« A R Y OF MEDIC.:

RARY OF MEDICINE   NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE  NATIONAL L


                              = /  Sam*   =  /d&SO
                             11 ^/    I
                             r '           n
a a v a a 11 ivnoiivn  jnijioih jo uvasn ivnoiivn   iKoioiw Ji
 
NATIONAL LIBRARY
BI11VNOI1VN 1NI3I03W JO AUVBBM IVNOIIVN  3 N I D I 0 3 W J O A V V II



              i As
Kll IVNOIIVN 3N I D 103 W JO UVIII1 IVNOIIVN  3 N I 3 I 0 3 W J O K a V I
? \toj^©:
r OF MEDICINE NATI
j  -: v
ONAl LIBRARY OF MEDICINE  NATIONAL LIBRAR'
Ky  \  \7\ i A/  i  \A i
     SNOiaaw jo ABvaan ivnoiivn snoioih jo kv\

r OFMEDICINE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE NATIONAL LIBRAI
 
\ 
VINCENZ EEIESSNITZ:
OR THE
WONDERFUL POWER OF WATER
IN
HEALING  THE DISEASES
OF THE
HUMAN  BODY.
BY
Db. CHR. CHARLES ^'i'TEFERDECKER.
     SECOND EDITION.

                ''C*
       i: .AB.Y. *

      PHILADELPHIA
PRINTED FOR THE'AUTHOR.
18 4 4. 
Entered according to Act of Congress by
       Che. Charles Schieferdkckee..
In the clerk's office of the District Court tor the
       Eastern District of Pennsylvania. ,


                 WBF



                   )Wr 
NOTICE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
           Nat.ura (luce crrari nullo pacto potest*
                                 (Cic. legg.)
   On putting this second  edition to  the  press it
 was at first  my intention to have extended  the
 limits of this small volume, but the daily strength-
 ening conviction that no person can satisfactorily
 accomplish his own cure without the advice of a
 regular Cold-Water-physician makes me believe
 that such addition would be unnessary.
   I only add the following remarks in regard to
 the foes of the system :
   Either the medical detractors of the Water-cure
 comprehend  its physiological action, or  they do
 not.  If they comprehend it, they must know that,
 in competent  hands, it is both the safest and most
 efficient treatment.  If they do  not comprehend
 it, and vet pass and  disseminate an opinion upon
 it,—it is plain dishonesty.  I  only marvel  that  the
 deceived victims of the old medical school, when
 they hear this new system  pronounced  as dan-
 gerous,  do not ask the very pertinent  question :
 ''■Whether the opinion  of  the  learned  man i.s
founded on personal  experienced
   No  practitioner  of the  old  drug-school has
publicly offered any  argument  inimical  to the
 Water-cure,  grounded  on a  priori  reasoning. 
IV     notice to the second edition.

And, why has not any one of the learned doctors
of the New  or Old World done so,— who yett
without experience, deem it  a sacred duty  to
prolong the anxious cry 1
  There is in the Water-cure no denial of any
principle which ever was  and  still is  the rule of
practice for an enlightened physician.
  The mission  of  a doctor  is to alleviate pains,
calm  irritation, extinguish  the  burning  heat,
which accompany  inflammation and  fever;  to
moisten, dilute and attenuate all that is dry, thick
and hardened;  to soften down  acrimony; to re-
duce  obstructions;  to  dissipate congestions;  to
keep all the excretive passages open, to  make all
movement converge thither, to attract  there all
hurtful humours, to operate their discharge, last-
ly, to keep up the strength of the invalid, accor-
ding to the wants of nature, which must itself la-
bour in this  great work, the accomplishment  of
which the doctor should aid, and never impede.
  If it is  objected  that one remedy cannot fulfil
so many various objects :  I  shall reply  that it is
multiplied by those acquainted with its  use, that
the  numerous ways  in which it is employed, ans-
wer to the numerous remedies which art would
produce.   For this  appliances, a  private institiir
tion is necessary, in which patients lodge, board,
and are professionally treated.   In regard to the
season the Spring,  Autumn, and particularly the-
Winter, are the most desirable.*           S.. 
  So haben wir mit hoellischen Lfttwergen
In diesen Thselern, diesen Bergen
Weit schlimmer als die Pest getobt.
leh habe selbst das Gift an Tausende gegeben,
Sie welkten hin ;—ich muss erleben,
Dass man die frechen Mcerder lobt.
                                      Di\ Faust.

  Thus did we rage with hellish drugs and pilli
All o'er these happy valleys—o'er these hills,
Till we Death's standard had sublimely raised.
To hundreds I dispensed the deadly poison's doses,
I saw them wither like decaying roses, j
And live to see the murd'rous leeches praised.
                                 Goethe''* Fautt. 
7 
PREFACE.
Permit me to  offer  something new to the citi-
zens of the country I have  chosen as my " fa-
therland."   I owe them such an .offering—they
received me kindly? and that  kindness I can on-
ly repay by labouring for their benefit.   May
this  small gift of gratitude prove to them a last-
ing blessing, by  leading them to the useful investi-
gation of a subject  of the highest importance—
the preservation of health, and  the most  simple
and  natural means of restoring it, by that  ele-
ment which a bountiful Providence has so wide-
ly diffused, pure and cold water.
  The author is unaccustomed to the use of the
English language, and his desire of disseminata
ing  the knowledge of this important discovery
could alone overcome the diffidence with which
he has made the attempt.   But if truth be ad^
vanced, knowledge  diffused,  and the suffering?
of any portion  of the  human family allevi?


                                  Y 
VI                FREF4CE.

by it, he trusts that an apology will found for the
improprieties of his language and the roughness
of his sentences.
  Instead of lavishing encomiums or deprecating
censure upon  his little  book, or on the practice
of which it gives an account, he leaves it to speak
for  itself, but will here subjoin a few facts con-
nected with the progress of the science in Eng-
land.  The first is an extract  from  the " London
Sunday News" of March 1840, slightly abridged.
  " Lord Monclist, aged about 58, suffered under
an  incurable  disease, the universal gout.  He
was given up  by the most celebrated physicians,
and went from England  to the therapeutic In-
stitute at Grcefenberg, in Germany, into which, on
his arrival, he had to be carried on leather belts,
being alike unable  to stand or walk.   After a
stay of sixteen months and five days, he left Grse-
fenberg perfectly restored, and now lives in Lon-
don healthful and happy.  Actuated by gratitude,
he built an institute  for  healing by  cold water
near  his villa,  about  three miles from London,
to which  twenty-four sick persons  are  gratui-
tously admitted.  In the meadow before the bath- 
                  PREFACE.                Vii

ing-house,  there is  a beautiful temple, resting
on eight columns, surrounded by the attributes of
the water-god, Neptune.  A naiad, placed  on a
rock-like pedestal, pours  fresh water out  of an
urn into a large basin.  Next to her stands Priess-
nitz, the great master, in Germany, of the art
of healing by water, in his everyday dress, point-
ing with his right hand to the naiad.  Thousands
from London visit this temple and the surround-
ing country out of curiosity, but as soon as the
temple  is full, the water  begins  to fall out of a
projecting outlet in the form of a  cataract, upon
the iron railing that encircles it, cutting off all
egress.   A  voice emanating  from the pedestal
then announces, that  the  spectators will only be
permitted to leave the temple with  a dry skin
when they have given a small contribution to the
poor of the Institute.  Most of them do it will-
ingly  and even cheerfully.   Such as would re-
fuse are either induced to give by the example of
the liberal, or forced to spring through a three-
fold wall of water, amid the  laughter of the spec-
tators within and without.  They however gain, 
Vlll
PREFACE.
gratuitously a  fundamental  notion  of the  main
process of the healing art by water."
  The next  extract is  from an article in  the
"Boston Transcript," the writer of  which, while
he says that  he cannot refrain  from  presenting
his  readers with an abstract of an  address deli-
vered by Capt. Claridge, at  Dover,  England,  yet
enters his caveat lest any one should suppose him
" a believer in the chilly system."  This is only
what may be anticipated, for the scenes witness-
ed and described by Capt. Claridge  are so  un-
like anything which the gentleman can have wit-
nessed, that it is difficult to believe.
  " The Captain imagines," he says, " that in this
new system he has discovered the true  elixir of
life ; for he says that he can see no good reason
why man should  not live to two hundred  years
of age ;  he brings forward  what he  terms evi-
dence  in favour of longevity,  through the cold
water medium; and he declares that  it is impos-
sible for any  man to die of any acute  disease,
while  the patient  has  sufficient strength left to
allow  of water producing  its reaction  in him.
  " Captain Claridge himself states that he was 
PREFACE.
IX
suffering severely  from rheumatism, headache,
and weakness of the eyes, for which he had con-
sulted many physicians, and tried various reme-
dies, without effect;  when he was advised to try
the effect of this method.   For this purpose he
proceeded, with his  family, to  Grsefenberg,  the
residence of Mr. Priessnitz.
   " The course prescribed by Mr. Priessnitz, for
Captain Claridge, was the following :—At  about
four o'clock in the morning, his servant brought
a  large, coarse blanket, in which he was  enve-
loped, and which was tightly fastened  round his
neck, and at his feet; then, as many blankets as
he  could conveniently bear were heaped  upon
him, and on these a bed, so as  effectually to  ex-
clude the external air; in this state he  remained
till six o'clock.  In  about an hour, perspiration
took place, when the doors and windows  were
opened, and he was  instructed  to drink  about a
pint of cold water, by means of a pipe.  At six
o'clock the coverings were removed, and he had
his face,  chest,  and  shins  washed with cold
water, to  prevent his taking cold.  He   then
descended" to the bath, in a pair of straw shoes. 
X
PREFACE.
In the bath he  remained three minutes dressed,
with all the windows open,  and walked, drinking
cold water at various  places, (to  the  amount  of
about  eight  glasses,)  until he  arrived  at the
establishment  to  breakfast,  which  was  com-
posed  of  milk, butter, and brown bread, with
wild strawberries, for five  months in the year.
Then  he  descended  the  mountain  by another
path, and on his  way took a douche bath,  in
which the stream flowing from the mountain  ia
collected in a pipe.   This is suffered to flow first
on one part of the body,  then on another, and
lastly on the  part  affected.  From this he pro-
ceeded home, took a sitz bath—a  tub with about
six or nine inches of water, in which he sat for
fifteen minutes; he then took a foot-bath for
the same length of time, the servant rubbing his
feet  while they were in  the water.  For the
weakness of his sight, he  lay  on  the floor, upon
his back, and placed  the back of his  head in  a
basin of water, for  five minutes.  He dined  at
one o'clock; at three repeated the same process,
and walked until nine.   For supper,  he ate th»
same as at breakfast. 
PREFACE.
XI
   " His daughter, who was supposed to be con-
 sumptive, but who Mr. Priessnitz pronounced had
 merely outgrown her strength—being, as he ex-
 pressed it, too tall for her breadth, underwent a
 similar process, except that to produce perspira-
 tion, she was enveloped  in a  wet sheet, instead
 of a blanket, and  at night she wore a wet cloth
 upon her chest, and another  around  her  body.
 In less than  three  months she was perfectly re-
 covered.
  " According  to  the statement of Captain Cla-
 ridge, people * never say die,' at Grcefenberg;
 or they never decease, as he expresses  it. * from
 any acute disorder.'  Cold water, and a  spars
 diet, is the prescription for longevity;  and, from
 all  accounts, the sovereign panacea ' for all the
 ills which flesh is  heir to.'
  " Plain people become  beauties by the obser-
 vance  of this rule ; and the lame are enabled by
it to  'rise and walk.'   'One young lady,' says
 the  captain, 'who went to  Grasfenberg  with
 scrofula in her face  and neck, so bad as to ren-
 der her quite an object;  in nine months she was 
Xll
PREFACE.
so completely recovered as to be considered the
beauty of the room."
  "Another case was that of an  officer, who, in
consequence of a wound, had his leg so wither-
ed that  it was  not thicker than his wrist.   He
shortly had the limb perfectly restored.
  "The establishment of Mr. Priessnitz is a ve-
ry irregular structure, having been  built at  dif-
ferent periods;  but it has one noble room, which
is used for meals and assemblies.  At the public
table where they sat down, about three hundred
persons, the captain took occasion to remark the
extraordinary flow of spirits which seemed  to
pervade the company ;  so different, he says, from
what any one would expect in invalids.
  " There are said to be a hundred establishments
on  the  same plan now in  Germany; and  the
number of patients who have consulted Mr. Priess-
nitz, from the commencement of his institution
in 1829, to 1841, is upwards of seven thousand." 
CONTENTS.
              CHAPTER  1.
          OF VINCENT PRIESSNITZ.
His parentage     ....
His discovery     ....
His success  .

              CHAPTER II.
              OF ALLOPATHY.
The allopathists' own opinion of their system   21
The author's opinion    ....    26

              CHAPTER III.
             OF HOMOEOPATHY.
The fundamental principle of Homceopathy   35
Homoeopathic practice  ....    36
An important discovery  ....    38
The defects of the system    .    .    .    lb.
17
18
19 
XIV
CONTENTS.
               CHAPTER  IV.
             SKETCHES  OF CURES.
 1. Chronic disease  of the liver, in  conse-
     quence of medical  treatment of He-
     patitis   ......   41
 2. Dorsal-complaints  and gout,  in  conse-
     quence of a treatment by mercury  .   43
 3. The Austrian economist   ...   47
 4. Cephalalgia  chronica      ...   48


               CHAPTER V.
   OP TnE HYDRIATRIC  METHOD OF  CURING.
§ 1.  The process in healing by water    .    52
§ 2.  Which diseases are  curable by water ?    57
 § 8.  Description of the  mode of healing
     in some acute diseases   ...    62
       a. Nervous fevers     ...    06
       6. Inflammatory diseases   .     .    68 
                  CONTENTS.               XV
§ 4.  Of the healing process inmost chro-
    nic diseases   .....    69
§ 5.  Of the methods used in epidemics and
    infectious ulcerous diseases     .     .    76
§ 6.  Explication of the  healing process in
     the treatment described in §  4.     .    82
§ 7.  The  crisis produced  by the water-
     cure and its treatment    .     .     .89
§ 8.  Advices for persons who wish to make
     use of the water-cure     ...    94
 § 9. Of the spreading of hydriatric practice,
     and its prospects    ....    96


               CHAPTER VI.

   THE BEST DIET--DIET IN DISORDERS OP THE
      STOMACH--DRESS--PASSIONS--BATH9.
The best diet     .
Diet in disorders of the stomach 
XV1
CONTENTS.
Dress  ....••■
Passions     ...•••
Baths  ...•••■

              CHAPTER VII.

              RECAPITULATION,

For such readers as read only the first and
     last pages of a new book, yet with
     the view of giving their  judgment
     upon it...... 
    VINZENZ  PRIESSNITZ:    )

                    OR,

THE  WONDERFUL  POWER OF WATER.



               CHAPTER  I.

           OF  VINCENT  PRIESSNITZ.

Vincent or Vinzenz Priessnitz, though justly
numbered  among the  most  distinguished  men
this century has  produced, is the son of a  poor
peasant who lived among the Sudites or Giants'
mountains,  in  Austrian  Silesia.   Though  ex-
cluded from the advantages of a good education,
he enjoyed  the gift  of a rich  talent, engrafted
into his mind  by the  Creator, which  led  him
involuntarily  to  the  observation  of  Nature.
Whilst he  was engaged  in attending the cattle
of his father, according to the prevailing custom,
(for the  method of protecting  the fields by
separate fences is not common in Germany), he
        o 
18
CHAPTER I.
made use of the many opportunities which his
situation offered, to  observe the instincts of his
flock, and the wild animals that  came near him.
He was  particularly  attracted by  the circum-
stance of a beautiful stag coming every morning
to a spring near  his  pasture-ground, and, after
quenching its thirst by long  draughts from  the
limpid fountain, bathing its supple limbs in the
cool water that surrounded the spring.   Once,
after  having  waited  for his  shy friend  several
days, he  saw the  animal limping, and  evidently
in a state of suffering, approach the spring and
drink more  plentifully  and  remain longer  in
the water than ever he had observed it formerly.
This  the stag  repeated for  several successive
days, until the  marks  of illness  had entirely
disappeared,  and it   had  regained  its  former
suppleness and  vigour.
  This  circumstance  excited reflexion  in  the
mind  of  the  youthful philosopher,  and induced
him to try, by way of experiment  in some of
his own  complaints, whether this method which
had  succeeded  so well  in the  case just  men-
tioned,  was applicable to  the  cure of human 
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.         19
disease.   And once, even when he was afflicted
with  a violent  pleurisy, connected  with a dan-
gerous fracture  of some of his  ribs, he rejected
all  medical  stuffs, applied only  water  in  this
way, and in  short time got well.
   Priessnitz felt it  now to be his duty to offer
this discovery  to  those  of his  poor neighbours
who were suffering under inveterate disease, and
his benevolent  efforts were crowned with  won-
derful success.  His  name  was  soon  hailed.
notwithstanding the  opposition of  the learned
world, and especially  of  the graduated physi-
cians, as that  of  a benefactor  of mankind,  al!
over  Germany;  and in  France, Russia,  and
England, his system  found  many advocates.
He turned his farm into a  formal Hydratic In-
stitute ;  and it  is now constantly  beleaguered
by  thousands of suffering  applicants,  anxiously
longing for  the dismission of a  patient, that
Ihey  might immediately fill  his place; and the
clear income of the institute amounts to upward*
of fifty thousand dollars annually.
  Chronologically, Priessnitz  is not  the first that
has cured by water;  but assuredly he  holds this 
•20
'  CHAPTER  I.
rank by the power of his  talents, the immensity
of his success,  and the  reputation and  wealth
derived from his practice.  He was born in Ger-
many in  the right  time.   The skeptical spirit,
in relation  to the  rotten  dogmas of the  old
medical systems, had risen from a long slumber,
;md the conviction was gaining ground  that  by
returning to the laws  of Nature alone our  ills
f-ould be remedied.  Not unlike our Luther,—
who by  clearing our  holy  religion from  th«
abuses by which a selfish clergy had vitiated it,
restored its  means of nourishing and healing  our
souls—stands Vincent  Priessnitz, invincibly vin-
dicating  the rights  of Nature, and offering  to
iiis fellow-men  the invaluable treasure  of  a
strong and healthful body.   Fifty  years  earlier
the genius  of Priessnitz  would have  meet with
persecution  and  condemnation; for he would,like
Luther's precursor, John  Huss, have been mis-
understood, and as  deeply  depreciated as he is
now highly  valued.  " A  genius misunderstood,
in the midst of sneering blockheads, is the highest
irony of human fate, and  the darkest picture
<A' human misery." 
21
                CHAPTER  II.

