animal fluids and solids; for a dry bone distilled, affords a great quantity of insipid water: therefore, water seems to be the proper drink for every animal." Berzelius, the great Swedish chemist, proved the truth of Dr. Arbuthnot's observations, by distilling the entire corpse of a moderate sized man down to water, with the exception of eight pounds.

And Milton has expressed his concurrence with those authorities in eloquent language, when speaking of Samson:--