VIII.—Authorities in Support of Water as a Curative Agent.
Thales, like Homer, looked upon water as the principle of every thing. The Spartans bathed their children as soon as born in cold water; and the men of Sparta, both old and young, bathed at all seasons of the year in the Eurotas, to harden their flesh and strengthen their bodies.
Pindar, in one of his Olympic Odes, says, “The best thing is water, and the next gold.”
There was a Greek proverb to the effect that the water of the sea cured all ills.
Pythagoras recommended the use of cold baths strongly to his disciples, to fortify both body and mind.
Hippocrates, the father of medicine, who added friction to cold bathing, was accustomed to use cold water in his treatment of the most serious illnesses. It was Hippocrates who first observed that warm water chilled, whilst cold water warmed.
The Macedonians considered warm water to be enervating; and their women, after accouchement, were washed with cold water.
Virgil called the ancient inhabitants of Italy, a race of men hard and austere, who immersed their newly-born children in the rivers, and accustomed them to cold water.
Pliny, in speaking of A. Musa, who cured Horace by means of cold water, said that he put an end to confused drugs; and he also alludes to a certain Charmes, who made a sensation at Rome by the cures he effected with cold water. On being asked what he thought drugs were sent for, he said, “he could not imagine, except that men might destroy themselves with them when they were tired of living.”
Celsus, called the Cicero of doctors, employed water for complaints of the head and stomach.
Galen, in the second century, recommended cold bathing to the healthy, as well as to patients labouring under the attacks of fever.
Charlemagne, aware of the salubrity of cold bathing, encouraged the use of it throughout his empire, and introduced swimming as an amusement at his court.
Michael Savonarola, an Italian doctor, in 1462, recommended cold water in gout, ophthalmia, and hæmorrhages.
Cardanus, of Pavia, 1575, complains that the doctors in his time made so little use of cold water in the curing of gout.
Van der Heyden, a doctor at Ghent, in a work published in 1624, states that during an epidemic dysentery, he cured many hundreds of persons with cold water, and that during a long practice of fifty years, the best cures he ever made were effected with cold water.
Short, an English doctor, 1656, states that he had cured the dropsy and the bite of mad dogs with cold water.
Dr. Sir John Floyer published a work, called “the Psychrolusic,” in 1702, showing how fevers were to be cured with water. From that period to 1722, his work went through six editions in London.
Dr. Hancock, in 1722, published an anti-fever treatise upon the use of cold water, which went through seven editions in one year.
Dr. Currie of Liverpool, who published a work in 1797, on the use of water, introduced that element extensively in his practice with astounding results.
Tissot, in his “Advice to the People,” published in Paris, 1770, shows the importance of cold water.
Hoffman, the famous German doctor, says that if there existed anything in the world that could be called a panacea, it was pure water: first, because that element would disagree with nobody; secondly, because it is the best preservative against disease; thirdly, because it would cure agues and chronic complaints; fourthly because it responded to all indications.
Hahn, who was born in Silesia, in 1714, wrote an excellent work upon the curative agency of water in all complaints, a copy was lately found upon a book-stall, and purchased by Professor Oertel, for little more than one penny, and has been re-published; it is interesting to all who regard with attention that great moral change which the Water-cure is calculated to effect.
In Dr. Hahn’s work, it is stated that Pater Bernardo, a Capuchin monk from Sicily, went in the year 1724 to Malta, and there made some most astonishing water-cures, the fame of which spread throughout Europe: he used iced water internally and externally, and allowed his patients to eat but very little. He made a proposition that the doctors should take 100 patients, and said if they, by their mode of treating them, could cure forty, then would he undertake to cure sixty more easily and securely, and in a shorter time. His remedy of iced water, was just as effectual in winter as in summer. A case is cited of a man, ninety-two years of age, who was at the point of death from the virulence of a fever, and was cured with cold water only.
Evan Hahnemann, father of Homeopathy, in a work published at Leipsic, 1784, recommends fresh water, without which, he says, ulcers of any long standing cannot be cured, and adds, if there be any general remedy for disease, “it is water.”
The Rev. John Wesley, a.m., published a work in 1747 (about a century ago), which went through thirty-four editions, called “Primitive Physic, or an Easy and Natural Method of Curing most Diseases.”
After deprecating the manner in which drugs were imposed upon mankind, the mysteries with which the science of medicine is surrounded, and the interested conduct of medical men, the Rev. gentleman proceeds to shew, that he was fully aware of the healing powers of water; and from the long list which he has given, and which follows, it will be evident that he thought water capable of curing almost every disease to which human nature is exposed. He writes:—
“The common method of compounding and decompounding medicines, can never be reconciled to common sense. Experience shews, that one thing will cure most disorders, at least as well as twenty put together. Then why do you add the other nineteen? Only to swell the apothecary’s bill! nay, possibly on purpose to prolong the distemper, that the doctor and he may divide the spoil.