                OF ALLOPATHY.
       "Stick to my trade," said dying butcher Jolin,—
       A3 doctor acts, so acts tlie doctor's son.

The old  medical  art,  which had descended ft'
us by inheritance, has lost much of its authority
since one doctor began to call another a  " mur-
derer ;"  much since,  during the  period  of thr
Cholera   Asiatica,  this  designation  came  in
vogue;   and  still  more  from  the   epoch  of
Hahnemann's rising  as the  founder of his ho-
moeopathic  system.   Hahnemann and  his  fol-
lowers stigmatized  the allopathists  as  " homi-
cides,"  whilst  the   latter  recriminated  upon
them as  "impostors  and  dealers  in poison.'''
Each of  the  parties awarded  to  the  other the
prize of  charlatanry.   Which  of them may  be
in the  right let others decide.—I, for my part,
possessing the blessed gift of belief, cannot help
believing that both  of them  are  alike  in  the
right. 
'22
CHAPTER IT.
  Some  criticisms  of the  most  distinguished
allopathists of Europe and America, upon their
own science, may  here  find  a place;  among
fhem  there  is  not  one  from  any practitioner
of the homoeopathic school:
Dr.  Helmont,   (in Thomas.  Dissert,  de jur.
  circ.  Pharmacop. civit.  C.  III.  § 6):  "A
  murderous devil  has taken  possession of the
  professional chair  of  the  medical  sciences,
  for  who  but a  devil  is capable  of recom-
  mending venesection to the  physician as  ans
  unavoidable mean of curing."
Dr. Boerhave:  "If the benefits, which by half
  a dozen true physicians have been conferred
  on  the  inhabitants of the  earth,  since  the
  existence  of the  science, are compared  with
  the ills  caused  by the  immense   host  of
  doctors  amongst  the family  of man:   the
  thought will undoubtedly arise,  that it would
  have  proved  infinitely  more  beneficial if the
  world had remained without physicians."
Dr. Girtanner, (Ausfuehrl. Darstell. des Brown-
  schen Systems der  prakt.  Heilkunde, vol.  ii.
  page  600): In the dense  Egyptian darkness 
ALLOPATHY.
23
  wherein the physicians go groping along, not
  even the least  ray of light affords  to  them
  any  assistance in guiding their  steps.—Two
  physicians meeting  at  the  bed  of a patient
  are not seldom in  the situation of two Roman
  augurs, they finding  it difficult, when looking
  in each other's face, to stiffle  their laughter."
Dr.  A.  F.  Hecker,  (Theorien,  Systeme  und
  Heilmethoden der Aerzte,  4to edition,  1819.
  page 5):—"Yea, there is no lack of instances,
  where physicians denounced methods of healing
  and  single medicines  as  ' murderous,'  the
  salubriousness  of which  they  some  years
  before were unable to praise sufficiently."
Dr. von Wedekind,  (In Henke's Zeitschrift fuer
  die  Staats - Arzneikunde,  Jahrg. 7. Heft i.,
  pag. 5):  " Is not the best physician he, who
  least prescribes,  and  not  the indefatigable
  loafer and lozenge-monger ?"
Dr. Benjamin Rush, (Medical Inquiries, in the
  Sammlung  auserlesener  medicinischer Ab-
  handlungen, vol.  iv.  p.  2.  page 297) :  " We
  have not   only  augmented  the  number  of 
24
CHAPTER II.
  diseases, but have also rendered  them  more
  fatal."
Dr. Pfeufer, (Medicin. Conversationsblatt. 1831.
  No. 45):  " We  are  still hovering  in deep
  darkness  as to what way Nature tends  in
  chronical diseases, by opening and performing
  the process of healing."
Dr.  Choulant,  (Neue  Zeitschr.  fuer  Natur-
  und Heilkunde vol. i. H. 2, pag.  313): "The
  theory  of practical   physic  may  indeed  be
  considered as  the  true image of the Babylo-
  nian confusion of languages.—We  have built
  on  the  sand of opinions,  and the  structure
  reels like the  reed, agitated by the  wind . . .
  We form diagnoses of diseases as  they could
  be, not as they are."
Heidelberger  klinische  Annalen, vol.  v.  H. 3:
  " There  are indeed  far  more patients killed
  by physicians  than saved."
Dr. Kieser, (System der Medizin, vol. i. Preface,
  page x) :  " Each patient  ought  to be  warned
  against doctors as against the most dangerous
  poison."
Dr. Scherf:  "The  apothecaries' shops  are,  in 
ALLOPATHY.               25
  respect to the careless and unwary, but state
  hypocritical  stores of death, and  corruptors
  of health; in lieu of conservatories of life and
  means for protecting it."
Dr. Nolte : " I know very  well, that  perhaps
  seven-tenths  of the human  family have  pe-
  rished, not by  diseases but  by untimely and
  too copious medicine."
Dr. Hertz, (Rust's Magazin fuer die gesammte
  Heilkunde, vol. xxxii.  H.  2. page 313):  "A
  truly piratical   profession  is  carried  on, and
  all  the doing,  writing, and speculating, has
  for  its object  nothing but  the  emptying  of
  those purses  of which hold can be taken."
 Dr. Most,  (Encyklopadie der gesammt. med.
  und chirurg.  Praxis,  vol.  ii.  page 740): "It
  is,  alas, but too true,  that  many physicians
  verify the saying:  The medicine is  worse
  than the disease.'''1
 Ibidem :  " Of the nature and proximate  cause of
  fevers  we  know   but  little;  the   opinions
  respecting them are astonishingly various and
  ambiguous.  The  less  they  were  understood
  they more they were  criticized.   Many de- 
26
CHAPTER II.
  finitions,  originating  with  otherwise  cele-
  brated  physicians, are  nothing  but  empty
  words, by which the subject is by no means
  elucidated."
Medico-chirurgical Review, No. 6, Octob. 1825,
  page  387 : "Tetanus is  among the very many
  diseases  of which we  are  nearly  ignorant,
  both as regards  the pathology and  treatment."
   Views  congenial  to  those  expressed  by the
above  named  honourable  men are  entertained
by  many  more   respectable   physicians;  but
most  of them  feel  too great  an  aversion to
the horror of starvation, to which uprightness
might expose  them, to pay  to truth its  due
honour.   Each of  my  readers may, however,
from  these  proofs,  form  his  own  judgment,
and act  accordingly.
  My own opinion of Allopathy is the following
  The allopathic  school has little or  no efficacy
in chronic diseases, such as rheumatisms, goutv
a. s. f,  This school promises only  alleviation.
What the nature  of this alleviation  is,  I  shall
endeavour  to show  in  the sequel.  The  main
efficiency  of  tho allopathists  is restricted  to 
ALLOPATHY.
27
the  acute,  and  principally  the   inflammatory
diseases, and also to cases of infectious ulcers.
In the former cases,  their cure consists in sub-
stituting in  lieu  of  the  disease,  a  state  of
chronical debility or enervation  of the  whole
organism.   This effect is produced by  them,
partly by medicines, and  partly by  detraction
of blood in various modes.
   The process may be thus explained:—In each
attack of the acute  kind,  the still  vigorous or-
ganism is labouring, by a  law of nature, to free
itself from some destructive  agent  that has in-
truded into it.   Having become  sensible  of  its
inability to  defend   itself  against  detrimental
aggression,  in the  natural  way, it heightens,
or graduates by a fever  or an inflammation,  its
power and  activity  to  an  uncommon degree.
This  graduation  is not  "a disease" as we are
accustomed to call it, but "a tendency to health"
which,  however, may  cause  death instead  of
restoration,  if,  instead  of Water, —- to  which
the instinct of such a patient  commonly inclines
in the  most decidecT manner,—a diet contrary
to  nature is imposed  upon  the  sufferer, and 
28
CHAPTER II.
medicines  or  blood-letting is resorted  to,  for
which nature did not call.
  As soon as the  excitement of the system, by
medicines  or blood-letting, is counteracted, the
visible fury of the disease abates:  the symptoms,
—which are indeed but. the true signs  of nature
operating wholesomely,—disappear,  and either
death  ensues,  in consequence  of debility,  or,
from the same  cause, the organism  desists  from
operating  for   its own  recovery.  Thus  the
system  is reduced to  the miserable  condition
of harbouring  the sickening agents in its  in-
terior, which  by fever and inflammation it was
about  ejecting.   The  chronical  languor and
enervation [reduction of the  power]  of  the
organism is now  completed.   Not  only are  the
original  sickening agents now firmly stationed
in the  interior,  causing latent,  symptomless
debility, that  is,  the  secret  decline of vitality
without external signs;  but  this  state has been
still  more  aggravated by the additional poisoning
influence  of the  medicines administered to  the
patient.
  This is  called " healing" by the  allopathists, 
ALLOPATHY.
29
but  it is indeed  " destroying,''''  it  is " slowly
murdering."
  The great error of this  school  may be traced
to their false notions of the nature and cause of
diseases;  and in supposing  fever  and inflamma-
tion  to be diseases, instead  of what  they  really
are—symptoms or means essentially necessary
in every real  cure.    The  Hydratic  school
believes them to be the agents by which foetid
sweats, critical evacuations, cutaneous eruptions,
and  ulcers are  produced, and  which will remove
the injurious materials from the system.  There
is no  cure possible  without those sensibly  per-
ceptible  removals of the sickening cause;  and
when performed by water-physicians will always
be observed  in every disease. This, in addition
to the evidence it affords of the reality of the
cure, furnishes at the same  time a proof that the
cause  of  all maladies are  really material  sub-
stances, of which afterwards.   If  such secretions
at the close of an acute disease  are missed, it
proves that  the body is not cured, but delivered
to chronical languor.
   Such is the nature  of the allopathic  method 
30
CHAPTER  II.
of healing acute diseases ;  for  to  heal, according
to the old system,  was " to cure by producing
such symptoms  as are opposed  to those of the
existing  disease."  This  is the  mighty error!
But another  inconsistency is added  to this pri-
mary  one, viz.:   Allopathy uses long ago  ho-
moeopathic means, such,  for  instance, as  ara
recommended in alternating fevers, in  veneroui
maladies, &c.  Indeed all  the remedies whioh
Allopathy uses to  call  "specific ones," and  of
whose  efficacy she prides  herself most, are  of
a purely homoeopathic character,  that is : " they
produce   symptoms similar  to  those  of  the
treated disease."
  Yet, alas!  even these remedies were pernicious
in the  hands of allopathists, since they  made
too free and  copious  a use of them.  This  has
probably led  Hahnemann  to its opposite extreme,
which  is ridiculous  rather  than  dangerous.
Against  venereal  complaints, psora (itch), Allo-
pathy  has her specific means;  but what doei
ghe effect by them?—the  old mother of sorrows'!
Either she forces back into the body  the  cause
of sickness,  in  quite a  quacklike  manner,  by 
ALLOPATHY.
31
external  plaistering, or she produces  the  same
effect more learnedly, by ordering the swallowing
of large  doses of medicinal poison to keep  the
poison of the  disease fettered  to  the  interior of
the system.  Thus rendering the  body incapable
of producing the external symptom, by depriving
it of its power of throwing out through the skin
the noxious matter by  which  the disease wa«
caused.  This effect will  indeed never be per-
fectly obtained in diseases of this kind, so  as to
arrive at  the full recovery by its own exertions;
but as long as it exerts itself  to  that  end, it ii
susceptible of being healed, but  when the  ex-
ternal symptoms have  entirely disappeared,  the
eure  has  become  impossible,  and  it require!
often a great deal of time  and  labour, to succeed
so far, with a  system abused in such  a manner,
as to enable it to produce the symptom again..
  Physicians  of weak intellectual  powers takt
it for a sure sign of a  cure of ulcers, when  t\i«
symptom, in consequence of mere doses internally
taken, disappears.   This is an  illusion:  if the
doses  are  internally applied in too large  quan-
tities and too frequently,  they will operate in a 
32               CHAPTER  II.
paralysing and  destructive  manner, depriving
the body  of its power even of  sustaining the
symptom, far less of curing  itself.   Then the
internal, yellowish  sulphuric, or grayish mercurial
reduction  of the vital power is forever established
in the  miserable body, like a standard of Death
in a decayed fortress.  Neither  Allopathy nor
Homceopathy will  afford a cure;  only Hydriatic
practice will, can,  effect  the  astonishing  reco-
very.
   Not  always  will  the  allopathic  treatment
exhibit such  horrible consequences as these now
delineated;  not indeed where  the abused  orga-
nism possesses the self-healing power in an un-
common degree; neither where the physician, im-
bued with a correct knowledge of his dangerous
art,  renders his  doses  harmless,  leaving th«
healing process mostly to the operation of nature.
I  have known a  doctor  of that kind,  whose
services were much called  for and well rewarded,
and  who yet  resorted  to  medicines,  but  only
when  he  was  convinced of their harmlessness.
This may be objected to, but it is  certainly better
than to receive payment  for positively  assisting 
ALLOPATHY.
33
Death in  his  work  of destruction.  The man
wanted  to live  and  to let  live.   Another  class
of doctors are  poisoning in  their  innocence.
A third  exist,—consisting of  a few only,—who
know what they are doing; when  they, accord-
ing  to  the rules  of their  profession,  treat  a
patient  labouring under an acute disease,  they
turn  their wages  into   life-rents; they work
knowingly, to  the end that the patient should
hold  his  life  as a fief,  until  his  death.  But,
happily, this class is small  in number,  and  its
members are met with as rarely as other things
of the truly horrible.
   One  word  more must be  added  about the
efficacy of Allopathy in chronic diseases.
   As soon as chronic complaints, mostly in the<
fall  and spring,  assume  the  acute and  alarm-
ing  character, the allopathic  physicians again
enter into  the  field,  viz.  in their  usual  manner
of alleviating pains,  that is, by striving to lull
into sleep  the renewed endeavours  of nature to
produce recovery, or by fettering the limbs of
the rebel.  These pains originate in the  stirring
of nature  out  of a state of torpid, lamentable,,
          3 
34
CHAPTER II.
resignation into a state  of insurrection against
the tyrannising malady.   Such  acute  attacks in
chronic diseases would, without  the  interference
of physicians,  if they  had not cured,  at  least
have  been beneficial, by having  ejected some-
thing of the  sickening matter from  the system.
This  alleviating process of the doctors renders,
therefore, the malady more tenacious. 
35
             CHAPTER  III,
               OF  HOMOEOPATHY.
 Father Hahnemann,—for as the father of the
 alone  true  science of  healing he  proclaims
 himself  loudly  enough—and his delicate little
 child,  Homceopathy,  promise  (quite  antitheti-
 cally to Allopathy) their best help in chronic
 diseases, whilst they, in healing of acute attacks,
 are  yet  borrowing several  articles out of the
 laboratory of their bitterest  enemy, Allopathy.
   The  fundamental principle of Homceopathy:
 ' Similia similibus curare" that is,  " to cure the
 like by the like;"  does  indeed much  honour to
 its  discoverer, and existed  centuries ago;  but
 that the decillionth atoms of Hahnemann could
 have any efficacy, is alike incredible as laughable.
 Only a really blind and  superstitious belief can
 place confidence in  a decillionth part of a drop,
sinee even the ocean contains not a decillion of
drops.
  It would  be  too  tedious to explain here' the 
36
CHAPTER III.
 whole of this  paradoxical  doctrine.  This Ho-
 moeopathy despises all anatomical, a'tiological,
 physiological knowledge 'r she exacts nothing but
 an anxious  inquiry after  symptoms, in order  to
 find by their  guidance those substances which
 are producing upon the healthful the like symp-
 toms.   The " Vis naturte conservatrix et medi-
 catrix"  is  declared to  do  nothing  at   all  m
 diseases, the ridiculously small doses, on the con-
 trary, to do all  in all.  Hahnemann pretended
 to be a  physician, without  possessing  physiolo*
 gical knowledge,  and  overlooked, therefore, by
 faking the shell for the  kernel, the empty for-
 mula for the  spirit, without even  knowing it,
 that the same organic phenomena, respecting the
form, can have a  diametrically opposite funda-
 mental character ;  and that, on the reverse, organic
 phenomena  of apparently quite different  forms
 can originate  from the same cause.   Examples
 are needless, a glance  upon the cases of oph-
 thalmia angina, diarrhoeas, &c. will suffice.  Ho-
 mceopathy is merely a symptomatic method of
 healing, and hers  is, therefore, the  fate of aH
 such, it may  perhaps remove  this  and  that 
H0MOS0FATHY.
37
symptom, the disease itself remains unbroken.
A most sad, yea, indeed,  a dreadful character
can be exhibited by this one-sightedness, caused
by  the lamentable limitation of  homoeopathic
views, when life itself is at stake.  That which
in lingering diseases,  which are  not threatening
a  fatal turn, may be allowable treatment, will
then turn  into a crime J
  Yet Homceopathy does not kill directly, though
nobody ean  reasonably  expect  efficacy from a
decillionth atom.—The harmlessness of such lilli-
putian doses  somewhat palliates the impropriety
of raising barbers, ignorant even  of the  art of
reading and writing, in the space  of about four
weeks, to doctors of Homceopathy; an indiscre-
tion of which  proofs are  at  hand.   Whoever
may yet desire to be  eiired dynamically, may at
least  certainly save his gold.  He will find his
full satisfaction by applying to  any old woman
imbued with the  noble  scienec of soothsaying
and  blowing at the  painful parts  and praying
over  them.   This can  be obtained for  a  few
ecrjts, and will have  fully  as great an  effect as
any soothing exorcism, procured   from Hahne.< 
33
CHAPTER III.
mann's  decillionth atoms, and  somewhat over-
weight by the dynamic gold.
  A wit of our acquaintance lately heard of an
improvement of Hahnemann's,  of immense  im-
portance.   It consists in a collection of fleas, to
be resorted to in cases of the utmost emergency,
as in the  glowing sirocco  of  burning  fevers,
when, all other means failing, the homceopathist
will apply one of these little animals out of the
phial in which it is  kept,  after having  shaken
the whole assembly and rendered them furious,
or elevated to the becoming dignity.  The effect
is said to be astonishing.
  We ought indeed to be thankful for  the kind-
ness of Homoeopathy in furnishing us from time
to time with something laughable.
  Though  we  are now  agreed,  that  Homoeo-
pathy, on account of its childlike harmlessness,
is preferable  to Allopathy in  many  points of
view;  we must yet place it far  below the  hy-
driatric practice in consequence of the  following
reasons:
  Firstly,  Homceopathy, — in  common  with
Allopathy,—has this very important defect,  that 
HOMCEOPATHY.
39
 its efficacy is at one and the same time limited
 upon single functions, organs,  and parts  of the
 whole organism, which causes, in both methods
 of cures, the frequency of relapses.  Whilst the
 suffering function was about  being  cured, the
 whole or some single parts of it  remained in its
■former  invalid state,  and therefrom  originated
 a disproportion in the harmony, the  restoration
 of which, attempted by nature, causes a sinking
 of that  same function below  zero,  which  had
 been raised unnaturally by art, and thus a relapse
 is prepared.
   Secondly,  It  is  all-important with the  ho-
 moeopathic  mode of curing, that the right  re-
 medy for each symptom  should  be  chosen, for
 which, of course, a skilful and thoroughly  sen-
 sible man is requisite, and even such  a one will
 and must often mistake and do harm, for  if the
 homoeopathic can do good, it can also do harm,
 because  it  is medicine?  The  hydriatrie  practi-
 tioner can indeed also err  in the application, but
 very rarely, hardly ever,  and  then his mistake
 can scarcely in any case do harm.
    Thirdly,  Homoeopathy  indeed  excites  the 
40              CHAPTER  III.
organism to heal, in consequence of its correct
fundamental principle, provided  the means  arc
judiciously chosen, (and  that they  possess any
efficacy at all); but it fails to support the system
during the process  of healing,  and  this is done
by the hydriatric practice alone.
  Fourthly, Homoeopathy has no power at all
over the cutaneous system,  whilst  the skin is,
indeed, by far the most important organ in every
cure, over which organ the  hydriatric practice
exercises the utmost control.
   In the following chapters, what has been said
here will be corroborated. 
41
               CHAPTER IV.

