Much of the prejudice against the use of water in treating disease has
grown out of abuses of the remedy, and the putting forward of absurd
claims by ignorant persons professing to understand its use. In order to
vindicate the character of this powerful curative agent, it is necessary
to expose the errors and ignorance of those who have abused it.
=“Cold Water Doctors.”=—In the early days of the modern water cure
practice, which was very largely introduced by Priessnitz, cold water
was the universal remedy. No matter what the nature of the disease, or
the condition or temperament of the patient, the remedy was the same. At
the establishment of the Græfenberg doctor, ice-cold douches,
precipitated from a height of sixteen to eighteen feet, the plunge,
directly supplied by the cold mountain springs, and the shower bath of
the same temperature, were all administered to patients with little
discrimination of modifying circumstances, in rooms unwarmed by
artificial heat, even in the depths of the coldest mountain winters. As
Græfenberg was the source whence most water doctors of that time drew
their knowledge, the same practice was pursued elsewhere. The
unreasonableness of such a course was perceived by the more judicious,
and thus its influence was prejudicial.
=Heroic Treatment.=—Such treatment as that described in the preceding
paragraph could not result otherwise than disastrously in numerous
cases. The evil effects were sometimes seen at once, but more frequently
they appeared after periods more or less remote. In some cases, patients
were led to drink twenty or thirty glasses of cold water before
breakfast, under the absurd doctrine that the evils of a small excess
would be cured by greater indulgence. Hundreds of persons adopted the
practice of daily bathing in cold water in a cold room, even in the
coldest weather. A few even went so far as to spring from their warm
beds on the coldest mornings, run to a neighboring brook in a state of
nudity, and plunge into its frigid waters through a hole in the ice. So
infatuated were these enthusiasts, they really thought they enjoyed this
refrigerating process; but, generally, a few years’ continuance of it
was sufficient to produce such a “sedative” effect upon their systems
that some became the victims of consumption and other constitutional
diseases, while others were compelled to discontinue the practice from
absolute inability to continue it. A few of the more vigorous were
enabled to survive this violent treatment without apparent injury for a
long time; but those of weaker vital powers soon showed the results of
its evil effects.
By such processes, together with the cold sitz bath, the dry pack, and
other harsh measures, the patient was sometimes brought to the very
verge of the grave.
Strange as it may appear, those who have been the strongest opponents of
the use of water, themselves afford the best instances of its excessive
use. For instance, in a case of low typhus fever, a “regular” physician
ordered the patient, a young woman, to be immersed in cold water for
half an hour. The attendants attempted to carry out the prescription,
but in a few moments her symptoms became so alarming that the patient
was removed from the bath. It will not be considered remarkable that she
died. A prominent New York physician, a professor of practice in one of
the largest medical colleges in America, in a report of a case of
remittent fever which he had treated with water, said that he
administered thirty-five cold packs in a week. The patient died; but the
doctor thought that if he had been more thorough in his treatment,
giving more packs and longer ones, he would have lived. Another
professor, of a rival college in the same city, cited, in a public
lecture, a case of pneumonia which was treated hydropathically by a
regular physician of note. The patient, while very feeble, was placed in
a cold bath. He was taken out shivering, and died an hour afterward. His
conclusion was that water was a very hazardous remedy. We would
certainly agree with the professor’s conclusion if the case cited were
an example of the _proper_ use of water. In the preceding case, we will
not say that the packs were not beneficial; but if they had been thus
used by a professed hydropathist, the treatment would have been
pronounced decidedly heroic by “regulars.”
=Crisis.=—By the violent processes which have been mentioned, the
patient was frequently brought into a condition similar to that produced
by the old process of depletion by bleeding, antimony, mercury, and
purgatives. Painful skin eruptions, boils, and carbuncles, often covered
the whole body. Acute pains racked the body of the patient from head to
foot. If he survived this “crisis,” he usually got well, which was
regarded as an evidence of the salutary effect of the crisis, and so it
became an important object to be attained; and the worse a patient felt,
the more certain and speedy, he was encouraged to believe, would be his
recovery. No account was taken of the immense waste of vital energy
during these painful morbid processes.
