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

The packing-sheet brings morbific matter to the surface, and thereby relieves the capillaries. The ablution which follows acts as a tonic.

The relief afforded to the overcharged system through the pores, by the application of the packing-sheet, may be compared to the emptying of a bason with a sponge; each sheet absorbing a certain amount of morbific matter and superfluous animal heat, until the body is relieved.

In fevers generally, the fœtid odour of the sheet when withdrawn, is hardly to be endured; and in eruptive fevers, the inclination to scratch the body is allayed, and very little inconvenient sensation is felt either night or day.

In the morning, when fever is most felt, wet sheets and tepid baths allay it; and in the afternoon, any return of it is again subdued as before. The discovery of the wet sheet alone is sufficient to render the name of Priessnitz immortal.

But when, by these means, it would be difficult to produce perspiration, recourse is previously had to a dripping or rubbing-sheet, and then the patient is packed up; or the blanket is warmed before a fire, before the body is enveloped in it.

The sweating process, when used, is always succeeded by a tepid or cold bath, or a dripping-sheet: if a tepid bath, cold water is afterwards poured over the head and shoulders; but if a dripping-sheet, it is repeated until the body is cooled.

Every day’s practice at Gräfenberg, and elsewhere, shews that no danger attends going into cold water in a heated state.

But Mr. Priessnitz, whether from having a different class of patients, or from the difficulty of getting servants to understand when the patient had perspired enough, or the conviction that the same or better results attend the packing sheet, we know not, has changed his practice, and no longer resorts so frequently to the sweating process. The following extract is from a letter received by the author from a gentleman who has been a long time at Gräfenberg.

“The object of all Hydropathic appliances may be shortly and intelligibly defined, as assisting Nature to regain that ascendancy by which she of her own accord will throw off what is offensive to her. The practitioner ought therefore to strengthen her in every possible way; and we have the latest discoveries of science as a guarantee that the present (the packing or wet-sheet process) method of carrying out the cure effectuates this end more completely than any other; what therefore is opposed to that, is so much drawn from the strength which it is the object to promote, and inasmuch as sweating, however it may tend to alleviate, undoubtedly weakens, it is a counteracting agency.

“Priessnitz is reaping the benefit of twenty years’ experience. He follows still as he always followed (as far as it was possible for him to read and understand) the mysteries of his great mistress, Nature. Chance, I imagine, has in no way guided his choice; it may have assisted him in interpreting some of the revelations of this great spirit, but he has always had the same unerring basis on which to establish his system. Through imperfect light he may have sweated for a time, but the still small voice of truth has never ceased to whisper in his ear, and it is highly conducive to his honour that he should now have the courage to say that in this point he erred. He does this at the risk of reputation and fortune; he subjects himself to the abuse of high and low; but he acts up to his conviction, which is that the packing sheet, if to be persevered in, is better than the sweating process.”