cotton next to the body; he maintains that by keeping up too much heat,
they weaken the skin, which then is less efficient in performing its
offices, and in consequence people become delicate and diseased.
A patient coming out of the bath, on being prevented putting on his
flannel waistcoat and drawers, said, "Tell Mr. Priessnitz, they and I
having been intimately acquainted for twenty years, I hardly like
parting with them so abruptly." His reply was, "They are false friends;
in a short time your skin will regain the proper tone which they
deprived it of, when you will be warmer without flannel than ever you
were with it." Priessnitz does not preach one doctrine and practise
another--he wears nothing under his linen. Some patients of a slow
circulation, on commencing the treatment, are ordered to wear their
flannel waistcoats over their linen for a few days: the want of it is
not felt. It might naturally be supposed, that leaving off flannel of a
sudden, especially in cold weather, would be attended with serious
consequences; but this is never the case in the Water-cure. Invalids
frequently arrive at Gräfenberg in the depth of winter, and after the
bath, invariably leave off flannel. Of the number of cases that came
under my observation, I never knew a single instance of a party catching
cold. After the bath, the patient is expected to keep up a brisk walk
for some time. In winter, it would be as well, after leaving off
flannel, to clothe warmer than usual for a day or two.
Wearing flannel waistcoats in bed of a night is greatly debilitating. An
almost universal prejudice exists in favour of flannel in cases of gout
and rheumatism; hence the question arises, "Does it prevent or cure
those complaints?" Certainly not; for where do you see their victims
without flannel? Experience proves, that it neither protects the wearer
from disease, nor allays pain.
Nightcaps destroy the hair, cause its premature decay, and have an
injurious tendency to those troubled with congestion in the head,
head-aches, etc.; such people cannot have their bedrooms too cold. There
is much sense in the old adage--"Keep the head cold, and the feet
warm." Previously to sleeping without a nightcap, and washing my head
every morning with cold water, I was constantly tormented with cold in
the head, from which I am now perfectly free. Perhaps, in some measure,
I am indebted to my last visit to Gräfenberg for this happy change,
having passed a whole winter there without wearing either hat or
neck-cloth, or making any change from my summer clothing, although the
thermometer was frequently 12° to 14° Reaumur below zero.
The constant use of oils and pomatums to the hair, unless the head is
often washed, closes the pores, and is prejudicial.
With respect to the clothing, Priessnitz advises "when in an open
carriage, or sitting still, the body should be well clothed; when in
exercise, as lightly covered as possible."
One half the cases of consumption in females may be traced to the
wearing of stays, and lacing them too tight. All artists agree, that
stays in growing people destroy, rather than improve, the figure. Bound
up in whalebone, they lose that graceful undulation of the back which is
so pleasing. Every one who has seen the Venus de Medicis, Canova's
Venus, or any other faithful copy of nature, must consider a very small
waist a defect.
Stays, at best, are unwholesome, as they keep up an unnatural heat about
the body; and when laced too tight, are sure to be attended with serious
consequences. I have known several young ladies, whose teeth were
destroyed, whose breaths were intolerable, and who were consigned to a
premature grave, entirely from tight lacing. To have health, the
greatest of all blessings, the complicated machinery inside our bodies
must have room for action (the intestinal canal, for instance, is half
as thick as a man's arm, and sixty or seventy yards long); contract this
space, you contract the vessels, and irregularity of the functions
ensues. This is an offence against nature, which sooner or later she
will repay with misery and pain.
Dr. Abernethy advised air baths, that is, the habit of exposing the body
naked to the air, which may be done with impunity after the cold bath,
but not otherwise. In winter, instead of increasing the amount of
clothing, Priessnitz advises exercise; for, in proportion as the body is
warmly clothed, and the air excluded, the less warmth is produced by the
body itself; resistance to cold causes the body to bring forth its own
energies and powers. There can be no doubt the feet are much warmer,
and that it is much healthier, to go without stockings; it necessitates
washing the feet oftener, which, if done in cold water, tends to bring
warmth to them. The Turks owe much of their health to their habit of
washing their feet. Before going to Gräfenberg, people destitute of
shoes and stockings excited my pity; but since that time, my opinion is
changed: let such persons be well fed, but for health keep their feet
bare. The following extracts from Liebig support Priessnitz's opinion:--
"Our clothing is merely an equivalent for a certain amount of food. The
more we are clothed, the less urgent becomes the appetite for food;
because the loss of heat by cooling, and consequently the amount of heat
to be supplied by the food, is diminished.
"If we were to go naked, like certain savage tribes; or if in hunting or
fishing, we were exposed to the same degree of cold as the Samoyedes, we
should be able with ease to consume ten pounds of flesh, and perhaps a
dozen of tallow candles into the bargain, daily; as warm-clad travellers
have related with astonishment of those people."
