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WATER-CURE
LADIES:
A POPULAR WORK ON THE HEALTH, DIET, AND REGIMEN OF
    FEMALES AND CHILDREN, AND THE PREVENTION
            AND CURE OF DISEASES;
A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE PROCESSES OF WATER-CURE j

       KlitistrateDr toitj bartous (Eases :


         Br Mrs. M. L. SHEW,

    REVISED BY JOEL SHEW, M. D.
         PRACTITIONER OF WATER-CURB.
        NEW-YORK:
WILEY AND PUTNAM,
161 BROADWAY
1844. 

Fi\^    **.    Qe-iO  #3
 Entered aecording to an Act of Congress, in the year ISM, by
               WlLBY AND PtJINAM,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District
                  of New-York.
J. P. Wrioht, Printer,
  122 Fulton street. 
PREFACE.
   The writer believes in " temperance in all things."  To
understand how to be thus temperate, requires  an amount
of physiological knowledge possessed by few.   It implies
neither more nor less than the best taking care of the health
of the body.   To do this, people must  learn to think for
themselves.  The custom of society is not thus.   By far too
much, we have been in the habit of trusting  our health to
keepers whose profession and interest are  not always  most
favorable.  Physicians are  employed to cure,  not to pre-
vent disease.   Not so should it be; but
    " All things are weighed in custom's falsest scale,
    Opinion, an omnipotence, whose veil
    Mantles the earth with darkness, until right
    And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale
    Lest their own judgments should beam too bright,
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light"
   In consequence of peculiar associations in life,  the "writer
has had occasion to witness not a little in  the common prac-
tice of medicine.  She has consequently seen much of drugs,
and has in her own person (and who has not ?)  experienced
their effects.   She has seen, and experienced,  too, the won-
derful effects of water.   Water-cure is truly " a new world
in the healing art."
   Poisonous drugs have done incalculable injury.  If the dead
could speak, how many might truly say,  in the words of the
old epitaph, " i" was well.   I look physic, and  here Hie."
But says one, " So Sir Francis Burdett could say, * I wore 
IV
PREFACE.
water-cure bandages, and here /lie."  Did Sir Francis kill
himself by water ?   According to the English papers, " The
doctors say, he was a devotee of the water-cure, and over-
did the matter by keeping himself incessantly  bandaged in
wet cloths."  But  it is to be very much doubted whether
the matter was "overdone" with Sir Francis.  It were
easy for doctors to set up  a bugbear in water-cure, by talk-
ing of cold wet cloths and chilling wet  sheets, and the  like,
learnedly discoursing of things untried  and not at all under-
stood.  But  if water  has power, (which it must have, to
cure,) it can be, and has been overdone.
  What have we for curative means in  our country at the
present time?   Besides regular practitioners to almost any
extent, in our various papers we find in abundance flaming
advertisements of medicines, cures, and curers,  all well and
wisely attested.  Then there are Life  Pills, HNgeian Pills,
Golden Pills,  and  Pills  every thing; Panaceas,  Elixirs,
Pain Extractors, dec, kc.  Then, also, those infinitessimal
doses of charcoal, cuttle-fish juice, and the like, which, by
the way, with good diet, drink, and firm confidence, do truly
work wonders.  There is also that strange agency by which
it is pretended that a person, perhaps a youth not  yet  in
teens, may be enabled mesmerically to describe any or all
the internal  organs of the body,  to define its diseases, and
to prescribe appropriate remedies.  So it is; medicines and
remedial means have  been multiplied without number, and
to what purpose, through  water-cure, people are fast begin-
ning to learn.  Drug medicines cannot be depended upon.
Not one of the whole number;  and this  is the true reason
why they have been thus  multiplied.
  Here  is a difference between water-cure and drug  sys-
tems—a most important one.  Water-cure rightly adminis-
tered is always entirely safe, and will do good.   Not so  with
poison drugs.  Even in small doses they sometimes produce
fatal results.  They always produce diseased action.
  Who does not know how frequently infants and children 
PREFACE.
V
have been drugged to death.  We are not now speaking of
physicians.  But physicians often do injury with their drugs.
Both the medicine and the  food they recommend are often
most pernicious.  Contrast with the common  treatment in
medicine the following case:
  It was that of a child seven months of age.   This infant
having lost its mother at its birth, a wet nurse was procured,
such as was considered by the physicians to be a healthy
one.  The child was  removed to a plantation, where ague
and fever was common.  After remaining awhile, the nurse
was taken with the ague, and subsequently the child. Both
had the disease severely.   At the commencement the nurse
(a young woman) was healthy and strong.   Her diet  and
general regimen were,  however, as bad as could well be;—
consisting much of bacon,  fine bread, butter,  gravies, very
strong tea and coffee, wines, fyc, which things, also, the child
was taught to  take.   The  usual  anodyne and purgative
