Although the bath was very freely used in England while the island was occupied by the Romans, who erected commodious baths like those in Rome, the wholesome practice is now sadly neglected by the English people, if we may credit their own writers.
It is a curious fact that the bath seems to be quite generally neglected by the most civilized races, while it is almost universally employed by those less advanced nations, the Russians, Turks, Finlanders, and the inhabitants of Persia, Egypt, Barbary, and Hindostan. The Finlanders make great use of the sweating bath. To nearly every house is attached a small sweat-house, where they subject themselves to a temperature of more than 160° F., often emerging at once into an atmosphere much below freezing, with apparent impunity. The Turkish and Russian baths, similar to which are those in use in Egypt and India, are elsewhere described.
The North American Indians employ the bath for many diseases. They have original and peculiar ways of administering both water and vapor baths. The most common bath among them is the vapor, followed by a plunge into a neighboring stream. They generate the steam by pouring water upon hot stones while they are inclosed in a small, close hut made of mud or skins. The native Mexicans secure a hot-air bath by confining themselves in a brick sweat-house which is heated by a furnace outside. These savages seem to have the most implicit confidence in the efficacy of the bath, always employing it when ill, and with excellent success.
Modern Medical Use of Water.—In the early part of the eighteenth century, a Sicilian named Fra Bernado acquired the title of “coldwater doctor” from his exclusive use of cold water in treating the sick.
At the very beginning of the eighteenth century, Floyer published a history of bathing which contains accounts of many remarkable cures effected by means of the bath, which he recommended as a most efficient cure for numerous diseases.
A Mr. Hancock, a clergyman, published, in 1722, a tract entitled, “Common Water the Best Cure of Fevers.” Another writer, in a work entitled, “The Curiosities of Common Water,” published in 1723, speaks of water as an “excellent remedy which will perform cures with very little trouble, and without any charge,” and “may be truly styled, an universal remedy.” Both French and German writers were zealously advocating the use of water as a remedy for many diseases at this same period. Many of the French surgeons had also discovered the immense utility of water in surgery, receiving their first lessons of instruction from an ignorant and superstitious miller, who used water in conjunction with charms.
In the latter part of the last century, Drs. Jackson and Currie each published reports of cases of fever in which they had found the use of the bath a remedy of remarkable efficacy. Dr. Currie obtained many followers for a time, but no very deep impression was made upon the public mind, though his cases were authentic, and were very ably reported.
About the end of the first quarter of the present century, a native of Græfenberg, Prussia, by the name of Priessnitz, met with an accident by which three of his ribs were broken. He treated himself by applications of cold water, and then tried the same remedy upon others in similar cases. His success encouraged him to make further experiments, and though an ignorant peasant, his natural acuteness enabled him to devise various means for applying water to the body, and to suit the application to different diseases. His increasing success attracted numerous patients, and his fame became, in a few years, worldwide. Many of his methods were very rude, and his ignorance of medical science often led him into errors; but he succeeded in restoring to health hundreds of patients whose maladies had been pronounced incurable.
The interest in the new method became so great that numerous other individuals, equally ignorant and possessing less shrewdness, undertook to imitate the German innovator. Some of them were successful, many of them were not; all were alike in committing numerous blunders through ignorance of scientific medicine. But the public attention was called to the utility of water as a remedial agent so forcibly that a powerful impression was produced in its favor. From that time until the present, the use of water has been largely in the hands of unscientific empirics who have advocated it as a specific, and employed it to the exclusion of other remedies in a great degree. This course, together with many other gross errors connected with the practice, has deterred scientific physicians from employing it sufficiently to test its merits, only in a few exceptional instances.
The friends of Priessnitz claimed for him a great discovery; but as we have seen, he discovered nothing which was not known a century before, if not, indeed, some thousands of years previous. It is doing Priessnitz no injustice to say that he did little or nothing toward establishing principles, but followed, chiefly, a routine method of practice.