             SKETCHES OP CURES.

 1.  Chronic disease of the liver,  in  consequence
        of medical treatment of Hepatitis.
 An  unmarried lady,  of a tender frame, and of
 about 50 years of age, applied to the hydriatric
 method of curing for an old  and  heavy liver-
 complaint.  The disorder  had its commencement
 in an inflammation of  the liver, treated by an
 allopathist mostly  with  mercury.   Priessnitz
 ordered her into the cold water sweating-baths
 and  below the fall-  or douche-  (Sturz-)  bath.
 After a long space  of time, this crisis appeared
 with ulcers, by means of which the  mercury
 was  evidently ejected, for as soon as the ulcers
 were healed, the old suppressed  hepatitis made
 its appearance again,  and this  relapse was soon
 removed by hydriatric treatment, as the affixed
 remark will  show, so  that  the lady  left her
restorer, Priessnitz, thankfully, and with renewed
vital powers. 
42
CHAPTER IV.
  Remark.—The process in this  case may be
explained thus: A detrimental substance, lurking
in the body of the lady,  had projected  itself,
perhaps in consequence of a cold, upon the liver,
which, in consequence of an energetic endeavour
to cast it  off,  had become inflamed.   The doc-
tor  now  entered upon the field  with antiphlo-
gistic mercury, and paralysed the struggle, the
instilled poison having deprived the  body of its
power—thus  inducing, from that  moment, the
chronic complaint.   As  soon as,  through the
water-cure, the medical  poison was driven out
of the body by means of the ulcers, the organism
strengthened itself  again to a renewed struggle
against the old inimical  matter, which was still
fettered to the liver.   The former  inflammation
returned, and  immediately after  it,  under the
beneficial care of the water-physician, Priessnitz,
the most complete restoration.  Such is the effi-
cacy  of all the antiphlogistic substances, be they
called medicine, leeches, venesection, &c.—they
remove the  acute  malady by  debilitating  the
organism, and will either  kill  in this way  or
introduce  chronic  languor.  From thence ori- 
SKETCHES OF CURES.
43
ginate the heavy sufferings,  which follow at the
heels of the allopathic treatment  of inflamma-
tions.  The doctors  will try, no doubt, to  per-
suade  themselves and their patients  that  this
was an  inseparable consequence  of the  disease.
Let every fever, every inflammation, be treated
with  cold  water, and  every trace  of them will
disappear in a few days.

2. Dorsal-complaints  and Gout, in consequence
           of a treatment by mercury.
   An  officer  of the Austrian army, about  fifty
years old, but of a strong  constitution, and  still
vigorous cutaneous system, was  driven,  by  gout
and  desperate  pains in the  back,  to Priessnitz,
after having in vain consulted  many celebrated
physicians.
   " Well," said the shrewd but unsophisticated
physician, "you have got a good deal  of  mer-
cury  into your body?"—"Yes,"  was"the answer
—"but  this  was  thirty  years ago,   and my
sufferings, which are increasing  every year, did
not begin till long after that treatment.  With
the mercury you can  of course  have nothing to 
44
CHAPTER IV.
do."—A sarcastic smile, peculiar to Pricssnilz's
face spread itself over  his  features, whilst he
answered: " You will live to judge otherwise, you
will see  the  venereal  ulcor reappear,  and this
exactly  at the  same  place  from which  it had
been driven inwardly by your doctor."
  It lasted five  months  before  the crisis took
place, which  had however been preceded by a
considerable  relief from pains  and  invigoration
of  the  organism.    In the sixth  month,  there
appeared the bathing-rash; and  after its healing,
in the seventh month, furuncles  and  little ulcers
amounting to  a hundred  and sixty in  number.
This was one of the  most horrible and dangerous
crises which  had  ever  been witnessed in  the
Graefenberg.  When it was over, the patient felt
very well, was possessed of an excellent appetite,
Lecime fleshy, and believed himself to  be radi-
cally cured.
  " Well, we will wait anyhow for what may
follow!" said father  Priessnitz, and ordered him
again under the " Sturzbad" (fall-bath).  Three
weeks afterwards the  alarm-drum  was  beaten
again in the body of the patient—a new crisis— 
SKETCHES  OF CURES.
45
again from sixty to seventy ulcers.  Then fol-
lowed a  rest  of some  weeks, and  then  some
twenty ulcers more, and, for the last time, about
a dozen made their appearance.  The  mercury
having been thus expelled, the  venereal ulcer did
indeed come forth, but in the lapse of two weeks
the remainder of the poison was driven away by
sweat  and  bathing—without  mercury  or any
other medicine whatever.
   "Now, sir,"  asserted Priessnitz,  "you  may
consider yourself cured!"
   I  need not add, that the pains in the back
and the gout were  removed forever, and that the
officer went down from the Graefenberg merrily,
and like a new born being to  his home, where
his friends  could  scarcely  recognise  him on
account of the total change which his exterior
had undergone, from that  of a pale  invalid into
a blooming and vigorous man.
   This is a specimen of the wonders of Priess-
nitz, but only one among a thousand of  his cures
from  the  effects  of mercury and  suppressed
venereal  diseases.
   The experience  at the Grafenberg has incon- 
46
CHAPTER  IV.
trovertiblv established the fact, that a  mercurial
poisoning can only be cured by water.
  Remark.—It  is  indeed  very probable, that
syphilis never has been really cured by medical
treatment, though  both physician and patient
believe it, and even  should  all syphilitic  symp-
toms forever disappear.  This poison is by mer-
cury  only surrounded,  and  together  with  the
vehicle kept bound in the body.   Nearly all for-
mer syphilitic persons, who had  at the Grajfen-
berg  gone  successfully through  another cure,
have, to their surprise, finally regained the long-
forgotten  syphilitic  symptom.   Whoever,  in
any period of his former  life, has used mer-
cury, (as  nearly  every one  has done, who has
been treated by an allopathist) he may with
certainty reckon, in case of any subsequent disease,
that mercury will  play a  principal part in it, or
even the only, though a  latent  one.   Frequent
instances  prove this fact,  as  for example the
following:

  3.  An  Austrian  economist,  aged about forty
years, of a very powerful  constitution,  came with 
SKETCHES OF CURES.
47
a leg stiff at the knee, and crippling along to the
institute at Grcefenberg.  He attributed the cause
solely to a fall with his  horse,  which had  hap-
pened nine years before, having  forgotten that
nine years  previous to the fall, and consequently
eighteen years before he  came  to Priessnitz,
he had  undergone a  very easy, and, as he be-
lieved, successful cure by mercury.  In the third
week of the water-cure  a small eruption on the
stiff knee became visible, then large  furuncles
—look there, the mercury.  In the fifth week
he could inflect  the leg at the knee, and in the
seventh he went to his home, (indeed too early,
but  called  away by business), to finish  there the
water-cure as well as he could.
  Remark.—Priessnitz has  found, from  the ex-
perience of many individuals, that mercury can
lie  for  many years  inactive in the  organism,
apparently in a state  of sleep.  But it  is then
only lurking like a  snake;  and as soon  as a
disease  overcomes the body,  it will assuredly
creep out of its  ambush, in order  to  exert  its
malignant influence in the work of destruction.
In no disease is the crisis more violent and pain- 
48
CHAPTER IV.
 ful by ulcers than in mercurial complaints, there-
 fore in no case is the special attention of a  skil-
 ful water-physician more required than in  such
 instances.   For persons who cannot obtain  such
 assistance, the notice may be beneficial, that the
 cure consists in a cold fall-bath ("Sturzbad"), cold
 sweating  and sitting baths.   They may further
 be admonished  not to be frightened when  they
 see, after being freed of the mercury, the ori-
 ginal poison, which they considered as removed,
 reawakened  in  the  external symptom.  They
 may employ local  warming, cataplasms of cold
 water, and may continue sweating and bathing,
 until the loathsome enemy take his leave forever.

 4, Cephalalgia chronica, arthritide complicata.

  A middle-aged merchant from Bohemia Visited
 Priessnitz, expecting to be relieved by him from
a  most  painful  cephalalgia  of  long standing.
 Whilst the cure was going on, relief was  indeed
soon imparted  to  the patient, but  suddenly the
disorder returned with  increased  fury—a fever
 joined the pains, and one evening it was reported 
SKETCHES OF CURES.
40
to Priessnitz  that  his cephalalgic  patient was
raging in the most horrible manner, that he was
destroying the windows of his room, and threat-
ening to murder his wife.
   " Very  good,  indeed,"  remarked Priessnitz,
" now his cure is certain !"
   A  doctor, who  was  present,  thought  that
Priessnitz  himself had suddenly fallen into ,a
state of delirium, and  asked, with astonishment,
how this could be taken for a sign of approach-
ing recovery ?
   " Because," replied Priessnitz, " an ulcer is
forming  in the  patient's  head, which will dis-
charge itself,  and  all the  mischievous matter,
through  the ears."
   The doctor's mouth expanded still more, not
for the purpose of uttering something wise, but
on account of his utter loss to comprehend how
this could be possible.
   What Priessnitz had  predicted was  literally
fulfilled.   He  has repeatedly  observed, that in
aggravated rheumatic headache  and  affections
of the eyes, ulcers are forming in the interior of
the head, which will  flow out through  the  ears.
          4 
50
CHAPTER IV.
The patient had  once laboured under cepha-
litis, which  had been treated according to allo-
pathic principles, that  is  turned into chronic
misery. 
51
               CHAPTER  V.
   OF THE HYDRIATRIC METHOD OF  CURING.
Returning from a  digression in which I have
laid  before  my  readers  some  few sketches of
cures, out of those thousands which have excited
the surprise and the  astonishment  of the world,
I shall now pursue the plan I  have laid down for
my little book, and,  having given  an outline of
my opinions about Allopathy  and Homceopathy,
will now give a  short account of the  hydriatric
method of healing.
  The Hydriatric is  that mode of curing, which,
by  the  application of  the  coldest  water  alone,
(without the help of  ice or  any artificial means),
entirely ejects all material  causes  of disorders,
under  whatever form they  may  appear,  from
every part of the human organism.
  Wherever,  in  the sequel  of this  book, the
word  " water"  is used, the freshest and purest
is always understood. 
52
CHAPTER V.
                     § I-
        The process in healing by icater.
  It is an incorrect  designation to call  water.
as many have done, a universal medicine.   Wa-
ter  is no medicine at  all.   Pure  cold water has
not the least medicinal particle in it.   But  truly
may pure  water be  called  a genuine panacea
for  all  diseases, in  every   degree,  that  are
curable.
  New the question arises:   By what virtue of
the water is this astonishing effect produced, not
being itself a medicine ?   Our answer  is, by  its
solving, cleansing and destroying power.  The
healing power of water emanates from its strong
tendency to dissolve,  which exercises a constant
operation  in  destroying  all  organic life,  by
resolving it into its elementary parts.
  The process may be thus described.   Water
has the  power of extracting and separating he-
terogeneous ingredients out of their combinations.
This power it  exercises upon animals,  plants,
and their  cducts.  The  human body receives
daily, hourly, foreign  matter, which  must  leave
it again, and this mostly  by escaping out of the 
     'I11E  IIVDRlATfir-: METHOD OF CURINtt.  53

millions of openings and little doors  of the skin,
called the pores (^pori).  If this  necessary pro-
cess is either interrupted for some time, or goinc;
on imperfectly, disease must follow.   Water, by
its apparently inimical process of dissolving-, pro-
motes this operation:  viz. when it surrounds the
skin, it operates on it  by sucking, and  displays u
tendency  to resolve   the  whole  body into it.s
elementary ingredients.    The  body resists—
reacts against  it, and permits itself only  to be
deprived  of that which is foreign to  it, and
makes  it  sick.  If the body is  kept too  long
under the water,  it  must  give  up even  that
which belongs  to it;   and is weakened by this
privation.  It may be seen from  this, that  with-
out the superintendence of a  water-physician, a
too abundant use of water can become injurious
to health.  Consequently,  the  water does  not
operate at all  as a  medicine, but  only by its
power of  destroying every substance inimical t
life, in which operation it is successful—and hero
the process ought to stop.
  But whence originates that  instinctive  feeling
of human nature against a very cold bath?  N;\- 
54
CHAPTER  V.
ture teaches us  peculiarly, by the observation
of the untamed  animals, that we may  place
much reliance upon instinct:  and, forsooth, may
the advice be  given  to  every one to follow the
instinct  of  the  palate?  It appears,  therefore,
necessary to explain the  existing error of the
instinct against the ice cold bath.
   Man has, indeed, neither in  the state of per-
fect health nor in a  case  of acute disease, an in-
stinctive aversion against a cold bath.  The sick,
in  the acute  heat  of fever  and inflammation,
longs for it with  vehemence, and it is  only when
he is poisoned and  degraded by  medical treat-
ment to a  state of chronical  languor that he
shudders at the  touch of cold water.   Every
enervated individual participates  in the feeling
for the very same reason;  because the neglect
of strengthening the body produces enervation,
ruins the health,  and spoils the instinct.
   Thus  the main cause of the  healing power of
water is explained.  Another  restoring quality
possessed by water is its coldness, for which reason
the water-physician can use no other than very
cold water.  By entering into the cold  bath, the 
    TnE HYDRIATRIC METHOD  OF CURING.   55

fluid lying immediately under the skin is indeed,
in consequence of the resolving power and cold-
ness of the water, secerned and removed from the
body;  but the more deeply situated masses  of
sap and blood are affected, only in consequence
of the mechanical pressure  and  coldness, not by
ihe power of the water, and are  consequently
rushing into the interior parts of the body.  But
when the succeeding increase of temperature takes
place, caused by a lively motion or rubbing of the
whole  body,  the repressed mass of blood and
fluid  returns  with doubled force  back  to  the
skin,   carrying  with  it   from   the   interior
new diseased materials.   During the  reaction,
the skin steams and labours, partly in  order to
reject the matter thus brought to it; partly,  by
the struggle, to regain  the  disturbed normal
state.   In entering into the next cold bath, there
will consequently be below the skin a new mass
of  matter  to be secerned  from the organism,
and sucked  off by the water.   The  struggles of
reaction begin anew; new impurities are driven
out  of the interior to the skin:  and thus the
process of purification daily goes forward. 
56
CHAPTER V.
  Many  other  of the  restoring powers  of cold
water, which are  generally  known,  arc  here
omitted,  for  instance  its consisting  of the two
life-supporting  elements (viz.  oxygen and hy-
drogen); further its quality of opening the  pores
of the skin, its detergent properties,  &c.
  From the description here given, the following
two points result:
  1. That  this process, for the cause of health,
must be observed, and, if observed,
  2. That health is  advancing, though slowly
yet surely.
  Remark.—Priessnitz has, indeed, by his bril-
liant and penetrating sagacity, discovered, from
time to time, many means by which the  cures
by  water  are  rendered  more rapid and less
dangerous.
  The result of this whole section is  therefore
the following:
  "Water  cures  the organism of no disease, but
it forces the organism to  cure itself."
  Thousands  of years  ago  the human family
were looking out for the  true method of  healing
from  the  shop  of the  apothecary,  yet  never 
    THE HYDRIATRIC  METHOD OF  CURING.  57

turned their eyes towards the place where it was
really deposited.  The race may be  compared
to a  distracted  man seeking for his hat, which
was already on his head.  Man carries the whole
materia medica under his skin, and the key to
it is—water.