medicines were taken by the nurse, and given to the child.
At first, the little one was the picture of health and cheer-
fulness.  At seven months, in an almost dying state, it  was
necessary to take it from the nurse.  Its eyes were glassy
__its head languidly dropping upon  the shoulder,  and its
naturally clear and white skin had changed  to a uniform
yellow, almost  like that of a mulatto.  Its lips were com-
pressed, and of nearly the same color as the face.  It  was
of course much emaciated—its cheeks hanging down,  and
its whole expression one of continual suffering.  For weeks
it had not been seen to smile.  It was now put under the
water-cure treatment, and at the same time weaned.  The
chill and fever took place every other day.   At first, on
" the well day," wet sheet, sweating was produced, accom-
panied  by various bathings.  Never before had the child
been given a drop of water.  Now it took  it  greedily, and
soon rejected its accustomed drinks.  On the " sick day," it
being the second of the cure, very active treatment prevented
the chill and fever, and it was never allowed to 'return.
            1* 
VI
PREFACE.
  Will any one say that quinine, or any other poison could
have accomplished such a cure? It could easily have been
given so as "to break the fits," but how much the constitu-
tion  of the child would have  suffered, is not pleasant for
the writer  to contemplate.  It was very strongly recom-
mended that quinine should by all means be given.  A most
obstinate habitual constipation,  by drinking,  bathing,  and
pure water injections, was also cured.  The little girl is
now one year old, with rosy cheeks, ruby lips, and all  that
is lovely and desirable in a child.   Yes, she  is even now
before us, and her bright expressive eye and  merry  laugh
tell of the wonders of cold water; and the physicians have
acknowledged that they never saw  so great  a change in
health and appearance,  in so short a time.
  Where opportunity offers, such cures can easily and safe-
ly be performed  by  any  who  are  sufficiently acquainted
with the human  system, and the treatment by water;  and
by what means can the physical condition of our race be
more effectually bettered, than by  the universal spread of
such knowledge, not only among men, but among women ?
In reference to the diet of this interesting child, it was early
educated to take various improper  things.   At and  before
weaning, it was fond of cakes, sweetmeats, candies, and the
like.   It would not take bread at all,  unless well  buttered.
Now it utterly refuses all  these things.  It is  more fond of
good fruit, bread and milk, than any thing else.  It refuses
the milk that is generally used  in this city.
  In this case an honored and experienced professor in  one
of our oldest medical colleges, strongly  recommended  qui-
nine to break the tils,  and  wine  to give strength.   Re-
specting wine and other alcoholic preparation-; so  often re-
commended and given in cases of children as well as adults,
can any give a rational explanation how  alcohol can act be-
neficially in the living system ?  It is a deadly  poison, and so
volatile that it at once permeates the animal membranes,
and "spreads itself throughout the body  in  all directions," 
P :eface.
vii
 to the most delicate parts, as the brain and nerves.   Is it
 said that" it is a prompt diffusable stimulant, which has the
 power speedily to excite general organic action  throughout
 the system?" We answer, such stimulation is but tempora-
 ry, and is unnatural;—that the organic action is in the end
 lowered in proportion to the stimulation used—that  the tis-
 sues  are always poisoned  and their  vitality destroyed in
 proportion to the  amount of alcohol taken.
   If water-cure is in reality what we,  its advocates, claim,
 what a discovery for the world  will it prove to be!  When
 its doctrines shall be understood by all, what advantages
 will it bring !  Mankind  will not then be under the necessi-
 ty of ransacking all nature for medicine to cure.   The rills,
 the running streams, the springs, the pure rivers, and crys-
 tal lakes, and the  pure snow and  rain from the clouds of
 heaven, how abundant their supply!  The  poor  man  with
 his wife, and little ones, though far away  from society,
 and many of the  so-called comforts of civic life, can have in
 abundance this best medicine.  The water-cure teaches, too,
 that nature's wants are always few.   How many  an un-
 fortunate family there is, who think hard of the ways of so-
 ciety, and of Heaven, and whose comforts are " like angels'
 visits," and yet who are  habitually spending for their tea,
 coffee, tobacco, and various pernicious and life-destroying
 things,  more than would be sufficient to make their condi-
 tion comfortable.   The plain and sitnple food and fruits, in
 general, so easily  obtained and prepared—the pure water
 for ablutions and for drink—and the pure air  of  heaven to
 breathe, if understood,  what health and enjoyment would
 they give ?
   The wat<?r-cure system is pre-eminently calculated to im-
prove mankind in the preventing of disease.  Respecting
this there is but little known.   In relation to  our bodies, it
is little  understood how much small things  go to make up
