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:--
"O madness! to think use of strongest wines,
And strongest drink, our chief support of health,
When, God, with these forbidden, made choice to rear
His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from _the limpid brook_."
About twelve ordinary size tumblers of water a day are generally drunk
whilst under the treatment; instances occur where that number is
increased to twenty, and even thirty glasses, but such are very rare.
At the beginning it is difficult to drink so much water; but by degrees
we become accustomed to it. All the operations of the cure lead to the
elimination of heat, which naturally causes thirst. Some persons on
first drinking water feel sick, or have diarrhoea, which proves that the
stomach is not in a healthy state. In this case, instead of
discontinuing the drinking of water, the quantity is increased. When
pain in the stomach comes from its being overcharged by food, water, in
large quantities is recommended to be persevered in until relief is
obtained.
We know that emetics produce this effect, but such remedies weaken the
stomach--while water has the contrary tendency.
Cold water, as a beverage, fortifies the stomach and intestines, by
clearing them of the bad juices they contain: favours the generation of
new juices, and mixes with the blood by absorption. It spreads itself
quickly through all the organs, attenuates, purifies, and dissolves the
sharp or thick humours, and discharges them by means of perspiration and
urine. Considered as a dietetic for slight indispositions, bad
digestions, and generally in all cases of disease for which the faculty
recommend aperients or mineral waters, it cannot be too highly
appreciated. In the morning, after a cold ablution, whilst taking
exercise, drink a few tumblers of water, and conclude every meal with a
tumbler of water. It will have the same effect as a purgative or mineral
water, without, like them, weakening the digestive organs. All persons
may drink cold water at all times of the day with impunity, if they are
not inconvenienced by it. That taken before breakfast, during exercise,
produces doubtless the best effects. It is above all after sweating that
drinking cold water produces an expectoration of phlegm. Water may be
drunk after breakfast, but not so as to overcharge the stomach. During
dinner the aliments should be moistened by some glasses of water, then
the stomach must be left to repose; some hours afterwards again water
may be drunk until supper-time. Drinking after supper is no less useful;
but it may break the rest, by causing an invalid to rise often in the
night. After drinking, exercise is indispensable, it stimulates the
action of the water, and accelerates a cure. When in exercise, though in
a perspiration, water may be drunk in any quantities. Water ought always
to be drawn fresh from the spring, and drunk as cold as possible. The
decanters which contain it ought to have stoppers, to preserve it cold
and fresh. After every operation in the cure, a glass of water should be
drunk; and it should be given in small quantities when in the sweating
process. I know a gentleman who has all his life been a free-liver, and
who, notwithstanding, is in good health, which he attributes entirely to
drinking a couple of tumblers of water the last thing at night and first
thing in the morning.
Under the denomination of injections, we principally understand
clysters. When the patient is not in the habit of using them with cold
water, they must not at first be applied for longer than two minutes;
but by degrees the intestines become accustomed to the water, which is
often absorbed like that introduced into the stomach. When necessary, a
second injection is repeated immediately after the expulsion of the
first.[4] Cold injections are used for constipation and diarrhoea, two
diseases diametrically opposite, but which arise from the same cause,
the weakness of the intestines. Thus the contradiction is only in
appearance, the great object of injections being to establish the tone
of these organs, and regulate their functions. Injections ought to be
aided by the use of cold water in other ways.
[4] Two ounces of water is sufficient for an infant; four ounces for a
child of six years old; eight ounces for a youth of fifteen; and
fifteen or sixteen ounces for an adult.
There are also other injections in use at Gräfenberg, such as for the
ears, nostrils, and genitals. Particular syringes are used for these
purposes.
XI.--THE COLD BATH.
The cold plunge-bath should be sufficiently deep for a man of ordinary
height to plunge into, up to his arm-pits. The water aught[sic] to be
continually renewed by a spring.
We have quoted many authorities to shew the advantages resulting from
exposing the body to the action of cold water.
When cold baths disagree with us, it is because we are not in a state to
use them, or we stay in too long.
When the body is overcharged with drugs or alcohol, when the juices are
dried up, or when there is an apoplectic tendency, and when in other
diseased conditions, the circulation is languid, cold plunge-baths must
be used with great caution. Many suppose that all the patients in a
hydropathic establishment, are indiscriminately ordered this sort of
bath. In this they err, because many are never allowed their use, and
others only after a long application of the rubbing sheet and tepid
baths. Strong robust constitutions may take the plunge-bath at once; but
in the Water-cure this is not allowed until the body is prepared for it,
and then only for a short time; generally for three or four minutes.
Priessnitz objects to persons staying long in the water: of course the
objection applies to invalids. For those who bathe in the sea, or other
water, he does not pretend to prescribe.
Every day's experience proves that the immersion of the body, covered
with perspiration into cold water, is exempt from danger, provided the
internal organs are in state of repose.
