“Those cases in which the water-cure seems an absolute panacea, and in which the patient may commence with the most sanguine hopes, are—first, rheumatism, however prolonged, however complicated. In this the cure is usually rapid—nearly always permanent.[16] Secondly, gout: here its efficacy is little less startling to appearance than in the former case; it seems to take up the disease by the roots; it extracts the peculiar acid which often appears in discolorations upon the sheets used in the application, or is ejected in other modes. But here, judging always from cases [[34]]subjected to my personal knowledge, I have not seen instances to justify the assertion that returns of the disease do not occur. The predisposition—the tendency, has appeared to remain; the patient is liable to relapses, but I have invariably found them far less frequent, less lengthened, and readily susceptible of simple and speedy cure, especially if the habits remain temperate.”
If it be asked why Hydropathy has proved itself so effective a remedy in curing rheumatism, we would answer, on account of its great power in strengthening and invigorating the stomach and digestive organs, in the derangement of which, the cause of that disease is to be found. Rheumatism proceeds from a sluggish circulation in the extremities, consequent on a low vitality in the system, arising from a derangement of the digestive organs and viscera; if these latter were sound and free from irritation, all the cold and wet, we could possibly be exposed to, would fail to produce that inflammation of the sheaths of the muscles in which rheumatism consists. That Hydropathy is capable of strengthening and invigorating these organs, is well known to all who have tried it, and is even admitted by its greatest opponents when they state, “Oh! it is good for the general health,” for it is utterly impossible for the “general health” to be good without a sound digestion.
With respect to gout, a permanent cure from it is rarely to be found, and why?—Because few people have either the time or patience to continue long enough under treatment for its total eradication, running away from an “establishment” the moment they get relief from the pressing fit, and consequently the disease recurs. Now, of all diseases, gout is perhaps the most tedious of permanent cure, the visceral irritation which gives rise to it being always inveterate and of long duration, and nothing short of chronic treatment—treatment continuing for years instead of months, will remove it. Dr. Gully observes respecting it:—
“It would be folly, however, to avoid a treatment because it will not for ever root up your disease in your own convenient time. Look at the destructive manner in which colchicum reduces a gouty fit, how it approximates the attacks, and utterly disorganizes the viscera; and then regard what the water cure is capable of doing, both against individual attacks, and in reduction of the diathesis, the vital parts meanwhile improving under its operation; … if it does not utterly cure the gout, at least it does not shorten the patient’s life as colchicum does.”
On the effects of colchicum he, further on, observes:—
“To the patient, and, indeed, to the physician who knows little of physiology, all this will appear right: the gout is removed, and that is what [[35]]was desired. The physician, however, who is a physiologist, will say, ‘True, that irritation which you call gout, has left the extremities, whither it had been sent by nature to save her noble internal parts. But look to the signs exhibited by those parts; are they not those of augmented irritation, at least of irritation of a degree and kind that did not exist so long as the limbs were pained and inflamed? The fact is, that your colchicum has set up in the viscera so intense an irritation as to reconcentrate the mischief within; and the fit is cured, not by ridding the body of the gouty irritation, but by driving or drawing it in again,’ (thus baffling nature’s efforts at self relief). ‘Hence the continuance of the dyspeptic symptoms after the fit; hence, as you will find, the recurrence of another fit ere long, the intervals becoming less and less, until gouty pain is incessantly in the limbs, and gouty irritation always in the viscera.’ ”
When the drugging practitioner drives the inflammation from the extremities to a more dangerous internal position, he congratulates himself on having cured the gout; but what in reality has he done?—By his mischievous interference with nature, he has endangered his patient’s life and shaken his constitution; whilst the gouty irritation, which causes the complaint, remains unsubdued, ready to be transferred at a moment to the head or heart, the practitioner having cleverly banished it from its original harmless position. It is in this way also that the Allopathist cures skin diseases, driving in the irritation which nature is struggling to drive out; this he eventually succeeds in doing, by weakening the powers of the system, and then fancies the disease is cured, whilst the patient pays in the long run for these hostile operations against nature.
But we have interrupted Sir Bulwer Lytton,—he thus proceeds:—
“Thirdly, that wide and grisly family of affliction classed under the common name of dyspepsia. All derangements of the digestive organs, imperfect powers of nutrition—the malaise of an injured stomach, appear precisely the complaints on which the system takes firmest hold, and in which it effects those cures that convert existence from a burden into a blessing.
“Hence it follows that many nameless and countless complaints, proceeding from derangement of the digestive organs, cease as that great machine is restored to order. I have seen disorders of the heart which have been pronounced organic by no inferior authorities of the profession, disappear in an incredibly short time; cases of incipient consumption, in which the seat is in the nutritious powers; hæmorrhages, and various congestions, shortness of breath, habitual fainting fits, many of what are called improperly nervous complaints, but which in reality are radiations from the main ganglionic spring: the disorders produced by the abuse of powerful medicines, especially mercury and iodine; the loss of appetite, the dulled sense and the shaking hand of intemperance, skin complaints, and the dire scourge of scrofula;—all these seem to obtain from Hydropathy relief,—nay, absolute and unqualified cure, beyond not only the means of the most skilful practitioner, but the hopes of the most sanguine patient.”
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