a certain whole.  It should ever be remembered that there
is  law  in every  thing.   " A constant dropping wears 
viii
PREFACE.
the hardest stone."  The delicate snow  flakes, too small
to be appreciated, in time become a destructive avalanche;
and the little rain, and snow, and dew, collect, until  there
is formed the mighty cataract.   So a  little medicine, tea,
coffee, wine, and toddy, a little  impure air, and a  little ne-
glect in cleanliness, quantity and kind of food, from day to
day permitted, will, with inevitable certainty, if continued,
sooner or later bring on terrific disease, and violent death.
  An American medical reviewer on water-cure, iu speak-
ing of a work  on  the subject, says,  " We  are accord-
ingly informed here that water drank in abundance, and ex-
ternally applied,  will  infallibly cure diarrhoea,  cholera,
lock-jaw, tic doloroux, gout, consumption, &c, to the end
of the melancholy chapter of ills that flesh is heir to."  To
thus infallibly cure, drug doctors have sometimes pretended,
drug quacks often, but hydropathists never.  Water-curers
do pretend that by the system with water, all curable dis-
eases can be cured, and some that are otherwise incurable;
and that the cures can be performed more safely, and in a
shorter time. If they are mistaken, let the profession, in the
spirit of truth, by their doings, prove it.   As yet, they have
not.
  To dig up from the earth, to extract and manufacture from
vegetables,  and  from animal bodies, the vilest of poisons
and pernicious substances which are made to act in the hu-
man stomach,  circulation, and  upon  the  delicate  brain
and nerves, is not very wise, if  pure clean water is the best
thing,—if it will respond to all  indications.   Than  cold
water to drink, and water to cure, if there are better things,
we, of hydropathy, shall be glad to know it.  Now we  do
not.
  Physicians will  not deny but that there  is emphatically
yet enough to learn respecting the human system, and the
numerous agencies that operate in health and disease, if
simple water is the best medicine.  It would be an advan-
tage to rid the mind of such a burden of the memfrry as is ne- 
PREFACE.
IX
cessary in drugs.  There is the far more noble attainment,
—a knowledge of removing the causes of disease.
   In connexion with the subject of health, a word the writer
ventures to say on beauty.  The influence of beauty has
been recognised in all ages.  Of its power we could not di-
vest ourselves if we would.   Its importance is clearly set
forth in the Word of God.  Among the captive  children of
Israel, to  stand before the king, there were  to be  selected
those who had "no blemish," and were "well favored;" and in
the end they  were distinguished for "fairness  of counte-
nance" and " comeliness of person" as well as for wisdom.
Can any one  contemplate the personal appearance of our
Lord and  Saviour Jesus Christ, without the idea, that his
bodily form and features were perfectly beautiful ?
   Let it be remembered that all which  tends to promote
health, also improves the  personal  appearance, and  that
without firm  health, there  cannot be true beauty.   There
were certain kinds of food and drink which Daniel  and his
three friends would not defile themselves with.  Nor do we
believe there was any necessity for a miracle in their case.
Those persons had doubtless always attended much to
health. By general regimen it is easy to change  the face
and form so as hardly to be recognised.
   A few hints we give.  Daily ablution, suitable exercise,
with always pure air to breathe both night and day, are in-
dispensable.   All hot drinks injure the teeth and debilitate
the stomach.   Tea and coffee color the  teeth,  render the
complexion always more or less sallow,  and at the same
time make one nervous.  Butter, all oily food and salt, af-
fect the skin, causing pimples which are  so  common, and
for which those quack medicines are so much used,  and by
which the skin is at the time made to appear a little better,
but is always in reality  injured.   Pure soft water is  always
the best.  Compressing the chest renders the face  dark or
pale.   Tight sleeves throw the blood to the hands.  Tight
elastics obstruct circulation, and thus injure health and  ap- 
X
preface.
pearance.  Hair tied too tight gives a disagreeable expres-
sion to the face.  Too warm clothing, as is generally worn
upon  the back, causes  weakness and  pain of the part.
Tight shoes, as all tight clothing, affect gracefulness and
motion, as well as the health of the body.
  With high hopes as to what the writer believes water-cure
must 6oon be  a means of accomplishing, in this country,
this little book has been prepared.  It has no claim to lite-
rary merit. The object has been to make a book that would
be practically useful, and one  that could be understood by
all.
                                          M.  L.  S.
   New- York, Fourth street,
                June 20, 1844.
                   ERRATA.
Page 18, 8th line, for " swollen" read " swol'n."
Page 52, 8th line from below, in a few copies, for
    " chemical" read " chimerical."
Page59, 16thline, for "proportions" read "properties."
Page 156,11th line, for " often" read " frequent." 
CONTENTS.
                     CHAPTER I.
Great Mortality of Infants and Children—It is unnatural, p. 13.