"The Englishman, in Jamaica, feels with regret the disappearance of his
appetite, previously a source of frequently recurring enjoyment. And he
succeeds by the use of cayenne pepper and the most powerful stimulants,
in enabling himself to take as much food as he was accustomed to eat at
home. But the whole of the carbon thus introduced into the system is not
consumed; the temperature of the air is too high, and the oppressive
heat does not allow him to increase the number of respirations by active
exercise, and thus to proportion the waste to the amount of food taken;
disease of some kind, therefore, ensues."
"The cooling of the body, by whatever cause it may be produced,
increases the amount of food necessary, the mere exposure to the open
air, in a carriage or on the deck of a ship, by increasing radiation and
evaporation, increases the loss of heat and compels us to eat more than
usual. The same is true of those who are accustomed to _drink large
quantities of water_, which is given off at a temperature of the body
98°. It increases the appetite; and persons of weak constitution find it
necessary, by continued exercise, to supply to the system the oxygen
required to restore the heat abstracted by the cold water. Loud and
long continued speaking, the crying of infants, and moist air, all exert
a decided and appreciable influence on the amount of food which is
taken."--LIEBIG.
"No isolated fact," says Dr. Johnson, "can contravene the law that the
quantity of food is regulated by the number of respirations, by the
temperature of the air, and by the amount of heat given off to the
surrounding medium, as for instance by frequent bathing. Of course it is
a matter of indifference whether that medium be cold air or cold water."
As a healthy naked body generates by heightened perspiration of the
skin, the same warmth as is produced by one which is covered, by means
of retaining the perspiration; so every one who is quite well, might by
use become so hardened, that during the coldest season he might feel,
when naked, as comfortable as any one covered with wool. The truth of
this was verified by two English gentlemen, the winter I spent at
Gräfenberg. One day in December, when the thermometer was at 6°, of
Reaumur, below zero, they proceeded to a mountain, took off all their
clothes, except their drawers, and proceeded to the top, where, though
the wind was blowing strong at the time, they remained two hours. They
stated that after they had walked briskly, or got up the steam for ten
minutes, a glow of heat came on, which counteracting the cold, produced
the most agreeable sensation. Neither of these gentlemen caught cold or
suffered in any way from this experiment.
The Scotch Highlander with his naked legs, does not feel colder,
surrounded by mountains of ice, than we do who are clothed. We prove
this by our bare faces in the coldest winter.
As the skin performs the double function, of drawing nourishment from
the air, and exhaling the phlogisticised air of the diseased matter and
worn-out atoms of the body, it follows that the true art of curing, must
be to endeavour to restore these two functions. Hydropathy causes the
ejection of diseased matter and revives the activity of the skin.
Dr. Johnson observes, "Discomforts are the necessary whips and spurs
which keep the living energies awake; whilst comforts operate upon us
like opiates: since to acquire a 'comfort' is only to remove a
discomfort; and to remove what keeps us awake, is the same thing as to
administer what will send us to sleep. The indulgences, therefore,
wherewith even young and healthy men indulge themselves; the
'comforts,' as they call them, of flannel, warm clothing, closed doors,
carpeted rooms, soft beds, hot food, are infinitely worse than absurd;
because the opposites of all these luxuries, so far from being injurious
to health, are absolutely _necessary_ to it. We actually kill ourselves
with comforts."
XXVIII.--DRUGS.
"Thus with our hellish drugs, Death's ceaseless fountains
In these bright vales, o'er these green mountains
Worse than the very plague we raged.
I have myself to thousands poison given,
And hear their murderer praised as blest by heaven,
Because with Nature strife he waged."
GÖETHE'S FAUST.
The influence of habit and custom is such, that it is difficult to
arouse inquiry, when the result is calculated to derange the existing
order of things. Mr. D'Israeli observes, "Could we conceive that man had
never discovered the practice of washing his hands, but cleansed them as
animals do their paws, he would for certain have ridiculed and protested
against the inventor of soap, and as tardily, as in other matters, have
adopted the invention."
All change, however beneficial, is attended with trouble; and we
therefore adopt the motto, "Whatever is, is right." This very motto is
the key to our method of cure--as it is to that of every other great
moral truth. Yet, to quote the words of Rausse, "We do not take this in
the sense of the philosophy of our days, or in that of the German
philosopher, Hegel, for then we must consider falsehood and
assassination to be good. Rather would we take these words in the sense
in which they were first proclaimed by the philosophy of Geneva, in the
sense in which the _first citizen_ used them for the foundation of his
truths; thus, that which is produced by nature is good; all
inclinations, all impulses of men derived from nature, are good; and
every mis-usage of nature is an outrage which she punishes with misery
and pain. All the principles of the art of curing at Gräfenberg,
attested as they are by thousands, are dictated by that instinct which
nature has given to every human being as his inheritance."
