“An important hydropathic principle is, that almost all its measures are applied to the surface. One of the most formidable difficulties with which the ordinary physician has to contend is, that nearly all his remedies reach the point to which they are directed through one channel.
“The only means of relieving certain diseases is by inundating the stomach and bowels with foreign and frequently to them pernicious substances.
“Hydropathy employs a system of most extensive energetic general and local counter irritation.
“A fifth physiological feature of hydropathy is the number of coolings. The generation of caloric has been traced to its right source. It results from the burning up of waste matter, which by accumulation would become injurious.
“It is singular enough that almost all arguments used against cold bathing are the strongest theoretical arguments in its favor. Dr. Baynard, a most sarcastic writer, gives us the following anecdote:—
“Here a demi-brained doctor of more note than nous, asked, in the amazed agony of his half-understanding, how ’twas possible that an external application should affect the bowels, and cure pain within? ‘Why doctor,’ quoth an old woman standing by, ‘by the same reason that, being wet-shod or catching cold from without, should give you the gripes and pain within.’
“If a rude exposure of the surface to cold and wet is capable of producing internal disease, there is no doubt that a close relation exists between these agents and the morbid conditions of internal parts.”
After devoting upwards of thirty pages to prove the value of Hydropathy, the reviewer sums up as follows:—
“After what has been said and written in favor of Hydropathy.—Judgment must therefore be entered by default against its opponents, and hydropathy is entitled to the verdict of harmlessness, since cause has never been shown to the contrary.”