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

B——, travelling in North America, and exposed to severe rains without the means of changing his clothes, suffered the consequences such circumstances frequently entail. Rheumatism almost beyond endurance induced him to go to Gräfenberg.

At the first interview, Priessnitz put him first into a tepid bath 64 deg., out of which he plunged into a cold bath, where he staid about a minute, and from that he returned again to the tepid, when bandages were applied to his waist and parts affected.

Treatment.—Morning, packing-sheet until warm, then cold bath; noon, rubbing-sheet; afternoon, packing-sheet, twenty minutes, and then rubbing-sheet again.

Left Gräfenberg in a month, during which time patient used the rubbing-sheet mornings and evenings; exposed his body (after that in the morning) quite naked in his room, from a quarter to half an hour.

On returning to Gräfenberg, the douche was substituted for the rubbing-sheet at noon. After continuing the treatment for some time, rheumatism returned, when he was ordered three rubbing-sheets five minutes each, twice a-day; between each an air bath of five minutes.

A crisis of boils ensued, and after they healed, patient was perfectly well. The patient writes to a friend—“I now leave Gräfenberg with a clean body, and a sincere wish for your own speedy cure, and that of all the agreeable acquaintances that I leave behind me, under the safe care of our virtuous and sagacious friend V. Priessnitz.”

Chronic Rheumatism, Chronic Headache, Constipation, Piles, &c.—A Gentleman, aged about 45, was treated as follows:—

Morning, sweating process and cold bath, three minutes; noon, douche, three minutes; an hour afterwards, sitz-bath fifteen minutes; foot-bath fifteen minutes; head-bath ten minutes; one following the other immediately; afternoon, noon treatment over again; all night—loins, feet, legs, and thighs, to the fork, were encased in bandages.

In a few months, rheumatism, piles, and constipation were cured, but head-ache returned at intervals.

Rheumatic attack in the Back, Shoulders, and Neck.—The sweating process, followed by three rubbing-sheets not much wrung out, applied without intermission for five minutes each, put an end to the attack at once. If this number of rubbing-sheets had not cooled the body, more must have been used.