But are not all the cures performed at Gräfenberg--all the doctrines of
Hydropathy--opposed to science? It may be answered, Yes; nor can we shut
our eyes to the fact, that nature refuses all respect for what we are
pleased to denominate learning--nay, tramples upon what is often called
science: particularly on that of medicine. By what delusions were
mankind first persuaded to submit to the use of poisonous drugs! In the
middle ages, water as a beverage, and as a cure for disease, fell into
total disuse. In the time of the Crusades, the Arab doctors introduced
the use of Oriental drugs, to which they attributed miraculous virtues;
and during the period of astrology and alchemy, and when researches were
being made for the philosopher's stone, almost every nation boasted of
having found some panacea--some elixir vitæ: sometimes it was an oil or
an herb; at others, a powder or mineral; until, in process of time,
their accumulation formed the vaunted science of medicine. But, we would
inquire, are the effects of these compounds such as to lead to the
conclusion that they were recommended by nature? Have mankind become
healthier since their introduction? Are those nations who have done most
homage to this science, the strongest and soundest?
To think of eradicating disease with poisons, of which physic is
generally composed, appears paradoxical. How is it possible to bring
physic to bear upon the dispersed and deeply-hidden diseased matter?
Even if this could be done, it is quite impossible, as every chemist
knows, for the peccant matters and physic to dissolve each other into
nothing.
Dr. Forbes, editor of the "British and Foreign Medical Review," supports
this view of the case. He observes, "It is one of the most formidable
difficulties with which the ordinary physician has to contend, that
nearly all his remedies reach the point to which they are directed,
through one channel. If the brain requires to be placed under the
influence of a sedative or a stimulant, if the muscular system demands
invigorating by tonics, if the functions of organic life need correction
by alteratives, the physician has no means of attaining his object
except by inundating the stomach and bowels with foreign and frequently
pernicious substances. It being thus made the medical doorway to all
parts of the system, and so compelled to admit every description of
therapeutical appliances, the organ of digestion is contorted to a
purpose for which it was never intended."
"The consequence," says Dr. Arbuthnot, "of such treatment with physic
is, that to the old evil a new stimulus is added, weak or strong,
according to the dose and quality: what is inflammable, stays in the
blood, and afterwards affects the brain."
We may fairly ask, How can any of these consequences result from
Hydropathy? The following lines of Horace Smith are not far from the
truth:--
"Physic! a freak of times and modes,
Which yearly old mistakes explodes
For new ones still absurder.
All slay,--their victims disappear,
And only leaves the doctrine clear
That killing is no murder."
Are those who do most to aid the apothecaries, and who indulge in
alcoholic drinks, healthier than others; or, are those who are in the
habit of consulting doctors free from pain? No! they drag on a miserable
existence. It might be asked, If certain herbs and minerals were alone
intended for healing man's infirmities, how would the inhabitants of the
temperate zone procure those that are indigenous to the tropics, and
_vice versâ_? Instinct pleads in favour of the element that abounds
wherever human beings ought to live; and innumerable instances might be
adduced of the advantage which the use of water gives the savage over
cultivated man.
From the most remote ages, water was known and resorted to as a curative
agent by the unsophisticated children of nature. In the wilds of
America, the savage is put into a close hut, built of stones, which hut
is heated to produce intense perspiration on the invalid, in which state
he is immersed in the river, near to which the hut is generally placed;
and by Pallme's travels in Kordofan, we find that, in the very depths of
Africa, fevers are cured by cold water. It appears our traveller lay
several days in bed with burning fever, when, at length, his attendants
lifted him out of bed, placed him with his back against the door, and
poured a large volume of cold water on his head and body. After the
shock he was put to bed, covered with sacks and sheepskins: this
produced relief and sleep. A second application of this treatment
effected a cure.
Some writers err in supposing mankind to have arrived at an age of
decrepitude, from its not occurring to them that the deterioration of
health arises from art, and not nature. If you wish to be convinced of
this, leave civilised and go to savage life. There you will see the man
of nature as young and strong as the first created; the generation
cannot grow old, except by art, poison, or vice. Prescribe simple water,
and it is rejected with scorn; but let any quack recommend his drugs,
however poisonous, and they are swallowed regardless of results. It must
have been the enemy of all good who first persuaded mankind that poison
could produce health.
