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

XLII.—Consumption.

Mr. Priessnitz thinks that in the great majority of cases consumption is curable until the age of fourteen or fifteen, when the complaint generally assumes a more serious aspect.

Young people are often considered consumptive when they really are not so. A young lady of my acquaintance, having all the symptoms, was ordered to Italy, where, notwithstanding the climate, the malady seemed to increase. She went to Gräfenberg, when Mr. Priessnitz at once declared it was not consumption, that it was a contraction of the chest. Two months’ treatment caused the chest to expand and restored the patient to robust health. Dr. Johnson says, “One thing of which I am convinced is, that the true principle of treating consumption is to support the patient’s strength to the utmost;” and it must be remembered that the great aim and principal effect of the Water-cure is to strengthen the system, thereby giving the inherent curative power the fairest opportunity of doing its own work.

It must however be observed, that when consumption has fairly set in, neither water or drugs will arrest its progress. A friend of mine writes me most sensibly on this subject: “I fully believe,” says he, “if all girls were to wash thoroughly every day, more than three-fourths who now go into consumption would be saved.”