The risk which is incurred of catching cold on stripping and bathing in
a river, in this case cannot apply, as the body heated by artificial
means is at once immersed, whilst the bather often, injudiciously, waits
until chilled before he enters the water.
If we walk fast, or a long distance, to the bath, it is requisite to
repose a little to tranquillise the lungs; then before perspiration
ceases, we ought to undress quietly, and either plunge head foremost
into the water, or wet the head and chest previously, to prevent the
blood mounting to those regions.
Whilst bathing, the head ought to be immersed several times. After the
sweating or packing process, great care is to be observed in not
exposing any part of the body to the air previous to entering the bath.
The patient should keep in movement, rubbing himself well the whole
time. This stimulates the skin and abates the cold.
The time for remaining in the bath, is governed by the coldness of the
water, and the vital heat of the bather; a second sensation of cold is
to be avoided, or re-action may be difficult.
On leaving the bath, the patient is covered with a dry sheet, upon which
the attendant rubs, until the body presents a warm healthy glow. The
invalid should then dress quickly, drink a glass or two of water, and
walk out in the air to get warm; to effect this by the heat of stoves or
beds would be acting in direct opposition to Hydropathic rules.
When irritation is excited during the cure, the cold bath is sometimes
suspended and tepid baths resorted to. Every house ought to be supplied
with a cold bath, as its habitual use by the members of the family would
secure them against colds, influenza, etc.
Priessnitz says, "that the effect of going into cold water without being
previously heated, and doing so in a state of perspiration, is like a
blacksmith hammering upon cold, rather than hot iron. Cramp frequently
attends the former, whilst a healthy reaction is always the result of
the latter."
XII.--IS GOING INTO THE COLD BATH IN A STATE OF PERSPIRATION ATTENDED
WITH DANGER?
"The transition from a Vapour-bath to snow, or to a Cold-bath, has been
practised by the Russians for time immemorial" with the most beneficial
results,--"this," adds Dr. Johnson, "is conclusive, that there is no
danger whatever in going into the Cold-bath while covered with
perspiration; unless it can be proved that perspiration produced by hot
vapour is a very different thing from perspiration produced by a
blanket;" and, adds the learned doctor, in his valuable work on
Hydropathy, which every one ought to read; "All physiological reasoning
goes to prove, that it is safer to go into cold water when the
temperature of the skin has been raised.
"If there be danger at all, it is going into cold water _without_
raising the temperature of the body. It must be the temperature that is
the question; for it cannot be of consequence whether the body be
covered with grease called perspiration or hog's-lard. Re-action will
most certainly be produced, and congestion as certainly prevented by
going into the water when the body is warm. Profuse perspiration does
not make the body hotter, in proportion to its profuseness, on the
contrary, it is cooler than before, for perspiration is a cooling
process.
"When perspiration is present, the body is never extremely hot. Checking
perspiration is a chimerical danger; the oozing of perspiration subsides
of itself, almost at the moment the means that produced it are
withdrawn, and the perspiration on the body is that which has been
already produced, having now no connection with the body."
At Cork in Ireland, it was told me by one of the first brewers, that
formerly his men, while in a state of perspiration, from pressing the
grain out of the vats, frequently caught cold and died: at last they
adopted the plan of going into cold water, whilst in that state; the
result of which has been that they now never catch cold from their
occupation, and are as healthy as other people.
XIII.--THE PACKING SHEET, AND SWEATING PROCESS.
Take all the coverings off the bed, arrange the pillows, cover over the
bed and pillows with a large thick blanket, then put a small sheet into
a pail of fresh cold water; if to reduce fever, let it be wrung out
less; if there is no fever, more; the drier the sheet, the sooner the
re-action; spread this sheet so wrung out, on the blanket.
The patient extends himself, divested of every thing, upon the sheet,
which should be brought over him as soon as possible. The blanket is now
brought over the sheet, and the attendant tucks it in, beginning with
the neck, as tightly as possible, so that his patient can hardly move
hand or foot. Other blankets are then added, separately tucked in, and
turned up at the feet. Half-a-dozen blankets are not too many; and to
produce immediate heat, a feather bed is superadded, leaving the head
free. It is astonishing what an amount of covering one may support
without inconvenience.
The great object is so to envelop the body as to exclude the air, and
prevent evaporation, in order that its own heat may be concentrated upon
itself.
In ordinary cases, the sheet is well wrung out, and covered up as before
stated; but in cases of severe fever, the wet is only covered with a
single dry one. In cases of very great delicacy, but not in fever, the
sheet is put into tepid water instead of cold.
This has by some been called a general poultice, as it performs upon the
whole body what a poultice or the bandages effect upon members of it.
Dr. Alexander of Newcastle terms it a linen bath.
That wet linen should produce good and evil results appears paradoxical.
Damp beds are said to lead to injurious consequences, whilst wet linen
applied as a covering to the whole or parts of the body, produces the
most happy effects.