Diogenes Laërtius

“ Man, in a state of health, requires pure air as a condition of his existence; and can it be supposed that, in a state of disease, he will be able, more successfully, to resist the effects of poison on his system than when in a state of health? Will he, in a state of disease, be strengthened and improved by the loss of that, on a due supply of which, when well, the continuance of his health and strength would depend? ”

“ Having now dwelt on the numerous advantages of the Turkish bath, its beneficial effects in preserving health and curing disease, we cannot refrain from expressing our astonishment that the year 1857 should find our noble city destitute of so valuable an institution.13 Shall we any longer allow this state of things to continue, and permit barbarians to enjoy a source of comfort and of health which we deny to ourselves? Shall we any longer practise this self-denial, and any longer be content to lag behind the civilization of the East? ”

“ I know of no country, in ancient or modern times, where habits of drunkenness have co-existed with the bath. Misery and cold drive men to the gin-shop. If they had the bath, not the washing-tub, but the sociable hâmam, to repair to, this, the great cause of drunkenness, would be removed; and if this habit of cleanliness were general, restraints would be imposed on such habits by the feelings of self-respect engendered. The poor of England have never had an opportunity of knowing the comfort which is derived on a cold day from the warmth imparted by such an atmosphere. ”

“ This mode of treating disease (Hydropathy) is unquestionably far from inert, and most opposed to the cure of diseases, by the undisturbed processes of nature. It in fact perhaps affords the very best evidence we possess of the curative power of art, and is unquestionably when rationally [7] regulated a most effective mode of treatment in many diseases. Still it puts in a striking light, if not exactly the curative powers of nature, at least the possibility—nay, facility—with which all the ordinary instruments of medical cure, drugs, may be dispensed with. ”

“ When speaking thus they do not however reflect that they are affording the strongest possible testimony in support of the system which they seek to decry, inasmuch as every physiologist, from Cape Clear to the Giant’s Causeway, admits the principle, that the cure of disease is to be sought for in the powers of the living organism alone; and it must be evident that the more you strengthen that organism, the more you increase its powers to cure itself, and diminish its liability to future disease. ”

“ If this be the case, the destructive effects of prussic acid will at once be evident, since by it all the powers of the system become reduced, and nature’s efforts at self-relief most mischievously obstructed. The feverish action of the pulse is, in itself, of no moment; it is only as a symptom of derangement in the system that it becomes alarming; it is nature telling us that something is wrong by the very action which she is establishing to cure it. ”

“ Do physicians, when prescribing this poison, ever reflect that this elevation of the pulse, which they employ themselves so sedulously to lower, is an effort of nature to supply more oxygen to the system by an increased action of the lungs, and that the more the lungs are injured by disease, the greater is this compensating effort of nature: just as a blacksmith must work a small or defective bellows more rapidly than a large one, to keep his fire going. ”

“ The skin and lungs, it must be remembered, are supplementary organs; stop the action of either, and death inevitably ensues, and on their perfect or imperfect action, perfect or imperfect health depends. This view of the disease is illustrated by the history of the monkey: in its wild state, the best authorities state, it never gets consumption, but domesticate the animal, so inducing bad action of the lungs, from want of sufficient exercise and wholesome air, and imperfect action of the skin, arising from the same cause, and it usually dies of this disease. ”

“ Disease, which is quite as natural a process as health, is not allowed to go on as nature would; the internal organs whose morbid action alone can cause death, are made the arena for all sorts of conflicting and inflicting medical stimulants; and between the action which these excite, and that which originally existed, their vitality fails, their efforts towards restoration flag, and their functions are at last extinguished.”
Dr. Rush says:—
“We have multiplied diseases—we have done more, we have increased their mortality.” ”

“ Sir Charles Scudamore, M.D., records his opinion as follows:—
“The principles of the water-cure treatment are founded in nature and truth. We have in our power a new and most efficacious agent for the alleviation and cure of disease in various forms, and in proper hands as safe as it is effectual. I should be no friend to humanity nor to medical science if I did not give my testimony in its recommendation.”
Dr. James Johnson, Editor of the Medical Quarterly, thus writes of hydropathy:—
“Its paramount virtue is that of preserving many a constitution from pulmonary consumption.” ”