“How often, by thus compounding medicines of opposite qualities, is the virtue of both utterly destroyed?
“Nay, how often do those joined together destroy life, which singly they might have preserved?
“This occasioned that caution of the great Boerhaave, against mixing things without evident necessity, and without full proof of the effect they will produce when joined together, as well as of that they produce when asunder; seeing (as he observes) that several things which taken separately are safe and powerful medicines, when compounded not only lose their former power, but compose a strong and deadly poison.”
In recommending to his followers the use of water, Mr. Wesley proceeds to state, “that cold bathing cures young children of the following complaints:—
| Convulsions, coughs, gravel | Pimples and scabs |
| Inflammations of ears, navel and mouth | Suppression of urine |
| Rickets | Vomiting |
| Cutaneous inflammations | Want of sleep |
“Water,” he further adds, “frequently cures every nervous[3] and every paralytic disorder. In particular:—
| Asthma | Leprosy (old) |
| Agues of every sort | Lethargy |
| Atrophy | Loss of speech, taste, appetite, smell |
| Blindness | Nephritic pains |
| Cancer | Palpitation of the heart |
| Coagulated blood of bruises | Pain in the back, joints, stomach |
| Chin cough | Rheumatism |
| Consumption | Rickets |
| Convulsions | Rupture |
| Coughs | Suffocations |
| Complication of distempers | Surfeits at the beginning |
| Convulsive pains | Sciatica |
| Deafness | Scorbutic pains |
| Dropsy | Swelling in the joints |
| Epilepsy | Stone in the kidneys |
| Violent fever | Torpor of the limbs, even when the use of them is lost |
| Gout (running) | Tetanus |
| Hectic fevers | Tympany |
| Hysteric pains | Vertigo |
| Incubus | St. Vitus’ dance |
| Inflammations | Vigilia |
| Involuntary stool or urine | Varicose ulcers |
| Lameness | The Whites |
| “Water prevents the growth of hereditary | |
| Apoplexies | King’s evil |
| Asthmas | Melancholy |
| Blindness | Palsies |
| Consumptions | Rheumatism |
| Deafness | Stone |
| Gout | |
| “Water drinking water generally prevents | |
| Apoplexies | Madness |
| Asthma | Palsies |
| Convulsions | Stone |
| Gout | Trembling. |
| Hysteric fits | |
“To this children should be used from their cradles.”
We then find the following prescriptions:—
“For Asthma.—Take a pint of cold water every morning, washing the head in cold water immediately after, and using the cold bath.
“Rickets in Children.—Dip them in cold water every morning.
“To prevent apoplexy.—Use the cold bath and drink only cold water.
“Ague.—Go into a cold bath just before the cold.
“Cancer in the breast.—Use the cold bath. This has cured many. This cured Mrs. Bates, of Leicestershire, of a cancer in her breast, a consumption, a sciatica, and rheumatism, which she had had nearly twenty years.
N.B. Generally where cold bathing is necessary to cure disease, water-drinking is so, to prevent a relapse.
“Hysteric colic.—Mrs. Watts, by using the cold bath two and twenty times in a month, was entirely cured of an hysteric colic, fits, and convulsive motions, continual sweatings and vomitings, wandering pains in her limbs and head, and total loss of appetite.
“To prevent the ill effects of cold.—The moment a person gets into a house, with his hands and feet quite chilled, let him put them into a vessel of water, as cold as can be got, and hold them there until they begin to glow, which they will do in a minute or two. This method likewise effectually prevents chilblains.
“Consumption.—Cold bathing has cured many deep consumptions.
“Convulsions.—Use the cold bath.”
And so on. In this valuable little work, from which are the above extracts, confirmative of the value I set upon cold water, Mr. Wesley prescribes the use of water for almost every complaint.
Slade, in his “Records of the East,” very judiciously remarks, with reference to the Turks, that “notwithstanding their ignorance of medical science, added to the extreme irregularity of their living, both as regards diet and exercise, one day dining off cheese and cucumbers, another day feeding on ten greasy dishes; one month riding twelve hours daily, another month never stirring off the sofa; smoking always, and drinking coffee to excess; occasionally getting drunk, besides other intemperances—combining, in short, all that our writers on the subject designate injurious to health—the Turks enjoy particularly good health: and this anomaly is owing to two causes; first, the religious necessity of washing their arms and feet and necks, from three to five times a day, always with cold water, generally at the fountains before the mosques, by which practice they become protected against catarrhal affections; second, by their constant use of the vapour bath, by which the humours that collect in the human frame, no doctors know how or why, occasioning a long list of disorders, are carried off by the pores of the skin. Gout, rheumatism, head-ache, consumption, are unknown in Turkey, thanks to the great physicians, vapour bath and cold bath! No art has been so much vitiated in Europe, by theories, as the art of preserving health. Its professors, however, are beginning to recur to first principles; and when bathing shall be properly appreciated, three-fourths of the druggists will be obliged to close their shops.”
