Medical Testimony in Favor of the Remedial Use of Water.
From the days of Hippocrates to Priessnitz, the most eminent physicians of all countries, have spoken almost as extravagantly in praise of the medical employment of water as do the hydropaths—the hydromaniacs, as they are sometimes called, of the present time. Yet directly in the face of this testimony its employment as a remedial agent had steadily declined, until recently revived by the wonders told of Graefenberg. Hippocrates wrote much in favor of the good effects to be derived from water both in health and disease. He declared that the bath, in cases of pneumonia, soothes the pain in the side, chest, and back, concocts the sputa, promotes expectoration, improves the respiration, and allays lassitude. He advised pouring cold water on inflamed and swelled joints, in gout and rheumatism, and in spasms, luxations, and fractures. Galen placed water in the highest rank of his materia medica. He regarded the bath, followed by exercise and friction, as one of the chief parts of a system of perfect cure. He has left the following record: "Cold water quickens the actions of the bowels, provided there be no constrictions from spasms, when warm water is to be used. Cold drink stops hemorrhages, and sometimes brings back heat. Cold drinks are good in continued and ardent fevers. They discharge the peccant and redundant humors by stool, or by vomiting, or by sweat." In biliousness, spasms, headache, fever of the stomach, hiccup, cholera morbus, obstinate ophthalmia, plethora, he recommended tepid and warm water-drinking, with the transition bathing—hot followed by tepid or cold. Celsus, in treating affections of the head, directs a warm sweating bath, followed by the tepid and cold bath, with an additional quantity of cold water to the head. He recommends water in fullness of the stomach, headache, weak vision, deafness, tremors, sinking, pains in the joints, diarrhea, piles, and in hysterical and hypochondriacal affection; and praises the bath in low fevers, digestive disorders, and diseased kidneys. He also advises cold immersion in skin diseases and in hydrophobia. Asclepiades, of Bithynia, though regarded as an empiric by the orthodox doctors of his day, advocated cold water internally and externally in hiccup, sour eructations, and nocturnal emissions. Oribasius testified to the value of water-treatment in a manner similar to that of Galen. Aetius directed baths in protracted fevers, convulsions, retention of urine, lassitude, and nervous pains, although he added to the water one-fifth part of heated oil. Rhazes advocated bathing in nearly all diseases. His water-treatment of small-pox was far more successful than any drug practice has proven since. Avicenna was also a strenuous advocate for the watery regimen in a multitude of diseases, especially asthma, colics, and dropsy. He recommended infants to be bathed daily in tepid water. It is a sad pity that Avicenna, the Arabian Galen, has not more imitators in this respect among modern physicians. Hoffman pronounced water a universal remedy. His language is: "We assert that water is a remedy suited to all persons, at all times; that there is no better preservative from distempers; that it is assuredly serviceable both in acute and chronic diseases; and, lastly, that its use answers to all indications, both of preservation and cure." Boerhaave has written: No remedy can more effectually secure health and prevent disease than pure water. Haller, as a testimonial of its value, drank nothing but water; and the same is recorded of Demosthenes, Milton and Locke. Floyer certifies: Water resists putrefaction and cools burning heat and thirst, and helps digestion. He recommended cold bathing in a variety of diseases. Baynard supposed good water to possess healing and balsamic properties. He was a strong advocate for bathing as a remedy. Gregory regarded water as a tonic to the digestive organs. The celebrated Cheyne exclaimed: Without all peradventure, water was the primitive original beverage, and is the only simple fluid fitted for diluting, moistening, and cooling. Macquart in an especial manner recommended men of science and letters to make water their favorite drink, assuring them that their ideas would be more precise, their judgment sounder, and their senses more delicate. Londe, and Levy, French authors on hygiene, speak emphatically in favor of the utility of water in preserving health. Sir John Ross, Miller, and other Northern navigators, have testified that exclusive water-drinkers endure the rigors and withstand the diseases of the frigid zone better than any other persons. Dr. Jackson, and Mr. Marshall, of the British army, and Drs. Mosely, and James Johnson, of London, assure us that the dangers of living in tropical climates are the least for the pure water-drinkers, and that these are far less liable to the diseases of acclimation. Haly Abbas, and Mesues, Arabian writers, prescribed bathing in most diseases, and their directions for conducting the processes were generally singularly judicious. Alsaharavius, Arabian, recommends bathing to moisten the body, open the pores, dispel flatulence, remove repletion, procure sleep, relieve pain, fluxes of the bowels, and lassitude, restore lean bodies to plumpness, soften contracted limbs, etc. Lanzani, Italian, commended large doses of cold water internally as the best remedy for fever, and wrote two elaborate books to explain the grounds of his practice. Fra Bernardo, Sicilian, acquired, in the early part of the last century, the title of "cold-water doctor," and won a high reputation for curing affections of the chest, palpitations, convulsions, obstinate dyspepsia, diarrhea, dropsy, hemorrhages, gout, and rheumatism, by water-treatment. He used ice-water freely internally, and applied ice to hot and inflamed parts. All food was withheld during the first four days—a point in practice which our beef-tea, mutton-broth, chicken-soup slopping and stuffing doctors would do well, for their patients, to imitate. Cirillo, Neapolitan, in 1729, treated a malignant fever, which prevailed at Naples, with what he called "the watery diet." He administered a pint or two of water, cooled by snow, every two hours for several days, permitting no kind of aliment whatever. When free perspiration took place the drink was omitted, and very light food allowed. He directed cold applications of snow to painful and inflamed parts, but did not prescribe general bathing. Rovida, of Arragon, is said to have practiced the water-treatment extensively on the plan of Cirillo and Fra Bernardo. Samoilowitz, Russian in 1771, experienced signal success in treating