                     CHAPTER II.

The Water-Cure and other systems of Healing, 17—Opinions of
   various authors, 19—The Curative Power, 24—Objections
   to Water-Cure, 28.

                    CHAPTER III.

Preservation of Health,—Bathing, 31.

                      CHAP. IV.

Diet and General Regimen, 36—Interesting Historical Facts, 89.

                    CHAPTER V.

Stimulants, Narcotics and Condiments, 47—Salt, 4V—Mustard,
   Pepper, Ginger,  Cloves, Spices, &c., 53—Tobacco,  54—
   Opium, 56—Tea, 58—Coffee, 60.

                    CHAPTER VI.

Food and its preparations, 63—Animal Food,  best kinds, 63—
   How prepared, 65—Butter, 66—Rules from Dr. Beaumont's
   Observations  and Experiments, 67—Milk,  Cream,  69—
   Cheese, 70—Eggs, 70—Bread, 71—Priessnitz's Bread,  72—
   Wheaten Bread, 73—Varieties of Bread, 75—Sal ^Eratus in
   bread, cakes, dec, 76—Unleavened Bread, 76—When and
   with what Bread should be eaten, 78—Crackers, 80—Toast,
   81—Panada orPanado, 81—Various Plain Puddings, 82-84
   —Pies, various kinds, 84-88—Potato Flour for Cakes,  Chil-
   dren and the Sick, 88—Plain Cakes, 88-89—Fruits,  89—
   Vegetables, 90—Potatoes, 90—Vegetable  Soup, 91—Beans
   and Peas, 91—Rice, 92—Wheat, Rice, Sago  and Tapioca
   Jellies, 92-93. 
XII
CONTENTS.
                   CHAPTER VII.

Quantity of Nutriment in Food, and physiological effects of dif-
   ferent kinds, 94—Times of Eating, 100—Food of Infants and
   Children, 103—Proper Quantity, 106—Weaning,107.

                  CHAPTER VIII.

Water, Drinking, 109—duality of Water, 111.

                   CHAPTER IX.

Air,  Ventilation,  112—Exercise, 114—Exercise of Infants  and
   Children, 116—Clothing, 117—Sleep,  118.

                    CHAPTER X.