                     § 2.
     Which diseases are curable by water ?
  To  ennumerate  them  singly,  and  by  their
names,  would  be  a tedious and useless under-
taking, serving only to extend the limits of this
little  book  farther  than  necessary;  therefore
I shall prefer naming  those diseases which can-
not be  cured  by the use  of cold water, this
requiring only a few words.
  Incurable, for the  water-physician,  are all
chronic diseases of the lungs, that have already
made too destructive an inroad  on this organ.
Incurable are further all organic faults and all
diseases of  such persons as are deprived either
of a cutaneous system susceptible of operating in
behalf of the cure, or  of a  sufficient  degree of
vital  power.  Yet  Priessnitz  has  already per- 
58
CHAPTER  V.
fectly  restored  many  patients who  had" "been
declared by the most celebrated  doctors to be
absolutely incurable on account of their deficient
vital power.—That malady, which  could perti-
naciously resist  a continued  water-treatment,
must be rooted indeed very deeply in an entirely
bankrupt organism.
  The healing of all acute diseases to Priessnitz
is but  play.   He  has,  for  instance,  treated
nervous fevers and  inflammatory  attacks in all
their degrees and " stadia;"  and of such patients
he has not lost one among a thousand by death.
On the contrary, the  most radical cure  has al-
ways been performed in a  few  days, and  this
without subsequent sufferings.  How lamentably
reverse is the fate of such unfortunate people as
have  been  treated  (or  rather   ill-treated) by
medicine-physicians !  — It is,  for instance,   ge-
nerally said,  that  nervous fever  always leaves
behind it suffering, lasting  often for life;—but
nervous fever, if left to  itself will  not do  this,
and it is only  nervous fever when  suppressed by
medical  poison, often  these poisons  alone  that 
    THE HYDRIATRIC  METHOD OF CURING.  59

does it.  The same can be  said of most  of the
acute diseases.
  Water has further the most decided and rapid
efficacy in open  wounds, and  all disorders,  the
seat of which is  on  the surface of the  body.
Water supplants all the  horrid  art  of cutting,
burning,  extirpating and  skinning on  the flesh
and  bones  of man—the butchering  art  of the
surgical operator.
  Amongst  the chronic  diseases   curable  by
water, mercurial languor, in its infinitely varie-
gated forms, stands at  their head.  It is admitted
that half of the  patients at Groefenberg came to
reject  this metal.  The Gra fenberg is truly a
mine of quicksilver,  renting to its proprietor
more than  many a gold mine, though  the mer-
cury is here ejected in infinitely small invisible
particles out of the bodies of the patients.  This
is the only thing which might render the prac-
tice of the water-physician disgusting, that he
has eternally to  drive out  the demon of mercury
from the bodies  of those poisoned by  it.
  All gout and rheumatism, with certainty, may
be cured by water.  The  piles and  disorders of 
60
CHAPTER  V.
the belly, of  all kinds;  scrofulous complaints,
rhachitis, white swelling,   itch  and  venereal
maladies; and besides the above named, a host
of other sufferings,  originating from stagnant,
sharp and putrid fluids of the body, together with
the disorders emanating from medical poisonings,
which can admit  as many forms  as  there are
learned names of diseases.
  Special mention  may be  made  here  of the
general corruption and disturbance of the nerves.
But he, in whose dorsal  medulla  the bankrupt
has already established itself, is not to be cured;
nor will any  one  derive that benefit  from  it,
who,  in consequence  of mercurial  poisoning, is
long  ago perfectly  paralysed; neither  can it
afford help in  cases  of  deformity, crooked  legs,
or stupidity.   Such unhappy beings have indeed
sometimes repaired to Groefenberg as a sanctuary
of graces and wonders, but  they have had  in?
mediately to retrace their steps, with  the sen
fence of incurability.  Priessnitz  likewise  dis>
misses every individual labouring under a total
privation of the vital power  of the organism, lost 
     THE  HYDRIATRIC METHOD  OF CURING.   61

 in  too  protracted  a struggle  with the chronic
 demon.
   The neighbouring doctors have frequently sent
 such  bankrupt patients  to  Priessnitz,  with the
 secret intention  of putting  their  death to his
 account,  but  such  insidious fellows  found their
 master  in Priessnitz, who surpassed  in cunning
 the most crafty of  them.   He sent these unfor-
 tunate beings without  delay back to them who
 had intended to trouble him with them.  In some
 instances, Priessnitz even received such patients,
 when he saw any possibility of their  restoration,
 and dismissed them  sound and whole, which was
 still more mortifying to those who had employed
 them to annoy him.
   Such malicious doctors were  unconscientious
enough, in order to have a pretext for pretending
that Priessnitz had sacrificed a man to his water-
system, to disturb the  quiet of  the last days of
a dying  fellow-being,  to  cause  heavy  expenses
to the family of the candidate for death, and  to
deceive the sufferer, by exciting  in him a hope
of restoration, only with a view of hurting Priess-
nitz by their  venom. 
62
CHAPTER  V.
   This remarkable man, in judging of the state
of  a patient  and the  probability of the  cure,
looks only at his dress—(this he uses to call the
skin of the supplicant for help)—and at his eyes.
By the former, he  learns whether  the skin is
still possessed of the  energy  requisite to  the
healing  process; by  the  latter, whether  the
patient  is in  general still  enjoying some vital
power.   The  condition of the  patient's  pulse,
tongue, &c. is of no moment to him.  To  the
physician operating by medicines, an abnormal
state of the pulse can cause considerable anxiety,
but how could  the  water-physician be  troubled
by it, since he possesses  an infallible means of
directly  removing the  most  violent fever,  pro-
vided the skin  be not untractable, but still in a
state of vigour and activity.

                     § 3.
Description of the mode of healing  adopted by
        Priessnitz in some acute diseases.
  It is not the  intention of the author of this
book to give  formal instruction respecting  the
treatment of single  diseases by water,  his  aim 
    THE HYDRIATRIC METHOD OF CURING.   63

being much more to convince the reader of the
excellency  of the water-practice in general, in
order to procure for  it in America what it has
already obtained in Europe,  adherents  for the
promotion of the welfare of the suffering part of
the human race, who will then feel inclined to
acquire a  special knowledge  of the particulars
respecting  such cures by viewing  the  processes
themselves.  But the treatment of some diseases
will be briefly  laid before the reader, in order
to render, by those examples, the nature of the
whole method conspicuous.
   Priessnitz, the founder of this  great  healing
system, has formed, for  himself, his own views
about the  causes  of diseases, which,  in a few
words, will be  prefixed to  a  description of his
healing method, for the better understanding of
the same.
   These  views  coincide  with  those  of many
former physicians.   They are  truly material,
entirely, grossly material,  but  in this material
world they are permitted, and  may  be so by
right, provided the healing power, considered as
something superior to matter, is not denied. 
64
CHAPTER  V.
   Priessnitz asserts, " that  the  cause of every
disease is a material substance, which must be
thrown out from the body."   Homceopathy, on
the  contrary, introduces  into  her nosology  a
kind  of spirituality, which, in matters of such
a palpable nature, appears not to be in its right
place;  whilst Allopathy  decides  nothing about
this question.   Homceopathy speaks  of dishar-
monies in the  nerves  themselves,   or  single
functions—of dynamical rather than mechanical
and chemical causes of diseases, and that school
has evidently been  led by the theoretical error
of  this spirituality,  or  semblance  to immate-
riality, into  the practical  nonsense  of the ridi-
culous decillionth  parts.    How arrogant  and
contradictory to daily experience  is the exclusion
and  the  disrespect shown to the  " autonomia
and  autokratia"  of nature, or her  independent
healing power!   And this is  the foundation of
all healing operations.  It supports them, guides
them, modifies them, yea produces them, often
quite alone.   This healing power of nature,  this
self-restoration, which is so gloriously displayed
in water-cures;  that mighty process,  which is 
    THE HYDRIATRIC METHOD OF  CURING.  65

understood by  the  word  Crisis,  and for which
even  the  most  selfish  allopathists  entertain the
most  profound respect,  is  entirely  awanting  in
Homceopathy,  and this  is  a defect  alike incon-
ceivable and pernicious.  Hahnemann is undoubt-
edly a master in the science of Pharmacy, and
has gained imperishable laurels by his treatise on
poisoning by arsenic,  (though immediately after
him this  doctrine  has become considerably im-
proved).  His name will also last by the produc-
tion of his  so-called  " soluble  quicksilver;" but
he ruins his well-earned reputation by his quack-
like  wandering  from  his   limits  into  regions
wherein he  is an utter stranger.
   That the views  of Priessnitz are correct can
be  demonstrated in every institute that heals by
water, for the furuncles will be  plainly visible;
but not only the  sight  and touch, but also the
sense of  smelling, even  that  of tasting, if found
desirable, would make the skeptical sure that all
the causes  of  diseases are  material  causes, not
belonging to  the  body but  inimical  to  it;  and
that they cast themselves upon the skin in order
to be ejected from  it.   It could also be demon-
         5 
66
CHAPTER  V.
strated, that by a long and  radical water-cure a
complete renovation of the whole  mass  of sap,
blood, and flesh of the body is undergone.
  Here I remark once for all,  that  the water-
curer  " never tcill employ  any other  means  but
pure cold water, not even in cases where vomiting
and purging  are desirable, both  of  which  are
effected by draughts and clysters of cold water."
   In acute diseases, the tendency of the cure is
directly  to remove  the  causes  of the  disease,
either by purging and vomiting (in gastric com-
plaints), or commonly by bathing  and sweating.
In chronic diseases, on the contrary,  the aim is
to turn them  into acute attacks,—for these  are
the crises of the water-cure,—by which the heal-
ing is easily and successfully obtained.
   a. Nervous fevers.
   For a nervous fever, such an organism only is
susceptible, as is  not yet labouring under  a de-
cayed nervous system.  Real  impotency of that
system has been, by  water, so far  removed that
it could afford  the  susceptibility  for  a  nervous
fever, which  was then very easily cured.   The
healing method is the following : 
     THE HYDRIATRIC METHOD  OF CURING.  67
  The patient labouring under this fever is put,
(as has already been successfully done, by Gianini,
in Padua,) whilst in the state of  the utmost heat
and the most raging paroxysm,  into a bath as
cold  as  possible, and  left  therein until  he  is
cooled to the very chattering of the teeth.   Then
the patient is taken out  of the bath, and power-
fully rubbed  all  over with woollen cloths, after
which he is swaddled into warm coverings and
overlaid with  beds.   If the  heat returns during
the  following increase  of warmth  of the  body,
the  process  is  repeated, until  by  bathing and
rubbing a  great activity of the skin—a real
cutaneous fever—has been excited, which  takes
the fury of the fever away from  the nerves upon
itself.  Then sweating  is necessary, in order  to
eject the noxious matter, which has now been
brought below  the skin. To   excite  sweating
would be  often very difficult, if Priessnitz had
not discovered an expedient, which is at the same
time the most efficacious and harmless  of  all su-
doriferous  means.   A  linen  cloth, after having
been laid in cold water,  is wrung out very care-
fully, and  is then  laid closely round  the  naked 
68
CHAPTER V.
body.   Over  this  cloth, beds  are plaecd  in
sufficient quantity over the patient to warm  him
thoroughly.  After the space of half an hour the
patient is taken  out, and put under the former
process of sweating by means of beds.
  Here as  ever, without  exception, the patient
drinks nothing but cold water, and as much of it
as he desires, provided that  he, when well,  was
not entirely alienated from  its  use.   In  what
manner the healing  results  in consequence  of
that treatment, is clear in  itself, but it  must still
be remarked, for the benefit  of those averse  to
cold bathing, that such baths are  not detrimental
to the most heated bodies, provided their high
temperature is not caused by spontaneous motions
operating on  the  respiration,—of  which more
below.
  b. Inflammatory diseases.
  Quite similar  to the foregoing is the treatment
in inflammations,  only that, according to the
circumstances, cooling local  cataplasms of  cold
water may  become  necessary.  The aim of the
cure is the  same, viz.  to  take  out  the heat by
means of  the cold baths, to effect  by the  sub- 
     TnE HYDRIATRIC METHOD OF CURING.   69

 sequent rubbing a great activity of the skin and
 reaction, and finally by sweating to cast out the
 sickening matters
   The learned mother of quacks, Allopathy, m
 this takes butchers for patterns, and orders blood-
 letting—a  detestable expedient,  which can in-
 deed save from a hot death (but never so  surely
 as cold water), but which paralyses the organism
 to such  a degree that it resigns, from weakness,
 the  effort to  heal.  And  this Allopathy calls
 healing.  The letting of blood  might find excuse
 where cold water could not be  had; but cold
 water  takes the life-endangering  heat  out of
 the  inflammed body much  more rapidly than
 venesection,—and rapidly this must be done, since
 here death steps in rapidly.
   How Homceopathy can expect any result from
 decillionth parts  in  such a terrible heat  of in-
 flammation—is inconceivable.

