Life of Vincent Priessnitz, founder of hydropathy / by Richard Metcalfe.

  • Metcalfe, Richard.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Life of Vincent Priessnitz, founder of hydropathy / by Richard Metcalfe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    J. S. Hahn, who lived in the neighbourhood of Graefenberg, and whose father, Dr. S. Hahn, was a worshipper of cold water. This Hahn, though he used other remedies, employed water so exten- sively in curing diseases that he may be considered a sort of hydropathist. He recommends cold water in chronic diseases particularly; also washing in small-pox and eruptions of the skin, falling baths in inflammation of the brain, douches in maimings, cold injections in diarrhoea, injections into the nostrils for colds, and into the ears for deaf- ness, and footbaths in chronic injuries. Hahn’s work had, in 1754, passed through four editions. It did not, however, succeed in winning over the faculty to the cause of the water-cure ; and as for the public of Germany, though they liked to drink water, they did not care to have it applied externally. V. Perez, a Spanish physician, sought to cure most diseases by the use of water, and he pub- lished at Madrid, in 1753, a small 4to. book en- titled, “ El Promotor de la Salud de los Hombres, sin dispendio el menor de sus caudales; admirable methodo de curartodo mal con brevedad, sequridad, y a placer. Dissertacion historico, cn'tico, medico, pratica, en que se establece el aqua por remedio universal de las dolencias.” Somewhat later, in England, Fred. Hoffman published his ideas (London, 1761) with a some-