Water-Cure Processes,  Sweating, 120—Wet Sheet  or  Lein-
   Tuch, 123—Bandages, cooling and warming (umschlags), 126
   ^Body Bandage, 127— Sitz or Sitting Bath, 128—Half Bath,
   129—Foot Bath, 130—Head Bath, 131—Eye, Finger, Arm,
   Leg and Shower Baths,  134—Drop and  Douche Bath,  135
   —Injections, 136—Cautions in the use of Water, 137.
    LIST OF CASES, AND THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES

 Ague and Fever,          -        -        -      -   p.  5
 Case of Death by Pills,                                  94
 Brain Fever,    -----    130
 Deafness following Nervous Fever,      -        -        J3j
 Fainting and Insensibility from Douching,   -       .    135
 Inflammation of Stomach and Bowels,  -        -        133
 Ulcerated Sore Throat and Fever,  -        -       -    139
 Measles,    -----        140
 Asthma and Affection of the Liver.          -       .    141
 Severe shock, from a fall,     -        -        .        242
 Severe and loathsome taint of the system,     -       -    143
 Inflammation and Swelling of the Breasts,        -        144
 Debility and Suffering after Confinement,   -        .     145
 Puerperal Ulceration,         -                          j4g
 Eruptive Fever,         -                               j4«
 Rheumatism in the Head,     -                          j4y
 Scarlet Fever,           -        -        .        _    ^49
 Irregularity in Menstruation,           -        .    149_152
 Priessnitzf Treatment before and during Confinement   .   ~151
    "          "    of Infants,        -        .'       15,
 Constipation,  -        .         -         .        -     152
Uterine Haemorrhage,          -                          15-
Tooth-ache,   -        -         .         .             15,
 Consumption,      -                                   .„
 Pregnancy and Child-bearing,    -             "         J^j 
«NSrater = arure  for  3LaUit8.
                CHAPTER I.

Great Mortality of Infants and Children—It  is
                 unnatural.

  The fact, that so  large a proportion of the hu-
man race  die in infancy, or early childhood, has
often been noticed by medical men and others.  A
late  writer, Dr.  Edward Johnson, of London,
asserts that one half of civilized mankind die be-
fore  the age of eight years.  In some parts of the
enlightened world, such mortality  is very much
greater  than in others.   For some years  past,
in this city, (New-York,) of the whole number of
deaths, a little more than one half have  been  of
children under five years of age.  The proportion
will not hereafter be so great, since we are  sup-
plied with such an  abundance of pure water by
the Croton water-works ; and the subject, too, of
the proper management of children, is fast becom-
ing one of interest and  attention.   Of the larger
cities in the North, the proportion of deaths among
children has been greater in New-York  than  in
               2 
11
WATER-CURE
 others.  It is said, that  in  Southern cities, New-
 Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, &c, in-
 fant mortality is still  greater than in New-York.
 We have no means by which  we  can, with ex-
 actness, calculate  the  number  of  infant deaths
 throughout the country ; but, as nearly as can be
 ascertained, it is decidedly less than in cities. The
 pure air of the country, and, in some respects, the
 more healthy food there to be obtained, are among
 the more favorable causes.  Still, in the most fa-
 vorable locations, there is, in the present state of
 knowledge, a fearful amount of disease, suffering,
 and premature  death  in the infant portion of our
 race.
   No one, who is  acquainted with physiological
 subjects, can, for a moment, be  at a loss in deter-
 mining the more prominent causes of such mor-
 tality—causes which operate in so efficient a man-
 ner, in sweeping off, at an early age, so large a pro-
 portion of our species.  Nor can any such doubt
 that the causes of this premature  disease and
 death, and of disease in general,  are  mostly with-
in the control of mankind.   In those portions of
the world where the laws of life and health are
best observed, we invariably find the best health
resulting.  This is nothing more  than the natural
effect of a natural cause.   The raised stone falls
naturally to the ground;—the  bent spring re-
turns naturally  towards its former  position ;—so
health  is the uniform result  of  the harmonious
operations of Nature's laws. In living animals, of 
FOR  LADIES.
15
whatever kind, the infringement of such laws must
produce disease.
  The lower orders of animals, when left away
from  the pernicious  influences of man, may be
said to follow out the instincts of nature.  Indeed,
they have not the power to do otherwise.  And,
as a consequence, we find, that among them health
is the uniform result.   Disease is only the excep-
tion to the general rule, and so  exceedingly rare,
that it would hardly be worthy of notice.
  It is therefore unwise, irrational, and unphiloso-
phical to regard such prevailing disease and pre-
mature death as the infliction of a Divine Provi-
dence.  It cannot be doubted, but that it is in per-
fect accordance with  the  designs and arrange-
ments of such a Being, that, as a rule, we should
live in freedom from disease through life, to a good
old age.  And, furthermore, it  is doubtless true,
that  the  course of life which  will afford us the
highest present earthly enjoyment, will also  tend
best to qualify us for the life to come.
  The lower orders of animals have not faculties
by which to contrive the means of what may be
termed  sensual enjoyment.   They  are guided
wholly by the  instincts of their nature.  These
instincts lead only to  enjoyment and health.  So
in a  primitive or healthy state of man, instinct
alone  would be an infallible guide to health.  But
then it is said that man is formed for a wider
range of enjoyment than the lower orders of ani-
mals.   This all is true, and admitted.  But does it 
16
TER-CURE
necessarily follow that this is true of mere animal
enjoyment ?  Is not such  enjoyment as  great in
the lower orders as in man ?  Undoubtedly !  The
ox, living upon his natural  food, and the deer,
and the buffalo, breathing the pure out-door air of
heaven, each experience a high degree of such
enjoyment, and one incomparably beyond that of
man, in his present physiologically depraved state;
for they live in accordance  with  Nature and its
laws, but man does not.
   To  enumerate, in detail, the  multitudinous
causes that every where operate in civic life, to
deteriorate  man's nature, and  to develope dis-
ease,  would not  conveniently come within the
compass of a  work like this.  Such causes, and
the means of their removal, as we proceed, will,
however, frequently be treated of.   The work we
propose,  is  that of giving hydropathic or water-
cure  advice to mothers, on the health and  man-
agement of themselves and their offspring.  The
water-cure system, far above all  other  systems,
we like.   Its good effects we have already seen
in abundance.   And more,—we have experienced
such effects in our own person, and this too when
all other known means had failed.   Full  well can
we say, with the Greek poet, " Water is the best
thing." And right earnestly would we entreat all
to understand fully,  and to enter into  the  true
spirit and import  of the lesson, " Wash  and be
clean." 
FOR  LADIES.
17
               CHAPTER II.