The use of the abdominal bandage, continued for a long time until an
eruption is produced, is another means by which some have sought to
effect a cure of their patients. This course is pursued under the belief
that the discharge occurring from the surface which thus becomes
diseased is a vicarious means of removing impurities from the system—an
absurd notion which no one acquainted with the first principles of
physiology and surgical pathology could entertain for a moment.
=Hydropathic Quacks.=—Unfortunately for the reputation of water as a
remedy, its use has been largely in the hands of empirics who have used
it in a routine manner, and have supposed it to be a cure-all, and the
only remedy of any value. At least, such have been the claims made for
it. This has served to bring it into disrepute, the disgrace which ought
to attach to individuals being applied by an undiscriminating public to
the innocent victim of abuse.
=Ignorance.=—The greatest bane of all has been the ignorance of those
who have professed to be qualified to administer water as a remedy
understandingly. Priessnitz himself was an ignorant peasant. He was
innocent of either anatomical or surgical knowledge. His slight
acquaintance with physiology was gathered by cursory observations of
patients. Of the effects of water he knew more, studying them with a
good degree of acuteness. His lamentable want of knowledge allowed him
to fall into many errors. It is related of him that he treated hopeless
cases of solid anchylosis of joints just as though they were mere cases
of stiffness from rheumatism. Cases of hopeless organic disease, he
pronounced curable and submitted to long but unavailing treatment, not
knowing the real nature of the disease. A young lady died of what he
supposed an internal abscess. No abscess was found, upon which he
remarked that “she had too short a neck for long life.”
It could be no wonder, then, that the disciples of such a master should
be sadly lacking in many of those qualifications essential for a
successful physician, no matter what the remedies employed. The most
lamentable feature of the matter is that the same ignorance has
continued to be, with few exceptions, characteristic of those who have
employed water as a remedy; this has been especially disastrous because
a man with the native shrewdness and acuteness of perception of
Priessnitz has rarely appeared in the ranks of hydropathists.
=A Popular Error.=—It is a grievous popular error that any one can apply
water as skillfully as the most experienced physician, and that its
successful use requires no knowledge of the structure and functions of
the human body. No doubt this has grown out of another error, perhaps
quite as common; viz., that water is so simple a remedy that it will do
no harm if it does no good. Such notions have frequently led to most
disastrous results. Water, as already shown, is one of the most powerful
remedies. And while it is, undoubtedly, far safer in the hands of the
uneducated than blisters, purgatives, diuretics, and such agents as
opium, chloral, alcohol, and most other drugs, yet it certainly requires
careful usage, and the more scientific knowledge the user possesses, the
more skillfully will he be able to apply it. It is, furthermore, true
that a great majority of ordinary diseases are commonly so void of
danger under careful nursing and hygienic management that the
application of water is a simple matter which any intelligent mother can
perform successfully. A case is related by good authority of a person
who fell in apoplexy an hour after taking an excessively hot bath.
Another patient became a paralytic from the same cause. Water is a
remedy which cannot be safely used by one who has not informed himself
of its effects, and of the proper modes of application.
=Absurd Claims.=—Sensible people have been rightfully disgusted with the
claims which have been made by certain pretentious ones for the use of
water. One declares that the bath will dissolve out of the body mineral
substances which have been taken into it. Another claims to have been
able, by the application of fomentations to a rheumatic knee, to extract
in regular order the ointments which had previously been successively
applied. Numerous other claims equally preposterous might be related, if
it were necessary. They have all tended to excite a feeling of contempt
for a means of treating disease which is really worthy of the highest
estimation.
=Neglect of Other Remedies.=—As has been previously remarked, many seem
to have forgotten that water is not the only remedy for disease, and not
only attempt to cure every disease by its application, but use it to the
exclusion of all other remedies. In nearly all cases, sunlight, pure
air, rest, exercise, proper food, and other hygienic agencies are quite
as important as water. Electricity, too, is a remedy which should not be
ignored; and skillful surgery is absolutely indispensable in not a small
number of cases. Even drugs are sometimes useful auxiliaries, though,
doubtless, infinitely more harm has resulted from the employment of
drugs in conjunction with water treatment than from their omission.
_Rational Hydropathy_ leaves room for every other remedy of value. It
does not regard water as a specific nor as a panacea, but only as one of
the most valuable of numerous excellent remedies. It discards the
erroneous and harmful practices of empirics and ignorant charlatans,
whether they concern water or other agents, and gives to the aqueous
element only its due share of importance.