Water cure

“ Again, patients are cured by being buried in hot mud or in hot sand. I have seen a salt-water cure, where patients were made to remain in the ocean ten hours a day. The plain water cure has thousands of followers, with hospitals and infirmaries, where the patient is bathed, soaked, filled, washed, and plunged in water and charged a high amount. ”

“ Neglect of Other Remedies.—As has been previously remarked, many seem to have forgotten that water is not the only remedy for disease, and not only attempt to cure every disease by its application, but use it to the exclusion of all other remedies. In nearly all cases, sunlight, pure air, rest, exercise, proper food, and other hygienic agencies are quite as important as water. Electricity, too, is a remedy which should not be ignored ”

“ The very simplicity of the processes of the “water-cure,” which people cannot believe capable of producing the effects ascribed to them, combined with a belief, ingrained by long habit, in the absolute necessity for drugs in curing disease, have chiefly militated against a more extended reception of Hydropathy by the lay public ”

“ All our readers, of course, have heard of the Water Cure; and many of them, we doubt not, have in their own minds ranked it among those eccentric medical systems which now and then spring up. are much talked of for a while, and finally sink into oblivion. ”

“ Ruggles' Water Cure.—Having experienced substantial benefit from the Cold Water system, as practiced at the Northampton Water Cure, by Dr. David Ruggles, and believing that it may be interesting to others who may be afflicted, I thought it due to the cause to request that you would favor me with a place in your paper, to make a brief statement of my case. I am 84 years of age—find with the exception of a lameness in my right leg, which was caused by an injury about forty years ago, I have enjoyed a greater degree of health than has fallen to the lot of most men. ”

“ But really it is no new discovery that fresh air and water, simple food and abundant exercise, change of scene and intermission of toil and excitement, tend to brace the nerves and give fresh vigour to the limbs. In the only respect in which we have any confidence in the Water Cure, it is truly no new system at all. ”

“ The mention of the Water Cure is suggestive of galvanism, homoepathy, mesmerism, the grape cure, the bread cure, the mud-bath cure, and of the views of that gentleman who maintained that almost all the evils, physical and moral, which assail the constitution of man, are the result of the use of salt as an article of food, and may be avoided by ceasing to employ that poisonous and immoral ingredient. ”

“ We claim that in acute diseases hydropathic treatment will accomplish all the benefcial effects which the "Old School" practitioners ascribe to drugs, and that water applications will produce the desired results much more efficiently, and without any harmful by-effects or aftereffects upon the system. ”

“ They are quite sure that water is the only proper remedy in every case; but how it operates so as to cure in all cases, they cannot exactly tell. They suppose, however, the most common cause of disease to consist in the lodgment of effete or morbid matter in some part of the body, and therefore they attempt to cure the patient by washing out these filthy lodgments. ”

“ The walks are sufficiently retired to allow water-cure patients to appear as they should, plainly dressed, enjoying their rambles, without being exposed to public gaze or observation. Since daily experience, for the last three years, has strengthened his opinion, that the condition of the skin clearly indicates the character of many diseases, and the ability of inability of an invalid to bear the water treatment in its various forms ”

“ The quantity of drinking water should be regulated by the desire of the patient, but he should be warned not to take any more than is necessary to satisfy his thirst. Large amounts of water taken into the system dilute the blood and the other fluids and secretions of the organism to an excessive degree, and this tends to increase the general weakness and lower the patient's resistance to the disease forces. ”

“ A very simple household remedy is a palliative to the same effect: hot water applied to the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. It affords immediate though often only temporary relief; for the diathermal influence of the hot-water treatment, as it were, dries up, and thus temporarily reduces the mucous accumulations, while the preferable exercise-cure more gradually but permanently removes the cause of the trouble. ”

“ It is amusing to watch the gradual change in the attitude of our patients toward the cold-water treatment. In some instances we have had to spend hours in earnest persuasion before we could induce a particularly sensitive person to try the first mild spray. A few weeks later if, perchance, something interfered with the cold water applications, the patient would indignantly refuse to take the other treatment if there was to be no cold water. ”

“ Nature cannot be forced to do more than she is capable of doing; and as nature must do the healing, if a cure is accomplished, remedies should be of a helping rather than a crowding or forcing nature. The vitality of patients may be expended uselessly by treatment, for baths excite vital resistance, as well as drugs, a fact which many overlook. 94The dangers of over-treatment are not so great as some imagine, however, who take the opposite extreme, and advocate rest as the great cure-all. ”

“ Nevertheless those who contend for a miracle in this place, say that there are no baths known, which can cure all distempers; nor any that retain their virtue but one single month in the year: they likewise add, that it was the action of the angel troubling this water, that gave it its sanative qualities. Those who are of a different sentiment, enumerate a number of waters, which become salutary at certain times of the year, by being then charged with metallic salts; the mud of which being brought up from the bottom, has been serviceable in many diseases. ”

“ Water is the wholesomest of all drinks. It quickens the appetite and strengthens the digestion. It is the most effective agent in the work of elimination—in ridding the system of waste material. Properly taken, it prevents the undue clogging of the organs and tissues, and tends to cure or relieve those that had become clogged, and it does this by washing away the substances for which the system has no further use, and which if they remained would poison it. ”

