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

LXVIII.—Liver Complaint, Congestion of Blood in the Head, Enlarged Vein in the Leg.

An English M.D., 70 years of age, was attacked with yellow fever in the tropics, which affected his liver, when indigestion and dyspepsia resulted.

At Rome, being seized with pain in the heart and congestion of blood in the head, he was bled: finding himself no better, he proceeded for the best advice to Paris, where depletion was again recommended. This determined him to go to Gräfenberg.

The doctor told me Priessnitz took a most accurate view of his case: he began by packing-sheets and tepid-bath, morning and evening; rubbing-sheets, sitz and foot-baths at noon.

The treatment caused him varied sensations, but generally a tendency to healthy action. One day he felt unusual pain about the region of the heart, and congestion in the head. Having a gouty tendency in his system, he became alarmed, and sent for Priessnitz, who put a large wet bandage doubled in the form of a shawl over his shoulders, and over the region of the heart, and then requested him to put his feet up to the knees in cold water for half an hour.

The doctor declared to me, that if asked a question as to the danger of such a proceeding, he should have said that he thought death would immediately ensue, and that but for the confidence Priessnitz’ success, as witnessed by himself, had created, no power on earth could have induced him in such a complaint to follow the orders thus given. As it was, however, he plunged his feet into the water at once in presence of Priessnitz, who stood with him the whole time. By degrees the symptoms decreased; in an hour after the operation he was completely relieved, and that night slept remarkably well.

For a slight attack of fever, the doctor was prescribed five or six rubbing-sheets and a head-bath, to walk in the open air, and change his body-bandage in the night. At another time, for blood to the head and great nervousness, he bathed the head after dinner, bandaged the neck and dispensed with neck handkerchief.

When the doctor first came to Gräfenberg, his walks were limited to the piazza in front of his rooms; these were extended by degrees, until even during the inclemency of the winter and the depth of snow everywhere encountered, he extended his walks thrice a day up into the woods, and was always the first to be seen out in the morning. In about nine months, the gentleman was completely cured of all his ailments.