                     M-
 Of the healing process in most chronic diseases-
   Debility  is  not a  malady,  but something
worse, therefore  the effect of water  is slower 
70               CHAPTER  V.
than in other cases.  Its  application for  it is
very simple:  baths  of short  duration  in  large
bathing vessels;  long-lasting  local baths,  when
feet, arms, &c. are  exposed to the water; and
water-cataplasms.  The method of cure in most
chronical diseases  is the following:
  The patient, who is not yet used to cold baths,
must by ablutions and half-baths in lukewarm
water—the temperature of which must yet  never
rise above 14 degrees of Reaumur (64 Fahren-
heit)—be prepared for the  cold bath,—the tem-
perature of which must never amount to more
than 10 degrees—the  colder the better.   After
the  lapse  of this  time of preparation,   every
morning at four o'clock a menial of the institute
will appear, and enclose the naked patient care-
fully, like a precious jewel, in the woollen sweat-
ing-cloths, over which beds are laid thickly and
firmly.  It is  advisable to drink  previously  a
glass of cold water,  since the  refreshing draught
cannot be  enjoyed  till  the coming forth  of the
sweat___One or two hours  afterwards, when heat
and restlesness announce the approaching  sweat,
the limb3 are to be  put  in  motion  below the 
    THE HYDRIATRIC  METHOD OF CURING.   71

covering, by rubbing the legs together, and the
arms  against  the body.  When  the sweat  is
breaking out, cold water is to be drunk: a glass
after each quarter of an hour, and care is to be
taken  for  the admission of fresh  air  by the
opening of the windows.—The body, having thus
bedewed  itself richly, is now qualified  for the
cold bath.   Nobody is permitted to sweat for  a
longer  time than two hours: and  in going  to
the  bath every one is  warned against cooling his
body; whilst, on  the  contrary, the naked limbs
may,  in  returning  from the bath,  be exposed
leisurely  to snow  and rain.—In the bath,  the
patient must  not remain  above  five minutes,
several of them not one minute, and it is advisable
 to romp and toss about while in it.   The patient
 having dressed himself at the open window, takes
a walk, and  does not appear at the  breakfast
table till half an hour  after  the bath.
   The sound  sweat may be easily distinguished
  from that which results from fever  and debility;
  the latter being  discernable from the former by
 causing the skin to become immediately dry  as
 soon  as  it is exposed to the cold  air-.   These 
72
CHAPTER V.
unwholesome sweats must first be removed, be-
fore the patient begins the  afore-described cure.
The most efficacious means against these debili-
tant morbid sweats are cold baths, to be taken in
the very eruption  of them, though even  in  the
midst  of  the  night. —  " Ice-cold  baths!  in
sweat!!—how senseless!!!"—this may  be the
prevailing thought of many readers of this book,
whilst shuddering involuntarily.    But  several
thousands of experiments, many  of them fur-
nished  by very weak patients, have  placed  it
beyond all doubt that the cold bath is most  sa-
lubrious when taken whilst the skin was steam-
ing;  only provided,  that  the  perspiration was
not produced by  motion exciting the whole orga-
nism, but in  a state of rest under warm coverings.
—To an individual sweating by violent exercise
a cold bath can cause instant death.
  The reason, why in all diseases  the  cold bath
is to be taken whilst the skin is sweating, is self-
evident from  the preceding  remarks. — The
healthy may bathe even whilst the skin is not
inclined towards sweating, but they should  never
whilst shuddering with  cold.   How  rotten arc 
    THE HYDRIATRIC METHOD OF CURING.  73

the fruits which the learning of men produces !
All the great and little doctors,  charlatans  and
quacks, have not been able to find out this first
rule of bathing,  far  less to establish the whole
glorious system for which  we are now indebted
to a farmer!
   To  the  inhabitant  of the northern regions,
cold sweating-baths are, as a mean  of healing,
most  beneficial.  This is  seen in the  examples
of  the Russians, the northern Indians, and the
Esquimaux, who proverbially owe their  health
to sweating-baths.  Yet  their process  must not
be compared with that of Priessnitz, since  they
force  the  body by external heat  to  the  utmost
stretch of transpiration, which requires at least a
Russian constitution,  whilst Priessnitz restores
even the weakest by a careful calculation of the
degree  in which the  power of water is to be
applied.
   Let us now  return to the proper subject of this
section.
   After having thus bathed for eight  or fourteen
days,  the  falling- (Sturz)   baths  are combined
with the former. This kind of falling-baths are, 
74
CHAPTER V.
at Grsefenberg, of a  very coarse  description.
The  Sophia, this is the name of the most power-
ful of them, is twenty feet high, and her ray of
water is four inches in diameter.  Nearly all
the visiters of the institute are desirous of parti-
cipating in its benefits, and the awaiting of their
turns is truly tedious.   The water is  very cold.
In using it, precaution is peculiarly needful that
neither  head  nor stomach are  exposed to  the
falling  ray (quite  in  conformity  with  some
celebrated Italian baths, where  the  exposure of
the head has often resulted in immediate death).
These baths last only from five to  twenty mi-
nutes, and  they  are   generally taken before
dinner.   Two or three hours  after it, according
to circumstances, either another sweating takes
place, or a sitting or foot-bath.   In the  evening,
before retiring to rest, either  a  foot or general
bath is  to be taken,  the latter without  a previous
sweating process.
   From the enumeration  of  the daily  bath,  it
may be concluded that the whole  day  is con-
sumed  in  operations  belonging  to  the cure.
There  is no  time  to  be spared  for  pleasure- 
    THE HYDRIATRIC METHOD OF CURING.   75

parties, nor   for  indulging  in  hypochondriac
thoughts; but the cure must be carried on in
such a  forcible way only under the superinten-
dence of a fully competent water-physician, and
by patients enjoying powerful constitutions. Who-
ever would wish to try it at  home, ought  first
to consult a water-physician,  and to bathe sel-
domer.
   In general,  the water-cure is  not to be  per-
formed  hurriedly.   Its  progress  varies consi-
derably as to  time,  but it always  lasts longer
than many people  are  here inclined to expect,
that is in chronic diseases of considerable stand-
ing, of which  alone we  now speak.  Middle-aged
persons may  easily  spend half  a year in the
perfect  restoration from old,  deeply rooted di-
sease;  and with  older  and weaker individuals
even a year may sometimes elapse  before the end
is attained.  Yea,  some cases  have happened,
where patients of an entirely disordered consti-
tution have had  to devote  more than  one  year
to  their  restoration.   But still  more  time  is
required for the cure,  when a patient wishes to
cure himself,  whilst engaged in following the 
76
CHAPTER V.
duties of his vocation,  than under  the super-
intendance of a skilful water-physician.

                     § 5.
Of the method used in Epidemics and infectious
              ulcerous diseases.
  a. Epidemics*
  It is an easy thing to ascertain  the  cause of
those epidemics  which  occur after a sudden
change in the temperature (colds and their con-
sequences) ;  or  after too severe labours in hot
seasons (gastric diseases after harvest);  or  after
the retreat of the water in swampy places (putrid
fevers); but whence are derived the new horrors,
cholera and influenza?—Where have they  been
generated?—Different opinions  have been  pro-
mulgated, which  we will pass over  in  silence.
The most probable supposition  is that of their
having been produced  by innumerable  and in-
visible animalculse filling the air. For if a chro-
nical corruption of the air itself were the cause,
either the lungs would  suffer, or the epidemics
would take upon them the character of putrid
fever, or  would  at  least always be connected 
     THE HYDRIATRIC METHOD  OF CURING.   77

with fever.   In cholera, the stomach is  the seat
of the evil,  probably because  the  innumerable
animalcules,  being invisible to the naked eye,
can  enter  therein together with the  nourish-
ment,  in  large numbers.   By  respiration they
cannot get admittance to  the lungs,  the wind-
pipe allowing no  passage  to any thing living,
but only to real air, yet certainly  also to corrupt
air.   But if chronical corruption of the  air can-
not be the cause,  then must it  be attributed to
animalcules.   Since cholera expands itself over
a space of thousands of  miles without infection,
and yet not so far as gases and animals (every
other thing corporeal  precipitating  itself before
having gone through such a space), the conclusion
that it arises from animalcules becomes probable.
  In the influenza, the probability is still greater
in favour of animalcules.   In  this disease the
throat, the  eyes,  and the  nose  are suffering,—
obviously  the  openings offering  the most  easy
entry to animalcules. Here the conjecture might
be admissible, that the influenza-animalcule pre-
ponderates in size over  that of the cholera, the
former sticking more to  the  entrances of the 
78
CHAPTER  V.
body, whilst the latter enters  the  more  interior
parts.  Further, it  might be  hazarded that  the
animalcules of  the cholera  and  those of  the
influenza are different forms of the same animal
(as for instance caterpillar  and butterfly), both
diseases commonly  following each  other  in rapid
succession in the same country.
   Whatever may be  the  reasons,  so much is
true, that the water-cure has vindicated  itself as
the surest remedy for these  evils;  and still more
sure and beneficial is the process by which these
dangers  are prevented.   Its  efficacy  in this
instance would be easily explained, if caused by
animalcules filling  the air, for each  animal of
the air dies in water.
   The treatment of the influenza consists chiefly
in general baths and  sweating;  also in local
applications of water, snuffing the  water into the
nostrils,  when  the interior  membrane of  the
nose is suffering;  bathing the  eyes, when this
organ  is  affected;  but principally  in drinking
much water.
   The cholera in the beginning is overcome by
long-lasting and frequent  sitting-baths, joined to 
 THE  l/)ll\     TRIG METHOD OF CURING.  79

excessive water drinking; by the help of vomiting
and purging, by  which the healing is effected.
But when spasms and cold limbs  have already
taken  place, the  sitting-baths will be  without
benefit;  in  this  case  cold bathing, and  princi-
pally rubbing, till the blood  circulates  freely,
will be required.  When the cutaneous activity
is restored, sweating  must follow, and  sitting-
baths  conclude  the  treatment.   Priessnitz  has
cured  patients suffering by  cholera,  who were
 given up by the physicians as incurable.  " Give
 me," says  Dr.  Rause,  a water-physician, " a
 thousand of such patients, provided  they  have
 taken  no  medicine,  and  are  still capable of
 vomiting and purging,—and  if  a single one of
 them dies under  my hands, I will be answerable
 for it."  The medicine takes,  according to the
 common nonsense, the symptoms for the  disease
 itself,  and  attacks  them; thus  in the  time of
 cholera  far more patients have been killed by it,
 than by  the epidemic.
   b.  Infectious idcerous diseases.
   It  is  a good  deal more  probable in ulcerous
 diseases  than  in epidemics that  the  sufferings 
80
CHAPTER V.
are  caused by  animalcules.   But they  differ
from those that "produce epidemics peculiarly in
the faculty of propagating their species  in  the
human body, and further by their inability to fly.
The former quality of the ulcer-producing ani-
mals renders  the  sufferings  caused by them  a
chronical  one;  the second,  an infecting  one,
without the power of extending  itself epidemi-
cally.   The diseases here understood are  the
itch, the venereal maladies, and leprosy.   The
animalcules that produce itch,  and those exist-
ing  in venereal ulcers  have  already  been  ob-
served.   Very little of  this  poison  introduced
into the system  soon pervades the  whole body;
whilst, for  instance, the  poison of snakes, though
it indeed likewise permeates the whole body, yet
it  becomes the  weaker  the more it  is diffused
and extended.
  The cure of these diseases consists in sweating
and bathing, and in extracting local cataplasms;
that  is, linen is  placed closely upon the ulcers,
wrung  out  of cold water, and then covered with
warm  cloths.    These cataplasms  are as  often
repeated as they get dry, and  are in all chronic 
    THE HYDRIATRIC  METHOB OF CURING.  SI

diseases an excellent local means of strengthening
the body and extracting from it its impurities.
  By sweating, the cause of the ulcers is brought
to the skin, and by the cold water it is destroyed.
It is clear  that each single animalcule cannot be
individually  killed  by  applying water to  the
orifice of each of them.  This is done by whole-
sale, as  in the  case  of mercury;  only that in
that case  the whole  body would be exposed to
poisoning,  whilst in  this  the  water is healing
the organism.
   There is another class  of ulcerous diseases,
not chronical, to which the small pox, measles,
rash, &c, belong, propagating themselves not
only by contact,  but  also  by the atmosphere of
the sick-chamber.  On this  account the  suppo-
sition  of winged animalcules might find  place,
prepagating themselves indeed in  the body, but
becoming,  after  some  time,  extinct,  as  is the
case with some zoophytes.   The  cure is  nearly
like that of chronic ulcerous  diseases; only that,
as in acute  cases,  it is very rapid  and certain.
When measles or rash have entered the interior
of the body by colds, no surer means for sending
         6 
82
CHAPTER V.
rhem back  to the skin can be  found,  than a
bath, followed by rubbing and warm  covering,
or the above-mentioned surrounding of  the  body
with a wet linen cloth.  With the reaction,  the
rash will return to the skin; from whence it may
be driven by sweating and  bathing.
  Sections 3, 4 and  5 are by no  means  written
with the intention  that any individual, by  their
instruction,  should treat any of these  diseases.
For  this purpose  they  are useless, since  the
general principles require,  in practice, to  be mo-
dified according to the various degrees of the  di-
seases and  the different  constitutions  of  the
patient. The development of the laws, according
to which these differences are  to be regulated,
belongs to a larger work, not to the aim of this
little book.

                     §  6.
Explication of the healing process, in the treat-
          ment described in section 4.
  As an exposition  of the mode of healing  by
cold  sweating-baths  may  exemplify the whole 
    THE HYDRIATRIC  METHOD OF  CURING.  83

process, the following  remarks are put together
in the most concise manner:
a. Bad humours, deposits, &c. are forced to follow
   the other  impurities in their march to the
   skin, from whence they  are expelled.
6. Into the sick  and inactive organs,  a fresh
   current of new and daily  improved fluids are
   introduced and  rapidly led through them; to
   the sick parts the  process of their heathful
   alimentation is  re-iterated by  way of a  bene-
   ficially enforced exercise, continued till  they
   are  again  sufficiently  accustomed to  their
   functions in order to re-assume the process of
   self-alimentation, that is the assimilation and
   change of the imported nourishment into their
   own substance.
t: All bodily functions in their  totality are in-
   volved in the same process into the same man-
   ner of operating, the cure acting not  indi-
   vidually upon single  parts of the  body,  but
   upon the whole organism.
  The baths themselves, without  previous sweat-
ing for hours (when  the skin   is  rubbed or
warmed by the  covering  of  beds),  forces the 
S4
CHAPTER V.
organism, by  the reaction following, to  brin^
every thing removable to the exterior teguments,
and in consequence of it  the  before-mentioned
three  wholesome effects take place.  Undoubtedly
the previous sweating accelerates the  cure,  but
it must be omitted with very weak persons, and
is  in  general  only required when  noxious ma-
terials are to be removed from the body.
  When the sitting-bath is taken for the  purpose
of strengthening  the power of digestion and of
the nerves only, or with the intention of removing
congestion from the breast and  head, its duration
must  not be extended over ten minutes; but  if,
at the same time, the materials of a disease are
to be taken out  of the body by it, it  must be
prolonged to twenty or even to forty minutes.
  The  sitting-bath  has the  decided  effect of
turning the activity from the cerebral system to
that of  the " ganglia;" it is of incalculable value
to such  persons  as  are  labouring  under strong
mental  exertions,  and are in need of such a
leading  off, principally  men  who  study deeply
and poets.—Those parts of the body which  are
peculiarly exposed to cold baths gain very per- 
     THE HYDRIATRIC  METHOD OF  CURING.  85
■:eptibly in  external strength.  And since  the
artificial padding-out of some parts of the body
is so much in vogue with the fair sex, the sitting-
bath may now be recommended to all ladies who
would look elegantly. They can, without expense,
by  means  of perseveringly used  sitting-baths,
supplant all artificial  additions, and  avoid  much
expense and ridicule, by substituting real flesh.
  The first  effect of the sitting-bath is the  op-
posite  of the second, which has a  very lasting
efficacy; viz. first, the  blood  is forced into  the
head. Persons to whom this happens in a higher
than common degree  may lay water cataplasms
upon the head, yet only in cases of emergency,
because the  intended  delivery of the head will
be more completely performed if the head remains
dry. The efficacy of the  sitting-bath is height-
ened much by rubbing and  kneading the belly
with wetted hands during the time of the bath.
  The  effect  of  foot-baths is  quite  similar.
They lead  blood, heat, and the materials  of di-
seases from the upper  parts to the feet.  Cold
foot-baths are the only absolute remedy for  the
suffering of cold feet, particularly if the bath is 
86               wnapter v.
succeeded by a long walk---The  duration  of
foot-baths for the  purpose of warming the feet
is about ten minutes;  but if the  aim  be to stir
up and cast out deleterious matter, they may last
forty minutes.  Such foot-baths are to  be recom-
mended principally to those poisoned by mer-
cury, since this poison is mostly deposited in the
external parts of the body, ready to produce  in
its time podagra, paralytic symptoms,  or to lay
the  foundation of dropsy.
  But  for the purpose of stirring up the ma-
terials  that cause  disease—whether they result
from the errors of physicians or of the patients
themselves — no  bath exists that operates  so
rapidly and   decidedly  as the fall-bath.   The
effect is sometimes nearly an immediate one;  on
the  place where for years the  pains had  slum-
bered,  the  water-ray will re-awaken  them,  so
that they will smart sufficiently, even before the
patient will  have arrived at his  lodgings from
the  first bath.  This stirring up  and putting  to
flight of the slumbering  cause  of disease is " a
main requisite" of the cure.  It is effected  in a
low  degree by every cold bath, more so by the 
     THE  HYDRIATRIC METHOD OF  CURING.  87

cold  sweating-bath, but  most by the COLD
FALL - BATH.  For this  reason the  abuse
of  the fall-bath  can become  dangerous—and
even  fatal; but it is abuse when  this bath is
resorted to before the activity of  the  skin has
been awakened by cold sweating-baths, and all
its little doors have  been opened, in order that
the stirred-up materials of  diseases may escape
through them.
  If  the  efficacy of all those various  baths is
eonsidered  together,  it  will  be found  natural,
that whilst the cure  is progressing many pains
will arise; the provoked demons  of the  diseases
will not be put to  flight without a hard struggle,
and this very struggle with the  healing  energy
of nature is the cause of the pains.  Pains already
slumbering and forgotten for twenty and more
years are re-awakened, if their causing materials
are still in  the body, when the cure begins to
operate.
  Two different signs prognosticate the desired
cure:  a very reddened skin after the bath,  and
the awakening of  old pains.  Cicatrices of old
badly cured wounds  frequently reopen. 
58
CHAPTER v.
  From  these  remarks the conclusion may be
drawn, that  the common  process  of healing by-
water in chronic diseases  is the following:  That
the poor  bent  down body  is  aroused, by the
water, out of  its lethargic  slumber  to  revolt
against  its   tyrannical oppressor  and that  it
assists the organism faithfully in the casting out
of this most dangerous of  all tyrants, or in  other
words:—The water-cure  changes  the  chronical
suffering into an acute struggle,  called crisis,
and  this  being introduced it heals  the  body
surely and radically.
  Before  the  body begins  this  struggle, the
power of its enemy has  already become  much
weakened.  By sweating  and other evacuations
much matter  detrimental to  health  has been
removed.  The body opens not the battle with-
out having first weighed its own powers against
those of  its  enemy,  and  having  ascertained  a
preponderance  on its side.  In this calculation
the organism is guided by so sure an instinct,
that it  may be said  without  hesitation:  " An
acute malady  will  never display itself,  where
the body has not a  surplus  of power over its 
    THE hydriatric METHOD  OF CURING.   89

