The hydropathic encyclopedia : a system of hydropathy and hygiene in eight parts ... designed as a guide to families and students, and a text-book for physicians / by R. T. Trall, M.D.

  • Trall, R. T. (Russell Thacher), 1812-1877.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hydropathic encyclopedia : a system of hydropathy and hygiene in eight parts ... designed as a guide to families and students, and a text-book for physicians / by R. T. Trall, M.D. 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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    appear more red and turgid, and fee! warmer than before their expo- sure, for a few minutes, and then return to their usual appearance and feeling. So the slight distu/bances of the circulation produced by ordi- nary bathing is merely an intensified contraction and relaxation, amount- ing to temporarily increased action, and followed by the same harmony of circulation as existed before. Atmospheric influences, vicissitudes of temperature, variations of exercise, etc., when not extreme or vio- lent, produce temporary disturbances of the circulation, which, so far from being morbid, are really sanatory, nay, indispensable to full health and vigor. Nature allows us a liberal range of immunity in the employment and enjoyment of agencies naturally harmonious with our structures and functions. But how different is the case if we take into the domain of life a substance chemically incompatible with its structures, or an agent phys- iologically incompatible with its functions. Although they are met with the same vital resistance as a cold bath, or a hot bath, their temporary impression is never succeeded by absolute equilibrium and quietude. They leave either a mark or a void in their track. When chemically incompatible, as are all the metallic and mineral preparations, they act upon, corrode, decompose, and destroy some part or portion of some constituent of some solid or fluid, of some organ or structure. Familiar and melancholy examples of chemical incompatibility am found in the ulcerations of the mucous membrane of the mouth, throat, stomach, and bowels, produced by the ordinary employment of saleratus in cooking, and the rotting of the teeth and bones in consequence of a mercurial course. When they are physio- logically incompatible, like alcohol, tobacco, opium, etc., they exhaust, irrecoverably, some portion of the vitality itself. The impressions of drug-agents of all kinds are constantly destructive or exhausting so long as they are kept up; but the impressions from cold bathing may be continued during a whole lifetime without injury. It is true that, in water-treatment, we apply cold water to the body when hot, hot water when cold, etc., not to antagonize action, but to balance action; the grand general indication in treating all diseases hy- dropathically being to equalize the temperature, circulation, and action. The principle of antagonism, as practiced allopathically, tends to silence the efforts of nature, to counteract the vital powers, to suppress the organic instincts, to obstruct the vis medicatri.r nature, to embarrass the cure, and, in the majority of cases, to place the life of the patient in greater jeopardy than it would bo with no medication whatever. The true philosophy of water-cure, in almost every essentia point