the plague at Moscow, by means of cold acidulated drinks, and frictions to the whole body, with pounded ice. Sir John Hancock, an English clergyman, in 1722, published a tract in advocacy of water as the best remedy for fevers and the plague. He cured agues,98scarlet fever, small-pox, measles, jaundice, and coughs, by copious water-drinking. John Smith, C. M., English, wrote a book about a century ago, which is full of testimonials to the curative powers of water in nearly all of the prevalent diseases of the day. Its title was, "The Curiosities of Common Water," and a large proportion of its pages is a compendium of the opinions of many celebrated physicians in favor of the employment of water as a general remedy. Among his authorities are Manwaring, Keill, Prat, Duncan, Elliot, Allen, Harris, Van Heyden, and Pitt, all eminent in the medical profession. Geoffrey, French, more than a century ago, advocated the free use of water as a preventive of the plague. Hecquel, French, about the same time, advocated the use of water as an almost universal specific. Pomme, French, at a later period, wrote in favor of cold water-drinking and warm bathing for various remedial and hygienic purposes, and particularly for the treatment of hysterical and hypochondriacal disorders. Rondeletius, French, published cases of gout cured by cold water as a beverage, as also did his countryman, Martinus. Riverius, French, treated female complaints, particularly mismenstruation, successfully by the use of water alone. De Hahn, German, directed free bathing and cold water-drinking during an epidemic fever at Breslau, in 1787, and his practice was far more successful than that of his competitors, who persisted in the employment of active drugs. Theden, German, employed cold water and ice successfully in strangulated hernia, inflammations, malignant fevers, and small-pox. Sturm, a Polish surgeon, testifies to the successful treatment of epidemic cholera, by means of as much warm water as the patients were able to drink, a glassful being administered every ten or fifteen minutes. Those celebrated medical philosophers and physicians, Harvey, Louret, Cocchi, Sanctorius, Marziano and Barthes, advocated and practiced cold applications to gouty swellings, and inflammations. Ambrose Pare declared that the true vulnerary, or dressing for wounds, was water alone. Michael Angelo Blondi, Italian, wrote an essay, in 1542, on water as a remedy for gun-shot wounds. Gabriel Fallopius, of Venice, Felix Palatius, of Trebia, and Joubert, Martel, and Lamarier, of France, strongly advocated water-dressings in surgical cases, instead of the more mystified and often miscellaneous plasters, balsams, liniments, lotions, or poultices. Larrey, the most celebrated operative surgeon France ever produced, used water-dressings generally. Kern, of Austria, praised the uses of water in the treatment of wounds, and even laid claim to the discovery of its superior merit. M. Jose, of Amiens, recommended cold water in the treatment of wounds, burns, phlegmons, erysipelas, and gangrene. Macartney, of Dublin, advises the free and methodical employment of water-dressings in wounds. With him irrigation was a favorite mode of application. Lancassani, in 1768, Caldani, in 1767, Leanter, in 1780, and Percy in 1785, published conclusive evidences of the superiority of water alone to all the medicated fluids and compounds known, for surgical diseases. Dr. Wright, of England, in 1777, employed cold ablutions extensively and successfully in the treatment of fevers. Dr. Currie, of Liverpool, commenced the treatment of fevers by cold affusions in 1787. For several years he treated typhus and scarlet fevers, small-pox, and other diseases, principally by bathing, and with a success universally admitted to have been far greater than that of the drug-treatment. His work on the subject was published in 1797. Dr. Robert Jackson, of the British army, had equal success in the same practice, the facts of which he published in 1791, at which time he had been in the habit of treating fevers by cold affusions for nearly twenty years. Giannini, of Milan, strongly recommends cold immersion in typhus and petechial fevers. Dr. Thaer, of Prussia, in 1825, treated measles by cold bathing, and with remarkable success, as compared with his drugging contemporaries. Dr. N. Smith, of New Haven, Conn., was in the habit of dashing cold water on the bodies of patients in cases of typhoid fever, so as to drench both the body linen and bedding. Dr. Forbes, present editor of the ablest medical journal of Europe, and one of the physicians to her Majesty, Queen Victoria, confesses that in a large proportion of the cases of gout and rheumatism, the Water-Cure seems to be extremely efficacious. He says, further, "In that very large class of cases of complex disease, usually known under the name of chronic dyspepsia, in which other modes ["other modes?"] of treatment have failed, or been only partially successful, the practice of Priessnitz is well deserving of trial. In many chronic nervous affections and general debility we should anticipate great benefit from this system. In chronic diarrhea, dysentery, and hemorrhoids the sitz bath appears to be frequently an effectual remedy." Dr. John Bell, author of the ablest historical work on bathing, extant, has treated scarlatina in the Pennsylvania Hospital for many years by cold bathing, with the most satisfactory success. Although he does not entirely reject all other remedies, he admits that there is no other remedy than water which unites, to any thing like the same extent, efficacy with safety, and immediately pleasurable results. He says: "How often I have seen the little sufferer, with burning heat and delirium and unable to obtain sleep or repose of any kind, tranquilized immediately by the cold affusion, and fall into a sweet and refreshing sleep immediately afterward." Such is a part of the testimony volunteered by the regular profession in favor of the system we advocate. The reader will bear in mind that nearly all the authorities thus far quoted are eminent authors, professors and practitioners of the allopathic school. After examining such a flood of evidence in favor of nearly all that is claimed by the hydropathists, the question naturally arises, Why is it, if regular physicians, in all ages, and of all countries, have found water-treatment so superior in the great mass of human maladies, that the medical faculty of the present day, as a body, employ it so little, in fact almost wholly neglect it, nay, bitterly and vehemently oppose it? This is indeed a strange problem, but it can be solved.—Trall's Hydropathic Encyclopedia.