rnemy ; if it yet succumbs, the fault will always
be either  in a wrong  diet or in  the perverse
treatment  of the physician."
  Boastingly as  Homceopathy extols  her  doc-
trine,  " Similia  similibus curare,"  they cannot
yet explain, even to their own satisfaction, the
operating process  of their  principle,  and are
only astonished, not enlightened, by their system.
But it performs this, by exciting the body through
" similia" to an acute struggle in chronical suf-
ferings, or by gradation of the acute struggle in
already acute diseases.  From  this  solution  it
follows, that Homoeopathy in acute diseases can
be  of no importance; yet possibly,  if the  doses
were  not so  ridiculously small, it might  have
some in chronical  diseases.   Yet the  taking of
medicines,  of whatsoever nature, will be  dan-
gerous and  reprehensible so long as  cold water
is to  be  had, by which to  perform  cures with
safety.
                      § 7.
The crisis,  produced by  the water-cure and its
                   treatment.
   The crisis plays a main part in all water cures ;
for if it is obtained, the healing is certain. 
90               CHAPTER V.
  Crisis is therefore the raising of the organism
against the chronical  enemy; it  is a violent en-
deavour for delivery,—a fiery revolution  against
the tyranny of the  disease.  On this account
these crises carry all those signs of hot diseases,
fevers indeed often,  but weak  ones,  when the
organism  and  its enemy  are  not valiant  com-
batants, or when the preponderance of the orga-
nism over its enemy is very great.
  The effect of the crisis is, however, the casting
out of the materials causing illness, by means  of
urine, excrements, sweating, or ulcers: and in the
treatment of the crisis the leading principle  of
the water-physician is—that the enemy must not
be excited, when he observes him to be still too
powerful and able to kill;  in  this case all ex-
citing applications  of the water  must  be laid
aside.   This general principle admits, according
to the  special cases of sickness,  the following
forms:
  In case the organism has called forth a violent
fever to assist it in producing ulcers,  the patient
is repeatedly closely wrapped in linen cloths. By
this measure  the eruption,  seated beneath the 
    THE HYDRIATRIC  METHOD OF  CURING.  91

skin,  is partially driven out,  and the fever is
partly alleviated.  But  when the critical symp-
toms appear in too great a number and  in too
violent  a degree, and  too many and  too large
ulcers are coming forth: then cold water must
not be resorted to at all, because the crisis would
be  heightened,  and nothing must  be done, ex-
cepting  ablutions with water  deprived  of its
freshness-—in order to keep the skin open—and
besides this, sometimes a mild sweat.
  From this the now established principle fol-
lows :  that in  critical symptoms of importance,
first,  the fall-bath—as the most exciting mean
—has to cease.   But if the eruption amounts to
nothing  more than  an  easy bathing  rash, the
falling  bath  is  to  be continued zealously, and
warming, extracting,  cold cataplasms of water
are to be applied.  These cataplasms are to be
renewed as often as they begin to get dry, in
contradistinction to those  cooling  cataplasms,
which are to be renewed as often  as they begin
to get warm.  Of these  cooling cataplasms, use
is only made  in  very  painful  and inflammatory
exanthems; no  fear is  to  be entertained  that 
92
CHAPTHR  V.
they might drive back the  exanthem into  the
body by their coldness; this is indeed done by
cold air, but never by cold water.—The use of
the warming cataplasms besides, in the crisis, is
a very  extensive  one in water-cures.  For in-
stance they are laid upon the stomach and belly
in order to strengthen them, also upon the breast,
and upon  the  region of the vesica, to remove
spasms.   To dwell  here  more circumstantially
upon their further application  would be foreign
to the purpose of this book, suffice  it to say that
they are used as well to strengthen the  parts as
to extract injurious materials.
   The  principle can be applied to practice by
every thinking reader in  all cases  without  our
enumerating  individual  instances.  From  this
principle also the conclusion will follow, that these
cataplasms will  demand  often  a  considerable
time, perhaps even a year, in order fully to pro-
duce the desired effect.
   The best of all rules respecting the crisis may
be expressed as follows:
   Be not afraid of its coming, of  the beginning
of the desired and called-for moment, the critical 
    THE HYDRIATRIC  METHOD OF  CURING.  93

time, with its pains, its anxieties and threatening:.
If you feel, after some trial of the cure, yourself
in such a degree relieved that you might enter-
tain the opinion that all had  been  done, and the
cure was finished; then be  prepared and ready
for the decisive struggle.   This struggle never
comes before the organism has recovered consi-
derable strength, and gained such a degree of
power as to be able successfully to  enter into the
combat with  the enemy.—If  at  the  entering of
the crisis you  cowardly give up  the  cure  and
yourself, you are like the hunter, who has allured
a tiger to  relinquish  his  den, and then runs
away frightened  at  the sight  of the monster.
 The hunter will be torn in pieces, and your fate
will be no better, if you crown  your folly and
cowardice by  seeking  help  from a  medicine-
physician.  The same medicine, which at  another
time would have caused to  you  only a moderate
and  usual poisoning, will now  kill you in  the
water-cure !•—When  all nerves  are performing
a crying and  dissonant music,  like a band of
artists preparing their instruments for  an  ex-
hibition, then  rejoice,—thy  body is tuning  the 
94
CHAPTER r.
instruments in order to play to thy delight the
enchanting hymn of perfectly  restored  health/
When the painful strokes of the crisis are most
hurtful to thy feelings,then you ought to triumph!
These strokes are  announcing, like sounds  of
trumpets, the return of health !

                     §8.
Advices for persons who wish to make use of the
                  water-cure.
  Whoever intends resorting to the water-cure
only for the strengthening of a weak organism
or a single weak  organ will find remarks adapted
to his circumstances in  the following chapter.
But  he,  who is  really  troubled  with  disease,
whether caused by allopathic medical stuffs, or
arthritic,   hamiorrhoidal,  sharp   and  corrupt
fluids, &c, will  act most wisely by applying to
the  springs of an already established institute
for healing  by water,  for a  physician who has
acquired his knowledge by the personal  instruc-
tion  of Priessnitz alone  can be depended  upon
against the dangers of the crises.   But must the
patient indeed devote as much time to his  cure, 
    THE HYDRIATRIC METHOD OF CURING.   95

us may be  found necessary ?—whoever must or
will achieve his cure in the space  of a certain
fixed  term, may as well stay at home.   Those
who are not possessed of the means required for
a cure  in  such an institute, or whose -want of
time will not permit this, had best look out for
one who knows  this practice by  his  own  ex-
perience, from  whom  he  may carefully learn
every thing necessary to know, principally about
the mechanical apparatus and its adhibition, pe-
culiarly informing himself,  by correct and minute
instruction, of all that relates to the time of the
crisis.—But a water-physician and critical judge
of the whole  process  is   not  one who knows
merely  that cold bathing and drinking is whole-
some ;   but  one who has studied with Priessnitz
himself,  for Priessnitz  alone  is the  true  pro-
tecting  angel  of men;  he  alone  has  looked
through  the whole  system of his  discovery;
and he alone is able to give a competent instruc-
tion about all the constituent parts of his great,
wholesome invention, by which the whole human
family is benefitted.
  The most favourable  seasons for calling forth 
96
CHAPTER V.
the crises are the spring and the  fall.   During
these seasons nature herself drives to the crisis.
They are the true periods for healing, turned by
physicians into periods of destruction.  In these
epochs, every constitution possessing vital power
exerts itself  for the purpose of casting out all in-
ward-dwelling materials inimical to  health.  If
diet and  treatment  are perverse, these efforts
may indeed easily be made  to  lead to death, or
to chronical  deteriorations of the whole system;
but under the hands  of hydriatric practice they
guide the more  rapidly to recovery.
   The majority of men are accustomed to call
these periods the unhealthy ones, because they
are accustomed  to illusions arising from a super-
ficial view of things—their  minds not possess-
ing a sufficient penetration into the interior of
things.
                     §9.
Of the spreading of hydriatric  practice, and
                  its prospects.
   Eastward  from this country, throughout most
parts of Europe,  this new doctrine  has  spread
with rapidity;  even in slowly-judging, hesitating 
    THE HYDRIATRIC  METHOD OF  CURING.  97

Germany one new institute for healing by water
rises suddenly after another, and the public shows
the warmest interest in the beneficial discoveries
of the great Priessnitz.  In America, this  ac-
knowledgment cannot  yet  be  expected.  The
author of this treatise is the first  who steps forth
to announce to the inhabitants of happy and free
America  the  blessings which are  concealed in
that elementary gift, which  contains  so  many
other blessings, and which is so indispensable to
our existence and well-being.  May this commu-
nication excite a nation so willing to  investigate
and adopt what is good, to a  thorough  examina-
tion of a subject of such  importance! The au-
thor has  himself been at  Gra?fenberg, and his
conviction of the excellency of this institute has
been acquired by personal  experience;  for there
he was cured of a wound received  in his  breast,
which, after great sufferings for several years,
had been declared by different physicians of great
celebrity to be incurable.   Death approached in
rapid strides,  but Priessnitz arrested his steps,
and  to him and his water-cure the author owes,
         7 
98
CHAPTER  V.
under the Almighty power, the preservation of
his life.
  The opposition, which is everywhere raised
to water-cures, and will darken the prospects of
that  system also in America, originates not only
with  allopathic  and  homoeopathic  physicians,
who  are afraid of losing their daily  bread  by a
method so calculated  to annihilate their future
practice entirely, but arises also and  principally
from the  circumstance,  that  the  water-cure of
chronic diseases is so  troublesome and  tedious
that  only a few men possess the power of a firm
resolution to  such a degree as to go perfectly
through with it.   But whoever stops in the midst
of the cure, has rather deteriorated the state of
his  health than  mended it.  Besides, for  most
men, a water-cure in chronic diseases is impos-
sible, for even such as are possessed of the strong-
est power of will are  often impeded  by  external
circumstances. How could the poor day-labourer
and  mechanic find every day six or seven hours'
time for the performance of this cure ? And this
is not all, for in the remaining hours  the patient
cannot work  with his wonted  power, the  cure 
    THE HYDRIATRIC METHOD OF  CURING.  99

weakening the  body much,  principally  in  the
beginning.   These obstacles  might yet be over-
come, if the  cure could always be performed in
a fortnight  or four weeks, but it  may as pro-
bably last for six months,  or a year, and even
longer.
  This  is the difficulty in  chronic  diseases.   In
acute maladies  another obstacle makes  its  ap-
pearance, the water-cures assuming, in  instances
of this  kind, such a forbidding exterior  that it
deters people from them in our present state  of
alienation from nature.  To seek  refuge in a
cold bath during the glow of a burning fever,
having  reached  its extremest  heat, when life
appears to be in utmost danger.  How senseless,
how horrible this sounds!  Rather will the suf-
ferer  stick  to chamomile-tea  and  Brandreth's
pills, according to the advice of this or that old
woman.
  This  is one obstacle; the second is, that water
is such a very common, every-day, vulgar mean,
to  be found  in every brook, and thrown away,
after its use,  into the  street.  The great mass of
men are too stupid to conceive  that  exactly that 
100
CHAPTER V.
which  is  most plentifully everywhere, and ai
ecery time at hand for the use of man, should be
at the same time the most salubrious.  The whole
earth is surrounded  by air, preserving the life ;
and two-thirds of our  terrestrial globe are co-
vered with water, administering to health. Every
thing of rare occurrence is either pernicious or
of no use.   Among plants, the rarest  are  those
possessing  poisonous  qualities;  among metals,
gold; among stones, the diamond.  But for these
things  the human race  long most.  They wage
war among themselves for gold and  diamonds;
search  and run distractedly after poisonous herbs ;
brew dark coloured  nauseous  beverages  from
them;  and  spend their very  last cent  to  be
poisoned by quacks, happy and delighted  at the
sight of the charlatan, particularly if  he  knows
how to twist his features  into mysterious  forma
and to  utter incomprehensible words and sounds.
   Homoeopathy  has still  other means to pro-
cure customers.  How little inconvenience  attend
her cures!  How pleasing, even instead  of an-
noying, to the tender  invalid,  whom  the  least
exertion of his delicate body throws into trembling 
     THE  HYDRIATRIC METHOD OF CURING.  101

 anxiety.  Homceopathy exhibits also  something
 mysterious, by offering remedies in doses which
 require a devout implicit belief in  their power,
 since  reason  is  at  a loss  to comprehend their
 efficacy.
   Still greater allurements and  peculiar charms
 are exhibited  by Allopathy, which may perhaps
 be destined to stand  the test of time and last as
 long as sin, though her effects  are worse than
 all diseases taken together.
   Permit me here to notice an analogy between
 horrible  things, — Allopathy  and  the  original
 fountain of all misery,  which will  only be ex-
 hausted when the last man shall have ceased to
 exist,  viz. vice.—Allopathy and vice have alike
 their support in the weakness and  disproportion
 of the poteers of the human will to the human
 senses  and  affections,  in  the  majority  of our
fellow beings.  Allopathy and vice produce both
 pleasing  sensations  as  their first  effects,—but
 the more  certainly  will  they be followed  by the
 same consequences, viz. by chronic languor or by
 despair !
   The bad effects of Allopathy commonly make. 
102
CHAPTER V.
their appearance so tardily  that  the  physician
gains time to persuade his  patients and himself,
that those sufferings,  which  have so long  de-
layed their appearance, are quite new disorders,
not having the least connexion with  the medi-
cines given.  When such doctors have suppressed
an acute struggle, and the old cause of disease
re-appears in a  new  form,  accompanied with
fatal  consequences, they say that the original
disorder has been healed, and has been succeeded
by a new  one.  But it is not a new  one, it is
only  the  old  one in a new  form, and on  that
account for  this  time victorious.—It is  fatal,
because, by the use of the former medical stuffs,
the healing  power  of  nature or of the organism
has been suppressed.
  That real physicians, that  is, respectable pro-
fessional  men, — not  those  who  have  merely
gained a  smattering of scientific knowledge by
a short stay at some university, for of such I do
not speak—will but rarely assist  in promoting
the knowledge and practice  of the hydriatric
system, is natural  enough.   For  it is  a hard
demand, that a man who  has employed for many 
   THE HYDRIATRIC METHOD OF CURING.  103

years all the powers of his  intellect and mind in
cultivating  the  medical sciences should subse-
quently come to the conviction that he has spent
the best years of his life in  cracking empty nuts.
And should he even arrive at  this conclusion, he
will  find  it still more hard  to  confess it, thus
sacrificing  himself  and family at the  altar of
truth,  and  exposing himself and them on  this
account to  starvation.  To do  this, requires a
magnanimity of sentiment  not  common in our
race.  These are the views  of  Priessnitz  him-
self, and he consequently wishes  to prevent the
visits of physicians to his  institute, by declining
them very politely.—But at the same time he is
still  more opposed to Homceopathy than to Allo-
pathy, believing the latter to be hastening to her
end ; her sins being so palpable, he  sees in her
but a  corpse.   His views of both  systems are
derived from the history of his  patients.   Most
of those who come  to his institute are afflicted
with  chronic  diseases, for which they are in-
debted  to Allopathy;  they generally afterwards
look  for  help  by  homoeopathic  means, but in
vain ;  and now their loudly  expressed conviction 
104
CHAPTER V.
is: — " That  Allopathy produces misery,  and
Homoeopathy no lasting benefit '"
  Further, says Priessnitz, it is impossible  that
Allopathy can ever co-operate with the hydriatric
system; whilst this has  been already here  and
there impudently asserted and tried by Homoeo-
pathy.  This excited the indignation of Priess-
nitz, who  could not remain indifferent to the
thought that Homoeopathy might rob  the water
of its honour, and continue the old humbug and
deception.   Several   followers  of  Hahnemann
have already established, in Germany, institutes
for curing by  water,  in  order to unite the hy-
driatric system with the darling child Homoeo-
pathy.   This caused Priessnitz indignantly to
remark:  " They will pretend that a decillionth
part of their dynamic  poioders,  smuggled by
them into the cold water  had done the business,
thus arrogating the water-practice to themselves
as  homozopathists, and leaving the public in
darkness and ignorance about the healing cause,
a correct knowledge of which is so important to
the suffering as well as to the thinking part of
the human family." 
    THE HYDRIATRIC METHOD OF CUEING. 105

   This artifice has made Priessnitz averse to all
doctors, whilst  he willingly gives every expla-
nation respecting  his method of healing  to all
other visitors.   He is entirely free from selfish-
ness, and entertains the fervent wish  that insti-
tutions like  his own  may  soon  be  spread  as
widely as possible.
   I will here mention some such establishments,
founded previous to the year 1839 :
   In Austria there are  already several in opera-
tion,  the  minuter circumstances of which have
not fallen under my  notice.  One is established
near  Vienna, and another at Neurode, in  the
county of Glatz.   In Saxony there are two, one
at Dresden,  the other  at  Freyberg.   Prussian-
Silesia possesses one, near Breslau. In the north
of Germany  there is one  in  Elgerburg, one in
Ilmenau,  one in Berlin, one in  Hamburg, and
one  on the river  Rhine  in  Bopphard,  &c.
Whether  this great discovery has been fostered
by the public and the governments in  the south-
western part of Germany, I am  not prepared
to say, but  the  house of representatives of Ba-
varia, in  their 7th section for  1837  voted the 
106
CHAPTER V.
annual  sum  of 4000  florins to be  put at the
disposal of the minister of the  interior for  the
establishment of an institute of this kind.
  The hydriatric method has even found ingress
into  the Russian  empire,   principally  by  the
exertions of Dr. Harder, who studied with Priess-
nitz  himself for  nine months.  In acknowledg-
ment of the beneficial effects of his new establish-
ment at St. Petersburg for curing by cold water,
the Emperor of Russia has  heaped  distinctions
and rewards upon Dr. Harder in the most liberal
manner. 
107
               CHAPTER VI.

