“To prevent the ill effects of cold.—The moment a person gets into a house, with his hands and feet quite chilled, let him put them into a vessel of water, as cold as can be got, and hold them there until they begin to glow, which they will do in a minute or two. This method likewise effectually prevents chilblains.
“Consumption.—Cold bathing has cured many deep consumptions.
“Convulsions.—Use the cold bath.”
And so on. In this valuable little work, from which are the above extracts, confirmative of the value I set upon cold water, Mr. Wesley prescribes the use of water for almost every complaint.
Slade, in his “Records of the East,” very judiciously remarks, with reference to the Turks, that “notwithstanding their ignorance of medical science, added to the extreme irregularity of their living, both as regards diet and exercise, one day dining off cheese and cucumbers, another day feeding on ten greasy dishes; one month riding twelve hours daily, another month never stirring off the sofa; smoking always, and drinking coffee to excess; occasionally getting drunk, besides other intemperances—combining, in short, all that our writers on the subject designate injurious to health—the Turks enjoy particularly good health: and this anomaly is owing to two causes; first, the religious necessity of washing their arms and feet and necks, from three to five times a day, always with cold water, generally at the fountains before the mosques, by which practice they become protected against catarrhal affections; second, by their constant use of the vapour bath, by which the humours that collect in the human frame, no doctors know how or why, occasioning a long list of disorders, are carried off by the pores of the skin. Gout, rheumatism, head-ache, consumption, are unknown in Turkey, thanks to the great physicians, vapour bath and cold bath! No art has been so much vitiated in Europe, by theories, as the art of preserving health. Its professors, however, are beginning to recur to first principles; and when bathing shall be properly appreciated, three-fourths of the druggists will be obliged to close their shops.”
The question here arises: how is it that with so much evidence in favour of water, it has never been brought into general use? Many reasons might be assigned, but the principal one is, that until the present day no system of treatment has ever been based on scientific principles. It was in embryo, and, like Steam, wanted its time for development. If people studied their health as they do their interest, they would at least enquire into this, the best means of preserving it.
But in our present state of civilisation, nature is known by name only. None save those reduced to the last stage of poverty ever satisfy their thirst with water! Men, women, and children, rich and poor, old and young, all avoid water—perhaps because it costs nothing (for, in our artificial life, we are led to esteem things according to their venal price), and, like air and sun, is shared in common with our poorer fellow-kind.
The Germans are water-drinkers, but the English have a distaste for it; few ever drank half a pint undiluted at one time, in their lives, imagining that water will cause inconvenience, whilst in the course of the day, they think nothing of drinking wine, soda water, brandy and water, and tea, to a great extent, all of which are injurious. A lady of my acquaintance carries her distaste for water so far as to ruin the health of her children by it. For some time the eldest, about four years old, had been sickly: when at Rome, the mother consulted a medical man, who said that the child wanted nothing but water, which was given it, and the child got well immediately. I met the same family at Kissingen, when at a spring the nursery-maid asked me if she might give the child water, saying the children were always asking for it, but her mistress did not like them to drink water alone. “Certainly,” I replied, “give her as much as she chooses to drink.”
In addition to cold water, fresh air and exercise are most important means of health. They are especially useful in giving life and activity to the skin, which seldom meets with proper attention, people generally not being aware of the evil consequences attending their neglect of that most important organ of the human frame.
By protecting the skin from the air, we concentrate on it the heat that is ever exhaling from the body, and thus complete what warm baths, spirituous liquors, want of exercise, close rooms, and heavy nourishment, have begun. We do not perceive that by keeping the body warm, we weaken the skin, which becomes so sensitive to external changes, that we are incessantly obliged to augment the thickness and number of its coverings. At last, a time comes when nothing more can be added to the clothing already too heavy. Then weak and irritable persons, whose numbers—our erroneous system daily augments!—remain at home, not aware of the innumerable inconveniences to which such a resolution exposes them, and not knowing that the habitual washing of the body in cold water, would enable them to leave their heated apartments, abandon flannel, and expose themselves, without the slightest danger, to the healthy effects of fresh air.