Every Man His Own Doctor / The Cold Water, Tepid Water, and Friction-Cure, as Applicable to Every Disease to Which the Human Frame Is Subject, and Also to the Cure of Disease in Horses and Cattle

by R. T. Claridge

LXVII.—Hernia and Constipation.

Both these complaints, which are so completely out of the reach of drugs, are always cured by hydropathy.

Don——, late minister from a foreign court to England, through my interpretation, inquired of Priessnitz how long he should be before he was cured of constipation? A twelvemonth. How long of my hernia? Four months. His treatment was as follows:—

Morning, packing-sheet and tepid bath, afterwards changed to cold bath; noon, rubbing-sheet and sitz-bath; afternoon, as in the morning; bandage to the hernia and round the waist always.

In about four months hernia was perfectly cured and patient declared that as he eat, slept, and walked well, he considered himself in health, and consequently left Gräfenberg. I heard from him in Rome afterwards, when he continued perfectly satisfied.

Hernia.—A German baron, thirty-five years of age, assured me that nine months before I made his acquaintance, he came to Gräfenberg for hernia: that he had been cured the last two months, but he was waiting to be assured of it.

He was induced to come, from a captain in his regiment having been cured of a double rupture two years before.

Cases ad infinitum might be quoted to show the certainty of the Water-cure effecting cures of this nature.