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

2nd. A new circulation is given to the diseased or inactive organs, and better juices infused into them.

3rd. All the functions of the body are brought into a normal state, not by operating upon any particular function, but upon the whole.

If these are the results of hydropathy—and that they are so, has never been disputed; nay, the truth is even proved by the following great medical authority unconnected with the water cure: it must be admitted that the sooner drugs are dispensed with the better.

British and Foreign Medical Review, and Quarterly Journal, October, 1846.—Extract.

“The water cure is a stomachic, since it invariably increases the appetite.

“It is a local calefacient in the wet sheet covered by a dry one.

“It is a derivative; cold friction at one part, by exciting increased action there, producing corresponding diminution elsewhere; the compress frequently acting, if not like a blister, at least like a mustard poultice.

“It is a local as well as a general counter-irritant.

“It is essentially alterative in the continual removal of old matter: its renewal is shewn in the maintenance of the same weight.