The Water-Cure, and other systems of Healing—
  Opinions  of various Authors—The  Curative
  Power—Objectors to Water-Cure.

  The  water-cure system, to use  the language
of a late writer, is " the new world in the healing
art."  Its  discoverer, Vincent Priessnitz, of Aus-
trian Silesia, Germany, may  well  be styled the
Columbus of Medicine.  For his modest and  un-
pretending virtues, for his generosity, liberality,
and kindness to the poor and the suffering of  hu-
manity,  long, long will his name be spoken of in
praise and  honor.   The  monuments  already
erected  among those mountains where he resides,
and where the honor was his, to make a discovery
which, though as simple as could well be—as easy,
once known, as the experiment of Columbus with
the egg, but  one which will operate more power-
fully in relieving the physical sufferings of mankind
than any and every other  which  has ever been
made, are evidences that some there  are  who
appreciate him.   Thousands  of  sufferers have
there found  relief.  There are, it  is  true,  to  be
found those, and among the so-called wise of 
18              WATER-CURE
earth, who call it a foolish thing to  ascribe  such
effects to simple water-cure.   Full ready are they
to class it with  the many delusions with which the
healing  art  has teemed so largely—delusions of
which, in the language  of the  poet, it  has been
well said that,
     " They in turn, appear to make the vulgar stare,
      Till the swollen bubble bursts, and all is air."