“ Tissot, in his “Advice to the People,” published in Paris, 1770, shows the importance of cold water.
Hoffman, the famous German doctor, says that if there existed anything in the world that could be called a panacea, it was pure water: first, because that element would disagree with nobody; secondly, because it is the best preservative against disease; thirdly, because it would cure agues and chronic complaints ”

“ Even though the average person is unacquainted with the constituents of a remedy that apparently enjoys a large success, the absurd claims made for it should safeguard them against its use. Few would have purchased ordinary water at $1.00 a bottle had they known what they were buying. But an individual with any reasoning ability or ordinary common sense, should have been sceptical regarding the merits of any remedy that was claimed to "cure," among other diseases, consumption, cancer, rheumatism, malaria, gallstones, asthma, blood poison, dandruff, and all contagious diseases. ”

“ Therefore we are obliged to regard many of the processes which have been contrived to lengthen out the play at hydropathic institutions, not only as ridiculous, but positively injurious. It has never been pretended that water was unimportant in the treatment of disease—rational medicine has always employed it, and must continue to do so whilst the world stands. ”

“ We need not here enter into a discussion of the nature of medicinal properties, since there is no question among scientific physicians, that the medicinal properties—so-called—of drugs, or their effects upon the human system in diseases, are, in general, the result of vital resistance on the part of the system, an attempt to expel or remove the poison, or defend itself against it. Water also possesses remedial properties, some of which are due to vital resistance, while others grow out of the aid which it affords the vital organs by its physical properties. ”

“ As a rule, experience teaches that the younger the individual, and the more recent and acute the disease, the fewer number of baths will be requisite to give permanent relief, the full effects of the medicinal water being obtained more rapidly, and the ultimate result being more satisfactory. ”

“ That external physical cleanliness is next to godliness is an apt proverb. That internal physical cleanliness is nearer to godliness no one will deny.
Water is a universal solvent and therapeutic agent and is therefore indispensable in the cleansing and purifying of the integument and mucous membrane of the body. A large quantity of water is necessary to carry on the functions of the animal economy. Water enters every cell and fibre of the living organism, aiding in nutrition and in the elimination of worn-out tissues which if retained turn into poisons. ”

“ It is, furthermore, true that a great majority of ordinary diseases are commonly so void of danger under careful nursing and hygienic management that the application of water is a simple matter which any intelligent mother can perform successfully. A case is related by good authority of a person who fell in apoplexy an hour after taking an excessively hot bath. Another patient became a paralytic from the same cause. Water is a remedy which cannot be safely used by one who has not informed himself of its effects, and of the proper modes of application. ”

“ Truly, Pure Water alone, can be applied to fulfil two of the most essential indications in disease, which all the remedies in the whole medicinal pharmacopeia cannot fulfil.
By a judicious application of steam and hot-water we can relax any part of the system interiorly or exteriorly, and hence wash away extraneous materials. This remedy never fails to effect its indication; that is, if we place hot water into a living organism, or an organism into hot water, the result of heating is always certain. ”

“ Sulphur waters are very useful in the treatment of rheumatism, gout, neuralgia, and kindred diseases, and in glandular affections and certain chronic diseases of the stomach, liver, intestines, spleen, kidneys, bladder and uterus, and in dropsy, scrofula, chlorosis and mercurial diseases. It is beneficial, used both internally and externally in the form of baths at different degrees of temperature, best determined in each case by the physician under whose advice, as a general rule, they should be used. The water is highly beneficial in cutaneous diseases, inflamed eyes, etc. ”

“ Even drugs are sometimes useful auxiliaries, though, doubtless, infinitely more harm has resulted from the employment of drugs in conjunction with water treatment than from their omission.
Rational Hydropathy leaves room for every other remedy of value. It does not regard water as a specific nor as a panacea, but only as one of the most valuable of numerous excellent remedies. It discards the erroneous and harmful practices of empirics and ignorant charlatans, whether they concern water or other agents, and gives to the aqueous element only its due share of importance. ”

“ Such waters are totally unfit for general use for drinking or cooking purposes, and certainly possess no particular advantages as cleansing agents. Whether they are useful as medicines is a medical question which we do not purpose to consider here; but one would naturally suppose that water which is unfit to cleanse the outside of the body could not be of very great utility as an internal application. ”

“ He expressed the opinion that if he had employed the pack more thoroughly, making the applications longer and more frequent, the patient might have recovered.
“Currie announced a true theory when he said that the voice of nature should not be superseded by theories. He advocated the free use of water as a beverage in febrile diseases [fever] as an important remedial agent. Dr. F. unhesitatingly advanced the belief that the chief benefit derived from the numerous mineral waters so largely used was only that which was due to the properties of pure water. ”

“ It removes from water all those products of decay and disease which are the most prolific causes of sickness and death.
THOUSANDS USE THEM And admire them, and all are ready to testify to their efficiency and utility. No family should be without one; for it is impossible to obtain from springs or wells water which is, in all respects, so free from injurious properties as is soft filtered water. ”

“ The learned Greek, Hippocrates, the father of medical literature, and a very acute observer of disease and the effects of various agents upon the body, highly recommended the use of water in many diseases, describing with great care the proper mode of administering a simple bath. He laid great stress upon the careful and skillful use of the bath, asserting that, when improperly applied, it, “instead of doing good, may rather prove injurious.” ”