  THE BEST  DIET--DIET IN DISORDERS OF THE
      STOMACH--DRESS--PASSIONS—BATHS.

Notwithstanding some apparently retrogressive
motions  and partial  obscurations of the light
of truth,  the general tendency of the present
generation is towards mental regeneration.  But
before this  end  can be  reached, the process
of renewing ought first to restore our bodily
constitution to that freshness and vigour of which
it is susceptible.  Our external artificial coverings,
so far as they are unwholesome, must be thrown
away,  and first  we  should gain a new skin by
the use of cold baths.
  In  the  former chapters we  have considered
how  diseases may  be cured;  we shall now pro-
ceed to refiexions concerning  the prevention of
diseases,  by which  our future days might  be
threatened. 
108
CHAPTET! VI.
   In the  morning, when you awake from sleep,
rise  without delay from  your bed, and  refresh
your skin,  all  over the body, in a  bath full of
cold water.   Whoever  is not furnished with this
most  valuable   household article should  cause
water  to  be thrown  upon him out  of buckets,
and thus to wash every part.  This service can
easily be  rendered by and to every  one.   After
the  bath,  take exercise,  until the  reaction of
warmth begins  to take place.   When this com-
fortable feeling in the state of rest is decreasing,
lay yourself down, under warm coverings,  until
the fullest reaction is obtained.  After your pro-
menade,  a  breakfast consisting  of bread and
butter, with unboiled cold milk with its cream,
and as fresh as  possible, will be the best.
   Here may be made a remark about the coolness
of victuals  and drinks: The use  of all  warm
nutriment weakens the  stomach,  what is taken
cold refreshes and strengthens  it.  To a stomach
enfeebled  by warm nourishment, the transit from
this  to cold food  is  at  first  disagreeable and
troublesome; but it  soon becomes  used to  it,
and  gains strength  in  an astonishing  degree. 
THE  BEST DIET.
109
The cause of the cold food's strengthening the
stomach  is  the  same  as with the skin.   Any
thing warm  coming in contact with the  skin,
or the stomach, has the  effect  of heightening
the  temperature ;   consequently  the  reaction,
striving constantly to produce the opposite effect,
causes the depression of the temperature and a
loss of activity.   The reverse takes place by the
influence of cold substances; their coldness con-
fers, besides the beneficial warmth of the reaction
and the increased activity  of  the  stomach and
skin, the benefit of the  contraction of the fibres.
The experiences collected  at  Grsefenberg have
completely proved  the  benefit  of  cold or  very
much  cooled  food.   Persons who had  suffered
in a  high degree  by  the  weakness  of  their
digestive  organs  were  restored  by  cold  diet
continued for some months.
   A substitute for milk.   The general opinion
is, that milk  causes slime; but this can be ad-
mitted only as  following the use of boiled milk.
   Whoever is accustomed to the use of unboiled
milk, will testify to its beneficial influence  upon
the stomach ; besides this,  it contains  the most 
110
CHAPTER VI.
adequate of nourishing  substances, and is, as a
remedy against sharp fluids as well as earlier
and later medical poisoning, of a most excellent
efficacy.  But  any one  who  cannot overcome
his aversion to cold milk, may either drink cold
water only to his bread and butter, or substitute"
for the cold  milk, cold  roasted meat, or take
whatever  he  likes best,  provided  it  has not
undergone any fermentation, and comes not from
a  foreign zone — therefore no coffee.   Every
thing coming  from another zone  than that in
which we live may be looked on with suspicion.
   " All products of a zone are only whole-
some in their native  zone !"   This remark
I found true, by my own observations, while
travelling. Priessnitz, without stirring from home,
by his genius discovered it on his own mountains.
  In  the  highest northern zone fat is produced
abundantly,  but nothing hot;   therefore, if you
live in Labrador make a plentiful use of fat, in
order to overcome the effects of cold. But beware
of spices,  they  will kill  you  by  inflammation.
In the southern  regions the animal kingdom is
deficient in fat, but the vegetable kingdom brings 
THE  BEST DIET.
Ill
forth hot spices plentifully.  If, therefore,  when
residing  on the Moluccas, you  do not live  on
meagre diet, and well spiced, you will surely die
the victim of disease,  the seat of which will be
the belly.  It is absolutely impossible to contro-
vert these lessons of experience,  from which the
conclusion follows  naturally,  that  the products
of foreign zones are to be avoided  if we wish to
promote our health by our diet.  Give up, there-
fore, your coffee  and tea, till you go to Arabia
and  China.   Then you may  sip them  to  your
heart's desire — there  they will do you good.
   The  noxious consequences of fermented and
intoxicating  beverages are disputed  by nobody.
And yet the  saying  has become proverbial: —
" They will, when  used moderately, do no harm."
But this is an error ; they do harm in a moderate
degree,  when used in  a moderate degree.   Let
wine  therefore  not become  to  you  an article
daily wanted; and  if you  make use of it at rare
occasions, fail not  to  drink  between  those few
and small potations a good deal of water. Better
leave wine  entirely alone.—The same  may  be
said of beer.   The more either may be suspected 
112
CHAPTER VI.
of being adulterated, the more they ought to be
avoided. — Even if intoxicating drinks were not
hurtful to health  in themselves, their  daily  use
would certainly become dangerous, on account
of their  being frequently mixed with  obnoxious
or poisonous ingredients.

  For dinner  I  recommend a hearty  meal of
domestic fare,  with the exclusion of all smoked
and salted meat and fishes.   Pickled and  salted
articles of food are to be avoided, for more than
one  reason.   They  introduce so  many  sharp
particles into  the   body, that even  a   healthful
organism has  enough to do to remove them out
again; — far  less  can  any reasonable hope  bo
entertained that an organism already harbouring
noxious matter or corrupted  fluids  should  over-
come,  mend, or entirely  eject them.   Besides,
oversalted  meals are  hurtful to  the body, and
occupy the same place with the so-called bitter,
roborant, stomachic means, of which more below.
Thirdly,  salt   meat has  but  little nourishing
substance, as any chemist can plainly show.  The
nutritious parts of  the meat  consist in  the  juice 
THE BEST DIET.
113
not in the fibre; and  this juice  i3 taken out and
absorbed by the lye  in which the  meat was de-
posited.  The public, indeed, in general entertains
different views from  these, respecting salt-meat,
conceiving it to be nourishing on account of its
remaining tenaciously in  the stomach,—not con-
sidering that it possesses this quality only by its
being  very indigestible.  Finally,  this  food  ie
also of a bad odour and taste.
   Leave then salt-meat to mariners and  sailors.
They have nothing else, and can best manage  it,
since their whole  way of living—the sea-air, the
daily involuntary sea-baths—the  constant mo-
tion,—turns  them into a  kind  of  sharks.
   Meat must be  so  roasted that it retain in the
interior the reddish colour of the fleshy juice.  In
this state only it is savoury, easily digested, easily
masticated, and very nourishing.  But if, in the
old German way, the meat is exposed for hours
to  the fire, the  reddish juice will evaporate, and
be consumed by  the  air.  If the meat is first
boiled out into a soup, it is fit for dog's stomachs,
not for those of men, is a British proverb  and a
true one.
          6 
114
CHAPTER VI.
   The  meat of such a roasted  piece  must, of
course, come  from a young  animal.   If such a
one  is not to  be  had,  vegetables alone, dishes
made of flour, &c. are preferable  to roasted meat
of old cattle.—It is always reprehensible, when
meat destined for being roasted is first boiled out
in soup.
   Priessnitz excludes no kind of animal from the
table of his patients, he permits  even those who
are  labouring under  difficulty of  digestion the
use of the  meat of hogs, ducks, and geese, though
the  famous  Rumohr   says, in  his  Spirit  of
Cookery.—" Not wishing to tax a man of culti-
vated taste too heavily, it  may yet be  expected
that  he will abstain from eating pork."
  I have seen on the Grsefenberg the following
bill of fare:
  1. Bouillon of beef, with small liver-dumplings,
  2. Tried beef, with onions,
  3. Roasted  pork with sour-krout,
  4. Tyrolese apple-dumplings.
  The inmates of the institute, not  even except-
ing those who were formerly used to the most
exquisite dainties, enjoy wTith a  greedy appetite 
THE  BEST DIET.
115
this homely fare;  and stranger still, people who
formerly could scarcely digest the most delicate
and  refined dishes  display  here  the hunger of
wolves, and feel well and strong.
  Priessnitz warns all who have  feeble digestion
against every kind of soup.  These dishes  are
indeed detrimental  rather than beneficial.  Soup
makes  too little  impression upon  the  relaxed
fibres  of the stomach to have the power of ex-
citing their activity.  But warm soups especially
have a very  debilitating influence  on the  sto-
mach.   Besides this  effect, every kind  of soup
is unwholesome, because it occupies the  place
which  ought to  be  filled by water.  Cold  water
is the  first of  all means for promoting digestion,
because it best aids  the stomach in extracting
the  nourishing  substances  from  the  aliments;
and  produces, by the often-mentioned re-action,
the  necessary and  lastingly heightened  warmth
of the  stomach.   But  soup,  on  the  contrary,
not  only does  not  decompose the aliments  but
needs  itself to  be  dissolved  in  its constituent
ingredients, and this is too great a demand from
the gastric juice.  But perhaps  some  old  ladies 
116
CHAPTER  VI.
may anxiously recommend and praise their little
soups as excellent nourishment for patients of all
kinds,  having, as  they  will  probably  allege,
Btood the test of centuries.  To this we respect-
fully object, that for centuries, likewise, witches
have  been persecuted  and  burned, though they
never existed at all.  Nonsense and abuses will
never cease to be  such,  though  for millions of
years they are believed  to  be the  rules and
practices of wisdom itself.
  If the instinct of man be taken into considera-
tion:  All those  suffering under acute diseases
are longing for cold  water!  All persons labour-
ing under weakness of  the  stomach  feel an
aversion to soup!
  In  place  of our  long-lasting  dinners, permit
me to propose the following regulations:
  1. No soup—and only one dish—the stomach
being better enabled to digest a given quantity,
if it is of  a simple nature, than if the same is
composed of various ingredients; and because,
for those of a weak stomach, the temptation to
eat too much  is considerably heightened by the
variety of the dishes. 
THE BEST DIET.
117
  2. This  single  dish  might  consist of  well
roasted meat, not  too fat, and a young  animal,
best of venison, beef, fowls, mutton, calves, &c.
The roasted meat  may  be  accompanied with
apple-sauce, rice,  potatoes,  salad, or something
else not of a bad  smell;  for  instance, cabbage.
For the truth of the rule is established.—What-
ever smells badly is not easily digested, and not
wholesome."  Has  nature given  the noble sense
of smelling in vain ?
  3. After this only dish, nothing but good bread
and butter, and sweet unboiled milk; or m sum-
mer-time, coagulated sour milk with all its cream,
or fresh fruits.

  In  the  evening, bread, butter and milk  are
excellent, and if you eat them two or three hours
before going to  bed, you may  add  some  cold
roasted meat, or some fish or  pudding.
  By adding to  the above :—Drink  nothing  but
milk and water ; get used  to much drinking;  in-
dulge in bodily exercise;  avoid  much  sitting;
rather be  on your feet  or in a lying position—
we  can conclude the rules of the daily diet. 
118             CHAPTER  VI.
  Perhaps some gastronomers will smile at these
doctrines  and  precepts, for  the  simplicity  of
these regulations for the table will not suit their
taste.   But let them smile ;  a child can  put  to
shame their neglected intellectual  faculties; and
bitter repentance will  soon enough come  over
them, when their sarcastic sneer  will turn into
a painful acknowledgment of their error. Return
to nature ;  she alone is the true guide to com-
fort and health, she alone prepares a  sure  road
to a serene old age and  painless death.
  Whoever wishes  to  receive the master's de-
gree of enjoyment must first learn and then never
forget:  " That the height of  enjoyment depends
upon the susceptibility for it, not from the object
to be enjoyed.   The diet I  have  now described
sharpens the senses to  an extraordinary degree;
it cements  and strengthens  the  body;  but  in
order to possess the gift of a truly sensitive,
expanded, and variegated enjoyment, the senses
must be developed to an uncommon degree, and
the organism must  possess its  full health and
strength.
  The above-proposed diet  gives  to the  organs 
THE  BEST DIET.
119
of smell and taste such an  acuteness, that the
instinct, which  by the common way of living is
entirely dormant, reawakens, and  can serve as
an infallible physician.   Whoever in the nice
distinctiveness of taste has come back to the true
instinct, can confidently follow his  inclination in
every  disease.   That  part  of  instinct, which
tends to the mere preservation  of animal life,
dwells in the smell and taste.   This instinct has
been engrafted into men and  animals in  the like
degree of acuteness and  infallibility.   The nose
of a  human child of  nature,  not  yet spoiled  by
what is called refinement and  custom, indicates
to him any poisonous herb, still more so the taste.
The  use of things warm deadens sufficiently
the instinct of the nose, but  more  so  the  fumes
of the narcotic  foliage of the tobacco-plants—In
like  manner the  susceptibility  of the  nose of
the  dog becomes  obtused  by  hot victuals,  a
thing well known to any hunter.
  In opposition to this remark, the  self-conceited
wisdom  of  the short-sighted will  object:  "To
the brute is given instinct, to man intellect!" But
the brute possesses also some intellectual power; 
120
CHAPTER  VI.
it  conceives  and  concludes;  yea, the  nobler
animal has even the gift of imagination; thus we
know that the dog dreams.
  It must indeed surprise us,  that, whilst  the
plainest diet  furnishes  the highest sensual  en-
joyment, it can be possible that man could de-
viate from the  diet of nature to that of refine-
ment.  This, however, is  both possible and com-
prehensible,  "for the short transit from the na-
tural  to  the  non-natural affords  more  plea-
mrable excitements than nature offers."  This is
a great truth, well deserving of  being noticed.
  The  surplus  of enjoyment lying only in  the
motion of the transit, it forces the  deviated sub-
ject continually deeper downwards, until his senses
and the susceptibility of enjoyment have become
so dull and obtuse that nothing but  pepper of
Cayenne  and aquafortis  can excite them any
more.
  This is exactly the case with virtue and vice.—
As  the transit  from  nature  to  anti-nature  pro-
duces the highest transport of sensual  pleasure,
so,  on  the contrary, the return from the non-
natural to nature produces the bitterest sufferings 
     DIET IN DISORDERS OF  THE STOMACH.  121

and privations ;  therefore a  very strong energy
of the  will is  required  for this  return.   But
soon—very soon—the struggle is over; and its
reward  is the gaining of true happiness.
  In  the healing institutes by water, existing in
Germany, gastronomers of the most refined kind
have  been brought to the confession, that their
morning-wines,  with  the  most delicate  morsels,
never tasted so well to their palates as milk and
bread does now.   Lastly, it  may be added,  that
the regeneration  of the pure, nicely, and  cor-
rectly discriminating  taste, takes  place much
earlier  than is commonly believed.—What  can
you say to that, you  who  indulge  in those un-
natural  refinements ?   The  truly  refined  taste
finds  in milk more attractive charms  than the
uncultivated palate in  the finest and  strongest
spirits.

    DIET IN DISORDERS OF  THE STOMACH.