   We did not design, in the beginning, to make a
critique upon our keepers of the public  health, the
physicians ; but how is  this, doctors ?  How is it
that so  many, like one  who  had  been  severely
afflicted for  years,  and who,  as we  read, had
" suffered many things  of many physicians, and
had spent all that she had, and was nothing bet-
tered, but rather grew worse "—how is it, we ask,
that so many of such persons are cured ?   That
many have  been,  you  will  not deny.   Is  it all
through imagination, marvellousness, tractoration,
mesmeric medical intuition ?   If you say it is,—
we answer, without hesitancy, the powerful sweat-
ing, the double agency of the ridiculed wet-sheet,
the  various bathings, the efficient douche, the
washings, internal and  external, which truly so
often make one clean,  the  pure out-door  air  of
heaven, the appropriate exercise and  diet,  and
more, which is all implied in  this primitive  treat-
ment,—the  water-cure,—you do not yet under-
stand.  " Who shall decide  when doctors dis-
agree?"  is  the  trite but  meaning old adage. 
FOR LADIES.
19
May not women,  if they are  capable ?   So we
think, or we would never venture to write a book
on such a subject as this.
  Hoffman, a German physician of note, long ago
truly said, that "if there exists any thing in the
world  that can be called a panacea (a universal
remedy) it is  pure water ; first, because it will
disagree with nobody ;  secondly, because it is the
best preservative against disease ; thirdly, because
it  will  cure  agues  and  chronic  complaints;
fourthly, because it responds  to all indications"
A practitioner and author of our own day,  after
lauding in high terms the same agent, pure water,
closes  by saying,  " It has sometimes appeared
to me that I could fulfil  almost every indication
by  the use  of water; vomit,  purge,  sweat,
strengthen, and thus cure all fevers, &c.  But we
must not simplify too  much, lest we destroy our
business too soon."
  Hippocrates, the great father of medicine, we are
told, used water much  in his treatment; and so
have other great physicians.  But  as drugs be-
came  more and  more  numerous,  the abundant
fluid, which may well be said to be " Nature's me-
dicine," was most sadly neglected.   Man, in his
eagerness to  find out some catholicon, some im-
agined  universal  remedy, wandered far  from
the  simple  and always  truthful guide,  Nature.
Consequently the forms of drugs, almost innume-
rable, have been used in the practice of medicine ;
and with what degree of success; some among 
20
WATER-CURE
physicians  have  honestly  told  us.   One says,
" Avoid medicine  and physicians, if you value
your health."   The distinguished  Doctor Benja-
min Rush said to the  world, " Those physicians
generally  become the most eminent who have
the soonest emancipated  themselves  from  the
tyranny of the schools of physic.  Dissections
daily convince us of our ignorance of the seats of
disease, and cause us to blush at our prescriptions.
What mischief have we done,  under the belief of
false facts and false  theories ?   We have  as-
sisted  in  multiplying  disease ;  we  have done
more—we have increased  their mortality.   I will
not pause to  beg pardon  of the  faculty  for  ac-
knowledging, in this public manner, the weakness
of our profession.  I am pursuing truth, and  am
indifferent whither I  am  led,  if she only is  my
leader."
   Magendie, who is well known to  the medical
world, said that "the existing system of medical
study confers trifling good on society,"—that the
plan hitherto pursued in the study of  medicine has
been too narrow ever to lead to those happy re-
sults that dignify  an age by improving the condi-
tion of humanity,"—that  " the  science of medi-
cine is almost  the only one characterised  by un-
certainty  and  chance," and that "the prevalent
 mode  of treating disease harmonizes admirably
with, and is quite  as  senseless  as the methods of
reasoning in pathology.  The  practitioner mixes,
 combines and jumbles together vegetable, animal, 
FOR  LADIES.
21
 and mineral substances; administers them, right.
 or wrong, without for a moment considering the
 cause of  the  disease,  and without a single clear
 idea of the why and wherefore of what he does."
   In full view of an abundance of such testimony
 as  this, we  need not  wonder that the so-called
 " science  of medicine" has done so little in allevi-
 ating the  sufferings of mankind, nor that,  as phy-
 sicians and  medicines  increase, so disease and its
 forms multiply—than which nothing is more true,
 or  more easy of proof.  It is, then, nothing sur-
 prising that there should be such strange and con-
 tradictory theories  in medicine—such a heteroge-
 neousness of opinions; nor why  some powerful
 mode of treatment, which comes  up and gets to
 be a hobby,  runs on a few years, or perhaps longer,
 and then gives place to some other mode directly