The question here arises: how is it that with so much evidence in favour of water, it has never been brought into general use? Many reasons might be assigned, but the principal one is, that until the present day no system of treatment has ever been based on scientific principles. It was in embryo, and, like Steam, wanted its time for development. If people studied their health as they do their interest, they would at least enquire into this, the best means of preserving it.
But in our present state of civilisation, nature is known by name only. None save those reduced to the last stage of poverty ever satisfy their thirst with water! Men, women, and children, rich and poor, old and young, all avoid water—perhaps because it costs nothing (for, in our artificial life, we are led to esteem things according to their venal price), and, like air and sun, is shared in common with our poorer fellow-kind.
The Germans are water-drinkers, but the English have a distaste for it; few ever drank half a pint undiluted at one time, in their lives, imagining that water will cause inconvenience, whilst in the course of the day, they think nothing of drinking wine, soda water, brandy and water, and tea, to a great extent, all of which are injurious. A lady of my acquaintance carries her distaste for water so far as to ruin the health of her children by it. For some time the eldest, about four years old, had been sickly: when at Rome, the mother consulted a medical man, who said that the child wanted nothing but water, which was given it, and the child got well immediately. I met the same family at Kissingen, when at a spring the nursery-maid asked me if she might give the child water, saying the children were always asking for it, but her mistress did not like them to drink water alone. “Certainly,” I replied, “give her as much as she chooses to drink.”
In addition to cold water, fresh air and exercise are most important means of health. They are especially useful in giving life and activity to the skin, which seldom meets with proper attention, people generally not being aware of the evil consequences attending their neglect of that most important organ of the human frame.
By protecting the skin from the air, we concentrate on it the heat that is ever exhaling from the body, and thus complete what warm baths, spirituous liquors, want of exercise, close rooms, and heavy nourishment, have begun. We do not perceive that by keeping the body warm, we weaken the skin, which becomes so sensitive to external changes, that we are incessantly obliged to augment the thickness and number of its coverings. At last, a time comes when nothing more can be added to the clothing already too heavy. Then weak and irritable persons, whose numbers—our erroneous system daily augments!—remain at home, not aware of the innumerable inconveniences to which such a resolution exposes them, and not knowing that the habitual washing of the body in cold water, would enable them to leave their heated apartments, abandon flannel, and expose themselves, without the slightest danger, to the healthy effects of fresh air.
It is the enervating softness and delicacy of modern customs, which present the greatest obstacle to the use of cold water. Man looks for agreeable impressions, and avoids whatever does not produce them. But with a little courage, he would discover that the inconvenience of a more rigorous and simple mode of life was but momentary, and when he had found his health of mind and body improved by it, it would soon become agreeable, whilst from luxurious sloth ensue enervation and disgust. Being unable to change the nature of the elements, we should harden our bodies, familiarise ourselves with the inclemency of the seasons, and turn them to the benefit of our health. It is in vain that the man whose fortune permits him to change the climate, looks for a milder sky; if his effeminacy accompanies him, he will be like a lady of whom Priessnitz speaks, who near the fire was cold. A warmer air would enervate his skin more and more; and then he would be as sensitive to cold, even in a Neapolitan climate, as, with a hardened body, he would be at his ease in the hut of an Esquimaux.
Another obstacle to the external use of cold water, is the false belief that colds, which are the sources of much illness, result from it. People cannot understand that a cold bath, followed by suitable exercise, warms the feet and the body, and that there is no surer preservative from cold.
The same incredulity is affected with regard to the revulsive effect of the cold foot-bath; nevertheless nothing is better proved than its efficiency in relieving the head. Every one knows that, after having washed the face and hands in cold water, an agreeable warmth ensues, which is not the result of warm water. That after any part of the body has been exposed to cold, rain, or snow, it becomes hot; and that the reverse is the case after the use of warm water; which accounts for people in Summer feeling cool after a warm bath.
When we wash the body with cold water, we should do it quickly, lose no time in dressing, and afterwards take exercise. Washing should be avoided when the parties are cold, because then the re-action or re-production of heat is slower. These precautions would prevent the most delicate persons from taking cold, though not in the habit of using cold water.
Professor Oertel was the first to publish to the world the astonishing cures which were effected at Gräfenberg; and he was followed by Brand, Kroeber, Kurtsz, Doering, Harnish, and a host of others, whose writings contributed to establish the reputation of Priessnitz, who by means of the various forms in which he administers water, attacks all diseases susceptible of cure, and very frequently establishes the health of those who have been declared incurable.