  In  the United States—principally where the
descendants of  the old German settlers are liv-
ing—eating a good deal, mostly indiscriminately, 
122
CHAPTER VI.
besides  the  plentiful  use  of the customary be-
verages, is  considered  the  greatest enjoyment
of human life.  Dyspeptic  complaints  arc  con-
sequently of everyday occurrence, and   may
be noticed in this chapter treating of diet.
  The first and most valuable mean for strength-
ening and purifying  the stomach is cold water.
For  the latter purpose, when  it  is intended to
solve old slime, and to effect  vomiting or purging,
it must  be  drunk  perseveringly and  in great
quantities.
  The allopathic roborant means for the  stomach,
the bitter and tonic ones, are the sworn enemies
of the stomach.
  This error of  the  doctors  originated thus :
Bitter  and sharp  substances, not being easily
digested, excite a great  activity in the  stomach,
in some degree nearly an acute struggle for the
overcoming  and removal of  its deadliest enemy.
This struggle occasions a more energetic diges-
tion  of its remaining contents,  or in case of its
being empty, it shows a strong desire for aliments,
as a means  of protection  and  defence against
this  enemy.   From this it appears, that  such 
     DIET IN  DISORDERS  OF THE  STOMACH.  123

an increased  digestion and appetite cannot be
said  to  originate from good health, but rather
from force and necessity.
  Should the objection be raised here, that such
activity must have an antagonist,  in order not to
fall asleep, and that therefore bitter tonics were
salubrious;  the answer will  be:   Firstly, The
enemy must  be such a one  as  can be overcome,
which  in this  case is impossible, because these
bitter substances are absolutely indigestible ; but
an antagonist, whose  power is  superior  to  that
of his opponent will destroy  the latter.  Secondly,
There is certainly no need for artificially creating
labour for the stomach,  since  it is sufficiently
engaged by its natural operations.
  If this kind  of so-called roborants  are  used
daily, the stomach must, from  day to day, sink
more deeply  into helpless  misery.  From  this
comes  a new danger.   In  order  to remove in-
digestible objects, and to  secure itself  against
the  pains  caused by  them, the  stomach seeks
refuge in the  slime by which it  is surrounded*
Should this process be daily renewed, the powers
of the stomach would  be  incompetent to counter- 
124
CHAPTER VI.
act sufficiently; this  organ prepares indeed the
slime, but cannot purify itself from it. The slime
overspreads the alimentary  canal,  and causes
unnatural symptoms and productions.  The patient
feels now  a constant pressure  in the disordered
stomach,  and  returning  nausea.   The doctor
orders   means  for purging and vomiting, the
latter remove nothing,  the former only the same
slimy fluid, which each  purgative medicine will
bring forth anew.   The  doctor then  declares
the stomach to be  cleansed,  but  weak and  in
need of being strengthened.  This is accordingly
done in the former manner,  and sickening stuffi
are heaped upon  each  other  in  the  system.
Similar  bad effects  are  produced  from similar
causes, viz.: from foetid, sharp, and acid agents;
they excite an increased activity, because they
torment the stomach, but they  remain  in  them-
eelves indigestible.  Even  kitchen-salt, too  abund-
antly used, belongs to this class. Let the victuals
be salted, but quite moderately, if you  desire
to be free from sharp fluids and a weak  stomach.
   Whoever has  made use  of many of the  so-
called  roborant stuffs  of the doctors,  or  other 
    DIET  IN DISORDERS  OF THE STOMACH.  125

medicines  producing similar  effects,  may  be
firmly convinced, when the symptoms of pressure
in the stomach  and of returning nausea occur,
that his disorder consists not only in weakness
of the stomach,  but in an accumulation of the
toughest slime;  he ought  not  to  be deceived,
by the inefficacy of purging medicines, as indica-
tive of  returning health, an illusion which  has
already been illustrated.
  If patients of  this kind are not yet too old and
feeble, they will, to a certainty,  be restored by a
water-cure, provided they will  persevere in  it;
and they will be amazed at the immense quantity
of  slime  which will  be  removed  from them.
But the quantity of water to be drunk by them,
for this purpose, must likewise be  an excessive
one.  The  stomach will  soon  get used to  it.
With these  copious draughts of cold water, a
daily cold bath  must  necessarily  be combined,
in order to avoid a pernicious preponderance of
the internal activity over the external one;  daily
clysters of  cold water,  and  sitting-baths, are
absolutely indispensable.
   The  cure of an already inveterate accumula- 
126
CHAPTER VI.
tion of slime will indeed last a long time. Months
may elapse before the  first solution  of the slime
will make its appearance, and  the  period of the
purification, accompanied by  nausea, with violent
convulsive  efforts of  the stomach  for relief,
vomiting, and purging  may last again for weeks.
Should  a patient  try  to shorten this  epoch  by
medical  laxatives, he  'would destroy the effects
of the cure,  and recall  the old misery.
   In order  to  ascertain what  is needful in the
case of a disordered stomach, the better instruc-
tion may be received, not from  extremely learned
doctors,  but from quite unlearned dogs, enjoying
neither  titles  nor exacting  fees.—The  dog will
drink plenty of water when his stomach is dis-
ordered, until vomiting or purging takes place,
and then he will feel well again.
   Here,  in  speaking  of disordered  stomachs,
I must  warn  against  an error,  which  may  be
very pernicious in its consequences.  Some  per-
sons entertain the opinion that, to assist a weak
stomach, the most nutritious  substances ought to
be given in a  more concentrated form,  as in the
strongest bouillon, the  yolk of  raw eggs, &c.— 
DRESS.
127
This is the surest road to ruin!—Depriving an
organ  of the activity which nature has destined
it, is condemning it to the loss of all its energy.

                    DRESS.

   Never wear woollen cloths next the skin, since
they constantly excite the skin to sweating, by
which  the  body  is weakened.   Sweat is  only
desirable when a bath is to  follow it.   In the
first week,  even  weak and old  persons  on the
Graefenberg have  cast off  their woollen  under-
dresses.
   It is well to get used to a light and commo-
dious  dress, yet without forcing  yourself to it.
If your skin inclines to shudder ; if it be deficient
in that comfortable warmth accompanying  per-
fect health, you  may take this  symptom  as a
proof  that you  harbour in your interior  hurt-
ful materials;  and that  your central functions
possess an  energy over-balancing the peripheral
ones.   A cold water-cure, with  cold sweating-
baths,  is then needful to you, and you will be
cured  by exanthems. 
128
CHAPTER VI.
                   PASSIONS.
  During a real cure, avoid  every excitement.
Priessnitz forbids  therefore playing for money,
and  warns  every patient  against  too lively  an
exertion of their imagination, as well  as the
enjoyment of sensual love.  He admonishes them
to guard against anger, peevishness, envy, and
whatever may be numbered among the lower
passions or excited animal  sensations.
  Even  persons  who are suffering  only  local
inconveniences, and otherwise enjoying a bloom-
ing health,  have  to  abstain  from sensual  love
while the cure is in  progress.  If this may  be
considered as but half an existence, the necessity
of the restriction will be found in  the requisites
of the cure.
  But the  diet of  a  healthy person is  very
different.  With such, love, much  love, but  pure
and chaste—pervading the  regions of  the  soul,
the heart, the imagination, the senses, the whole
body—is  requisite,  for where  nature herself
furnishes the predilection, she also provides the
means for its indulgence. 
BATHS.
129
  In  the  diet of health and  virtue, the first of
all precepts is, therefore:  " Get married as soon
as nature  calls decidedly for the married state."

                    BATHS.

  Long before I had heard of Priessnitz and his
followers,  I was  convinced of the necessity of
daily cold  baths for  the preservation of health.
Observations  made  on animals,  and reflexions
upon  the  excellent  bodily  constitution  of such
uncultivated tribes  as  had not ceased to follow
the precepts of nature, had  made  an  indelible
impression on my mind.   But  how different  is
uncivilized life from  pure   and unadulterated
nature ! Every animal  is daily bathing in dew.
or rain, or snow, or  in river, or sea! Nature has
ordered it  so.
  Further, cold water comes mostly in contact
with  the  feet and  lower parts of  the  body of
those exposed to a natural life; this leads to the
conclusion that those parts, feet and legs, should
peculiarly be benefitted by the influence of cold
water!—The^power of cold water in  promoting
          9 
130
CHAPTER VI.
circulation, transpiration, and warmth, gloriously
confirms,  principally  by  the   experiments  of
Priessnitz, the truth of the old proverb:—Keep
your feet warm, your  head cold !—This golden
rule is everywhere known; but how to execute it
has been the subject  of dispute and  misunder-
standing.   Yet in the  method of curing by cold
water this precept has found its  clear,  plain, and
easy exponent  by  bathing  the  head  less fre-
quently,  but the feet oftcner than any other part
of the body.
   From what has now been said, we may  easily
perceive  the  reason  why,  with most people,
sharp substances come out of the skin in  small
vesicles  and little  pustules in  the face.  It is
because  most men  are  so  slovenly as only  to
bathe or wash the face daily instead of the  whole
body.  Ladies who wish  to preserve their beauty,
ought to  take daily a general bath, and besides
this  a foot bath, the consequence would  infal-
libly be, that those  eruptions on the skin of the
face would make their appearance on  the  lower
parts of the body.
   The best and most harmless of all cosmetic 
BATHS.
131
means is likewise pure cold water.  It imparts
to the skin the rosy hue of health, purity, and a
certain transparency and brilliancy.  A delicate
transpiration likewise  follows the use of these
baths, imperceptible to those whose sense of smell
is not acute, but possessing  the  sweet  odour of
milk, whilst every offensive smell disappears.
   The months of July and August, selected for
a bathing-season, is   no  judicious choice,   the
water being then too warm.  The best season is
in the months of March, April, and May,  if a
water-cure  is intended;  or  in  the fall, during
the months  of September, October, and Novem-
ber.  But then each general bath must not last
over five minutes, for most patients not over one
minute.  And  always, the  best moment  for
entering into the  bath  is,  when the skin  is
sweating.
   The general bath is to  be  taken in the morn-
ing, when the skin is warm or sweating from
the  bed.  The bath  must  then be  prepared
within a few  steps  from  the  bed.  For   the
evening, when a sitting  or foot-bath may be
taken, I advise an ambulating half-bath, in which 
132
CHAPTER VI.
one stands and walks with half the body in the
water, during  the space  of from five to  ten
minutes.   The upper part of the body must then
be covered, so that neither  chill  nor sweat  can
take place.  Such a bath would serve especially
to remove congestions from the head and breast.
But its first effect would be a contrary one, and
therefore  it would be  necessary  that  persons
suffering much by them should, on entering the
bath, moisten  the breast  and head with water.
These baths would, according to  the views pre-
viously submitted, peculiarly increase activity and
warmth, and assist in leading off the bad matter
and critical  ulcers from the interior parts to the
legs.  They would also benefit those whose hips
and legs had suffered by weakness.
   In local baths, the frequently expressed  views
ought to be well considered,  and  none  adopted
without joining with it a  daily  general  bath.
Under this  condition, to  people  of  sedentary
habits,  suffering by  obstructions  and  piles,  a
daily cold  clyster  is  of uncalculable value.
Priessnitz has restored a great number  of such
sufferers  to  health.  All  those who went  away 
BATHS.
133
cured  from  the  Grccfenberg  took  with them
their  syringes,  in  memory  of  their  way of
getting healed. It needs scarcely to be repeated,
that here also only cold water was applied, which,
indeed, in  the  first  application produces little
effect,  but proves more and  truly beneficial as
its use is continued.
  When  the above  described  air and  water
diet  are observed, there  can remain but  two
kinds  of  diseases, to which  any  truly healthy
man (and such may any one become by observ-
ing it) can  be exposed;  firstly,  the diseases
resulting from climate (produced by corruptions
of the  elements); secondly, the infecting ulcerous
diseases (such as the  small pox, &c)—All other
acute diseases  are only possible with the usual
perverse diet;  and  all  chronical  ones must
disappear, being only secondary consequences of
perversely treated acute diseases. 
134
              CHAPTER VII.

            RECAPITULATION,

For such readers as read  only the first and last
  pages  of a  new book,  yet with  the view of
  giving their judgment upon it.

The  causes  of the diseases of  our  body are
always corporeal  substances (never  dynamical
disproportions),  from which  the organism  in-
fected by them cannot be  freed, unless they are
ejected from it;  not by being  kept in it,  even
though  arrested *by chemical  means, or  neu-
tralized.
  For this reason no medicine  can heal.   It is
impossible  that  the  medicine could chemically
destroy the sickening stuffs, because it is  im-
possible to make the medicine pervade the whole
organism in such a manner as  to reach all  the
concealed  particles of the disease; before this
could be done, the diseased  organism would be 
RECAPITULATION.
135
entirely  annihilated.    It  is  also,  for  another
reason, impossible, because the medicine under-
goes decomposition  in  the stomach,  in conse-
quence of which a great deal of  it is deducted
by the bowels.
  The healing method  of nature consists, there-
fore, in the exercise of the  power given to every
organism, to  eject out  of it all materials inimi-
cal to it.
  Any artificial method  must therefore follow
the same system, and consequently perform two
duties.   Firstly,  It  must  help   the  organism,
when the process of excretion is heightened to an
extraordinary struggle  (acute disease) :  and,
secondly, It  must spur it  (in the  crisis) to  this
struggle,  when it  becomes tired, and resigned
into languor (chronical disease), and even then it
must  assist  it in the  renewed struggle, as a pre-
server.
  Homoeopathy appears  to feel   this,  without
knowing it.   Its consistently elaborated  prin-
ciple, " Similia similibus curare," appears to en-
courage an excitement  to the acute disease,  but
offers no support  to  the  organism  when  the 
136
CHAPTER N IT.
struggle has begun.  Homoeopathy has also  at-
tained the knowledge that the doctrine of neutra-
lizing  the  sickening  substances  by  medicine
belongs to the circle of absurdities and senseless
inventions.  And for this reason, probably, Ho-
moeopathy  gives such  ridiculously  small  doses,
but which,  being too small even for excitement,
must  be totally  inefficacious.   The success  of
homoeopathic  cures  must  be attributed  solely
to the healing power of nature, which will only
fully display itself when entirely freed from  all
allopathic abuse.   Allopathy has no consistency
in herself;  now making  use of allopathically
operating medicines,  then of homoeopathic spe-
cific  means, us mercury  in syphilis,  Peruvian
bark in alternating fevers,  and again of surgical
measures.   But in most  cases  this school acts
according to its name, and then the effect  of  its
treatment is to remove the extraordinary struggle
fbr the recovery of health, by  weakening the
organism ; and thus to  change the acute disease
into chronic debility or  chronic languor.
  Allopathy has  no  supreme leading principle,
no consistent system. The true method of curing, 
RECAPITULATION.
137
that of nature,  has a supreme  principle,  and is
consistent.  In the hydriatric system, though the
iron consistency of nature  is mollified and repre-
sented as beautiful and  sublime in the harmony
of the functions of the organism, and their actions
and re-actions,  yet nature  is its prototype ; and
its rule is to conceal  the artificial character of
the  method,  by which the simplicity of nature and
her operations are disfigured, and her dignity as
tlie  supreme model of the art destroyed.
  The hydriatric method  fulfills  every  duty of
the healing art.   It stimulates the  organism  to
work its own recovery—a process  only desired
bv Homoeopathy.   It assists the organism in its
struggle  to  heal,—in which Homceopathy is en-
tirely inefficacious.
  In all internal diseases, the interior activity of
the body prevails over  the external, therefore it
is the first and  most pressing duty of the healing
art  to guide the activity of the organism, in con-
ducting the  motion of the fluids and sickening
materials towards the external  teguments  of the
body.  This can be done exclusively by cold wa-
ter, through its coldness and its solving quality. 
138
CHATTFR  VII.
The strong re-action,  by its, instrumentality,  is
relaxed,—the  thronging of all particles of the
body towards the skin, and the power of decom-
position, causes a partial expulsion of the noxious
materials,  already  immediately under  the  skin,
and an excitement of this tegument to  great ac-
tivity.  The water strives to decompose  and solve
the^whole skin into its constituent elements; this
organ  re-acts in defending  itself,  and is  thus
stimulated to an activity by which all the energy
of the [organism  is solicited  and  the general
afflux^ attracted  to it.   In and  by this process
new disturbing substances are daily led from the
interior to the skin,  and daily extracted  by the
water, and expelled  by the activity of the skin
in sweat and ulcers.
   Thus the hydriatric method effects the cure  of
chronic diseases.
   In  acute maladies, the danger is easily and
surely removed, and the heat  extracted  much
more rapidly then by venesection.   By the same
operation the deleterious substances are  conducted
to the skin, and expelled  from  it by sweat and
eruptions. 
RECAPITULATION.
139
  The same process  gone through with the skin
is applied  to the stomach  and the  bowels, by
copious  draughts of water and by injections.
Materials causing  disease  lying there or in the
neighbouring regions, will be  absorbed by  the
water, and  rejected with it.   This is the origin
of the frequent  diarrhoeas and critical urinating
during the water-cure.
  An uninterrupted  health  until death  quietly
enters, in the last  moment  of a prolonged life,
is quite impossible without the  use  of daily cold
baths, because the  skin  must be open and active
daily in order to eject  the noxious substances
that daily intrude.   The organism  of man, like
that of every viviparous animal,  is  intended by
nature for frequent contact with cold water.  If,
in any  individual case,  this is awanting,  there
will be, without exception, a preponderance of the
internal  activities over  the  external ones,  as  a
necessary consequence.  This, in itself, is an ab-
normal  state leading to  disease, the equilibrium
required for health  being suspended. 
140
               CONCLUSION.

   What will  be  the fate  of this  little Book ?
 Some will believe it—some will doubt it—some
 will laugh at it.  With Paul, I ask nothing for it,
 but—Prove all things, and hold fast that which
 is good.
   Go, then, my darling production, into the world,
 teach and convert the  followers  of errors and
 pernicious customs, that they may return to vir-
 tue and to nature.   Equally conscious of the ex-
 cellence of my cause and my inability to do justice
 to it, for myself I covet but the commendation-—
 "He  has  done what he could."   May the Su-
 preme Power bless and protect this  good cause,
and I shall feel happy, though unnoticed and un-
known,  supported by the consciousness that  I
have not  been  altogether useless  to my fellow-
men and my adopted country.

                  THE LXD, 
 
■ Ii ITWOIIVN   JNOIQiW JO AlfliN  IVNOIiVN  3 N I 3 I Q 3 W JO A»<
111 IVNOIiVN    3 N I 3 I 0 3 W JO  AKVUBM IVNOIIVN  3 N I 3 I 0 3 W  JO A B V
111 IVNOIIVN    3NI3IQ3W JO  A B V B 8 I 1 IVNOIIVN   3NI3I03W  JO ABV

r OF MEDICINE    NATIONAL  LIBRARY OF MEDICINE  NATIONAL  IIBRAI
 
I03W JO ABVBBIl IVNOIIVN  3NI3IQ3W JO A B_V1 Kj 1V RUUA**  JNK



























ONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE  NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE  NAT
bw# ?  \to 
NLM041404611