“ Another writer thus describes it:—
“When all is done, a soft and luxurious feeling spreads itself over your body; every limb is light and free as air; the marble-like smoothness of the skin is delightful ”

“ The Turkish bath is, in short, an antidote for the unwholesome lives we live,17—a peace-offering to outraged nature for our non-compliance with her laws. To ladies, to invalids, and men of business, whose sedentary occupations preclude the possibility of healthful exercise, the Turkish bath presents an inestimable boon. ”

“ Looking at the definite proportion which, in a healthy state, exists in all parts of the body between the aqueous, saline, and animal ingredients—at the various organs destined, directly or indirectly, to regulate the proportion—and at the morbid results, occurring whenever it is materially altered—we must admit the question as one very important in the animal economy, and having various relation to the causes and treatment of disease. ”

“ Herbert Mayo, Senior Surgeon of the Middlesex Hospital, speaking of hydropathy, thus expresses himself:—
“It (hydropathy) more than doubles our power of doing good. Of course it will meet with much opposition, but none, come from quarter it may, can possibly prevent its progress, and its taking firm root. It is like Truth, not to be subverted.” ”

“ The body is never so well calculated to withstand the effects of cold as when it is heated; and the only danger to be apprehended from cold bathing is that arising from entering the water in a chilled condition, when, from the low vitality of the body, the subsequent reaction becomes imperfect. Let these maxims be remembered:—that without subsequent reaction, no bath is beneficial—therefore, water should be always used of a proper temperature to secure reaction, and exercise to warmth, taken immediately before and after a cold bath, when practicable ”

“ The eastern world had long enjoyed the bath as a social and religious institution; but the shrewd intelligence of Dr. Barter first saw a great principle involved in it, and he straight-way set to work to apply it to the cure of disease. From Blarney, as a centre, this bath is rapidly spreading itself over the surface of Great Britain, and it is difficult to say where the movement, once commenced, will end. ”

“ The same six-pence which will only procure them a quartern of the stimulant, which imparts but a momentary heat, would, if so expended, obtain for them at once warmth and refreshment.
“Do not run away with the idea that it is Islamism that prevents the use of spirituous liquors—it is the bath. It satisfies the cravings which lead to those indulgences, it fills the period of necessary relaxation, and it produces, with cleanliness, habits of self-respect which are incompatible with intoxication. It keeps the families united, which prevents the squandering of money for such excesses. ”

“ Here then again is a serious disagreement in practice between members of the medical profession, in which one party must again be wrong. If those who use colchicum are to be ranged amongst the latter, where our own sufferings [9] under it would place them, their victims may well be pitied. If colchicum be not a poisonous drug, why did Sir Philip Crampton so strongly inveigh against it? If it be, can that system be right which prescribes it as a remedy? Such is the system termed orthodox, styling all who presume to differ from it quacks. ”

“ To render the foregoing position intelligible to our readers, it is necessary to premise, that the action of all active medicines depends upon the principle (admitted by all physiologists) , that nature ever makes a continued effort to cure herself, never ceasing in her attempts to relieve the body from whatever injurious matter may be present in it. It is this effort of nature to expel the irritant matter from the system, which makes the drug produce its effect. ”

“ Will they prefer a system which ensures a long convalesence to the patient, to that in which he recovers from his disease without any sensible diminution of his strength, or injury to his constitution? In short, the operation of wet-sheet packing is so extraordinary and satisfactory in its results, that he who refuses to make use of it must lag behind, whilst success will attend the efforts of him who judiciously applies it in the cases to which it is suited. ”

“ It is a curious fact that in all the medical works which treat of anaemia, or bloodlessness, “allusion is never once made to water-drinking as a known cause—not even to the possibility of its being a cause of it.” ”