The evils that arise from pernicious drugs, which have swept away
millions, and which will destroy the whole species if no reform takes
place, originate in misunderstanding the first or acute attack, which is
but an attempt of nature to heal. Men take acute attacks for disease,
whilst _in reality they are the means by which the system is relieved of
disease_. Bleeding, blistering, cupping, and drugging, subdue these
efforts,--not by emancipating the system, but by so reducing it that it
can no longer contend with its enemy. Men praised the unlucky discovery,
and hence a host of deadly diseases took their origin, such as
destructions and suppurations of the inner organs, dropsy, etc.:
complaints which were hardly known in times of yore, and which, but for
these causes, would never have reared their heads. However, as the
lamentable consequences in some cases do not appear until years after
the suppression of the acute conflict, no one thinks of attributing them
to drugs. This drug-plague is the most dreadful malady mankind has to
contend with; dug by themselves from the black abysses of the earth, it
has been cherished as the effect of deep science for centuries; how
frequently has the last shilling been offered up at its altar! Upon it
as many millions have been spent as would pay off the National Debt: to
the study of these dangerous errors, millions of men have applied the
whole of their lives and their ability: backed by this so-called
science, they contend against nature; but _how_ does Nature punish those
who wish to master her? Oh, great unspeakable Nature! how dreadfully
beautiful art thou, in thy inexorable and destroying severity!
Mankind may still turn back, and regenerate health; but it is not
sufficient for them to renounce physic: they must abandon wine, spirits,
and poison, in every shape. For the curing of disease, we must not look
into the grey mysteries of the future, but far behind us, on the green
plain of Nature, and of the times which are past.
XXIX.--ASSIMILATION.
The preservation of life requires not only that its consumption should
be reduced, but its restoration rendered more easy. For this purpose two
things are necessary, the perfect assimilation of that which is
beneficial, the separation from that which is injurious. Life, as will
be seen from the following definition, depends upon the identification,
the assimilation, and the animalisation of external matter by the vital
power, in its passage from the chemical to the organic world.
The power of assimilating other substances into itself is the
fundamental principle of nature. This impulse and power is not only
prevalent in all organic matter, but also in elemental bodies, that is
to say, water, earth, and fire. The globe in the beginning was a rigid
rock, upon which air and water effected their power of assimilation.
Assimilation is only possible by dissolving. For the purpose of
assimilation, air and water dissolved the earth's crust; by the agency
of those powers that surface originated which produces and nourishes all
organic bodies. As these exist in the same world in which the elements
continually exercise their power of dissolving and assimilating, it
follows, that from the beginning there must have been developed in all
organic elements the same power, as a protection to themselves.
Air dissolves water into vapours, in order to assimilate gases from it.
Water extracts from air the oxygen gas.
Fire absorbs the oxygen of air, dissolves water into its two component
parts, hydrogen and oxygen, and by converting the former to a flame,
transforms water to fire; air absorbs many gases which fire releases
from combustibles; air draws gases from the soil, the soil absorbs the
oxygen of the air. In this way the elements are in a constant conflict,
each endeavouring to dissolve the other, and to assimilate its matters
with itself. Organic bodies draw oxygen from the air by the process of
respiration, which is also the property of plants: these draw all
assimilatory matter which the earth offers by their roots. The same
process is performed by animals feeding on plants or herbs; whereas, on
the contrary, fire resolves all organic matter into its original
elements. This same process is carried out by water and air, with all
organic beings, but as long as these are living they only get their
evaporation, and after death their entirety. The earth exercises this
power but conditionally and partially, viz. upon all animals that exist
in it, and on all roots of plants; upon mankind the earth only exercises
its power of assimilation after death. The proofs of this conflict of
assimilation in organic matter itself are clear, one animal eats the
other as well as plants; that is to say, it absorbs by the agency of the
stomach so much of their substance as may be assimilated. Plants again
convert parts of dead bodies and other plants (the manure) into their
own substance.
Besides this power of assimilation, there exists in every being, element
and organisation, the necessity of being exposed to foreign
assimilation.
This is the fundamental principle of the true doctrine of healing. In
support of this theory, we find that water, if withdrawn from the power
of dissolution by the fresh air, stinks and putrefies. Air loses its
oxygen and becomes mephitic, if it does not find water or plants with
which it can enter into the conflict of dissolution and assimilation.
Animals and plants fall ill and die if their surface is so covered that
neither air nor water can act upon them. If nourishment is withdrawn
from any organic being, that is to say, if it is deprived of the
opportunity of assimilating with external or foreign substances, death
is caused by the want of a supply of healthy juices; if, on the
contrary, this being is deprived of the influence or effect of this
foreign power of dissolution, illness is the consequence, arising from
the putridity of matter, from which putridity the system ought to have
been released by the agency of foreign assimilation.
XXX.--THE CRISIS.
"Most blessed water! neither tongue can tell
The blessedness thereof, nor heart can think,
Save only those to whom it hath been given
To taste of that divinest gift of heaven.
"I stoop'd and drank of that divinest well,
Fresh from the Rock of Ages where it ran,
It had a heavenly quality to quell
All pain: I rose a renovated man;
And would not now, when that relief was known
For worlds the needful suffering have forgone."