Hydropathy, or, The water cure: its principles, modes of treatment / Compiled chiefly from the most eminent English authors on the subject.

  • Shew, Joel, 1816-1855.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hydropathy, or, The water cure: its principles, modes of treatment / Compiled chiefly from the most eminent English authors on the subject. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    warm water over the head and body, and then heaped clothes upon the patient, which would produce the desired effect, without the irritation of the internal organs, consequent upon the administration of powerful diaphoretics. This, as will be seen hereafter, somewhat resembled the sweating process of the water-cure. He also recommended the use of water in various ways, and in the most serious diseases. Celsus and Galen also recommended the use of water, both in sickness and health ; and many similar examples might be quoted. The honor of making certain various discoveries, in the application of water to the human body as a remedial agent, is due Vincent Priessnitz, a peasant and native of a small colony called Graefenberg, situated two miles from the town of Freiwaldau, and about half way up one of the mountains of the Sudates in Austrian Silesia, Germany. This has always been his place of residence, and was also that of his father before him. His discoveries were at first the result of accident. He was, in the common acceptance of the term, unlearned, having at most only a very limited education, but possessed naturally a strong and observing mind. He tells us it was in the year 1816, when he crushed one of his fingers, and, as it were, by instinct plunged the in- jured part into water until it ceased bleeding. He felt the coolness agreeable to the benumbed part, and found that by repeatedly holding it in water, without the least inflamma- tion or suppuration, after secreting only a little white mu- cous matter, it healed in a very short time. Then he was told, as he says, by some old men of the neighborhood, that they could relate many instances where cold water had