“ The fact is, the only reduction of the pulse which is worth a farthing, is that which follows naturally from removing the cause of its elevation, viz., a want of oxygen in the system. That the supplying of this want has the effect of lowering the consumptive pulse, without the assistance of prussic acid, is abundantly proved by the rapid fall of the pulse produced by the Turkish bath,—a result most satisfactory to the physiologist, as evidencing the soundness of the theory which prescribes it as a remedy. ”

“ If it be asked why Hydropathy has proved itself so effective a remedy in curing rheumatism, we would answer, on account of its great power in strengthening and invigorating the stomach and digestive organs, in the derangement of which, the cause of that disease is to be found. Rheumatism proceeds from a sluggish circulation in the extremities, consequent on a low vitality in the system, arising from a derangement of the digestive organs and viscera ”

“ The individual with large lungs will indulge in alcoholic beverages with impunity, to an extent which would entail consumption or some other miserable disease on his narrow-chested companion; it was the great exercise, constant exposure to, and rapid passage through, the air, (by which a large quantity of oxygen was supplied to the system through the lungs) that enabled our fox-hunting ancestors of old to live a life which their more sedentary descendants of the present day dare not attempt to practise. ”

“ Will the public, then, place confidence in the physician who, when invited to cure them, would weaken them by bleeding, and assist the operations of nature by depriving her of that vital fluid, on the existence of which her powers of self-restoration depend? ”

“ We ourselves have seen obstinate cases of sciatica, which for several years had baffled all the remedies of the most eminent Allopathic physicians, yield completely to the benign influence of the Turkish bath in the course of six weeks. We have witnessed similar effects produced in cases of rheumatism, and contracted joints arising from rheumatic gout; whilst in cases of skin disease it is a sovereign remedy, unrivalled by any other mode of treatment, not excepting the Harrowgate waters. ”

“ This opinion astonished us not a little, and we felt that when habit5 and prejudice could so pervert the mind of a physician as to make him look upon a poisonous substance as a positive good, we could easily account for the difficulty which has been always experienced in converting a medical man—for the unsatisfactory state of the medical art, and its having so long pertinaciously followed the routine practice of our ancestors. When a mind cannot perceive the difference between black and white, it is in vain to place less obvious differences before it. ”

“ To such we will merely say that we charitably hope they do not call this exclamation an argument, and that if they reflected for a moment they ought to remember numberless instances where error has existed for centuries unrefuted, and acquiesced in by all mankind; that on their principle error ought to prevail in exact proportion to its greatness, since the oldest errors are the earliest, and the earliest are, generally speaking, the greatest, the infancy of every science being its most imperfect stage. ”

“ It may not be uninteresting to observe, that under Hydropathic treatment, chronic disease frequently becomes acute; for, as the body improves in strength, the more acutely will any [37] existing disease develop itself, and for the following reason: pain is caused by an effort of nature to relieve the system of some morbid influence residing in it, and the stronger the constitution, the greater efforts will it make to remove that morbid influence, and therefore the greater will be the pain ”

“ How many orthodox physicians have ever visited Blarney, or any similar Hydropathic establishment?—The proportion of such visitors (and no one can form a fair idea of the system without seeing it at work) , to the whole profession would be more than represented by an infinitesimal fraction.
We wonder how long the public will continue to poison18 their systems with mercury, colchicum, iodine, and prussic acid, because a physician chooses to tell them that a mode of treatment which he has never investigated “will kill them.” ”

“ Perhaps there is no disease which would appear, at first sight, so little suited for Hydropathic treatment as cholera;15 that disease for the successful treatment of which we have been hitherto accustomed to consider stimulants and hot applications of all kinds as indispensably necessary, and yet there is no disease, in the treatment of which Hydropathy has been more successful. ”

“ Let him drink spirits and wine, eat condiments, swallow purgatives, and especially mercurials, take a ‘course of iodine,’ and, as an occasional interlude, lose a little blood, and we stake our reputation that he will shiver to his heart’s content, and find himself many degrees lower in the scale of Fahrenheit than cold water, cool air, early rising, and exercise can possibly make him. ”