The water-cure manual : a popular work, embracing descriptions of the various modes of bathing, the hygienic and curative effects of air, exercise, clothing, occupation, diet, water-drinking, &c. : together with descriptions of diseases and the hydropathic means to be employed therein, illustrated with cases of treatment and cure : containing also a fine engraving of Priessnitz / by Joel Shew.

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

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The water-cure manual : a popular work, embracing descriptions of the various modes of bathing, the hygienic and curative effects of air, exercise, clothing, occupation, diet, water-drinking, &c. : together with descriptions of diseases and the hydropathic means to be employed therein, illustrated with cases of treatment and cure : containing also a fine engraving of Priessnitz / by Joel Shew. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    some competent physician who has himself heen at sea Fresh air, water, exercise and diet, powerful means as they are, will not cure every thing as we of the new system are sometimes accused of advocating. It will be well, more- over, in many instances, for persons to make a beginning in water treatment at home, before undertaking a voyage to Europe. The expense of going to Grafenberg for a cure will ne- cessarily detain many from the attempt. It is easy, how- ever, by economy, to go cheaply. There are now very good ships that sail regularly to Hamburg. A person, going by one of these, arrives at Grafenberg for less than one hundred dollars. In Priessnitz's establishment all expenses for advice, treatment, servants' fees, &c, amount to about five dollars per week. At Friewaldau, the town in the valley, thirty or forty minutes walk from Grafenberg, patients can remain for less, having at the same time th medical care of Priessnitz. In England the cost is three to four times as much as at Priessnitz's. As an instance of the favorable effects of a very plain diet, which is also an example of cheap living, Priessnitz told me of a lady patient of his at Friewaldau, who had been in all the refinement and luxury, so-called, of Euro pean life, who was at that time (Nov. 1846) living simplv upon brown bread and water, with a small quantity of milk. Her food cost daily 12 kreutzer, or between nine and ten cents, American money. She was doing remarkably well. Lodgings may here be obtained at one dollar, or even less per week. A bath attendant will need about fifty cents per week (the price in Priessnitz's own house), and the fee for Priessnitz's attendance is, say one dollar per week, al- though many increase it two-fold or more. A patient then may be treated at Freiwaldau at a very low price, havin<* at the same time the advice of Priessnitz. One objection to some establishments in this country is the high price charged. This however will not last long. There are certainly, among our hills and mountains, and fn our forests, places where establishments may be formed so tha patients may resort to them at a very moderate price.