 its opposite; and physicians come to declare that
 patients lived in  very spite of the treatment adopt-
 ed.   Why   one  physician   says, in a  certain
 case, such a mode must be adopted—and another
 the contrary.  Why, in low  fevers, one  famous
 practitioner  adopts uniformly the stimulating treat-
 ment, and another just the reverse, (each  curing
 his  patients.)  By the way, our primitive philoso-
 pher, Priessnitz,  is decried as being an " illiterate
 peasant,"  " an ignorant hind of the Silesian moun-
 tains,"  " one who is not able to give to his  reason-
 ings a scientific form of expression," and the like.
 True, he is, in the common acceptation of the day,
unlearned, and  his theories have  somewhat of
             2* 
22
WATER-CURE
rudeness about them.  But  although  he simply
says that the use of cold water cures diseases by
strengthening  the general health  and fortifying
the system ;" that " water has a tendency to bring
bad  stuff  out of the system,"  yet, if we mistake
not, these  statements are not less correct than the
best ever made by medical men.  Priessnitz, how-
ever, says comparatively but little ;  he thinks and
acts much.  And such has been his success, that
none other has ever equalled  him in  the  praise-
worthy avocation of curing disease, or  rather,
as he professes, in assisting the inherent energies
of the system  to throw off its own diseases,  which
it always  must.  The expression generally used
is,  " Such a medicine cured such a disease."  This
is  entirely wrong.  The medicine may  assist,
but does not cure.   Disease is not a living thing
within,  as many  seem to suppose, which may be
killed  and driven out.   It is disordered action in
the system or some  of its  parts which  we have
to contend with.
   We  think these objectors  to  the  water-cure
system can hardly be well  acquainted with some
of the theories which are propounded by some of
 the most  eminent of the  profession, or  else such
 objections would not be urged against Priessnitz.
 Take for example the theory respecting the action
 of calomel or mercury upon the system, as given
 by the very learned and celebrated Boerhaave—
 the one who nobly declared that his best patients
 were those who  had the Lord for paymaster—the 
FOR  LADIES.
23
 poor.   The  theory was this, that the globules of
 the metal acted upon the  system through the cir-
 culation in the same way that shot act to cleanse
 the inside of a bottle by shaking.  This is pro-
 bably about as good a theory as medical men have
 been able to give on the action of that medicine
 as it is called.
   The practice, or so-called science of medicine, has
 been little else than one of experiment.  Formerly
 it was called the theory and  practice of medicine.
 Latterly, with less propriety, the science of medi-
 cine.   The art  was commenced by experiment.
 Far back in history, it was customary for tablets
 to be written and put up, similar to what  is  some-
 times  done in  churches  latterly, only  the tab-
 let was  designed to show the treatment of the
 disease.   The patient had such and such symp-
 toms—took such remedies, and died thus and so.
 At other times the sick were placed upon beds in
 the streets (a practice much  better  than  the one
 now so common, of closely  confining  patients  in
 unventilated rooms,) so that they could be interro-
 gated by, and for the benefit of those who should
 pass by.  This was done in reference to the symp-
 toms, and the length, progress, and standing of the
 disease, and of the various effects of the curative
 means  employed.  And even at the present day
it would be a matter of no little surprise to  those
who have been in the habit of regarding the heal-
ing art  as a  science, if they would, for instance,
pass through the wards of  a hospital, and  note 
24
WATER-CURE
carefully, from day to day, the  treatment, to  see
how much of it is mere empyricism or experiment.
" We will try such a medicine," or such a combi-
nation, and in such a dose, and see what the effect
will be.  If, by virtue of the " vis medicatrix  na-
turae," the curative power of the system, or if this
power, assisted by the medicine, should be found
to have produced a change for  the better :  " Lo !
the medicine has done the work !"   What won-
ders the medicine has done !"  But, suppose there
is a change for the  worse  in the case, which so
often  takes  place, through the agency of the  me-
dicine purely, behold, the  case  is a bad one, and
the patient dies, notwithstanding such good reme-
dies have been employed.
   Such being the tendency of the existing system
of medicine, and of the habits of medical men, is
it surprising that there should be those of its kind
who should brand  it as one " conferring trifling
good upon society," one " that is characterized by
uncertainty and chance" that it would  be  better
for mankind if there existed not a particle of me-
dicine on the earth ?  Verily it is true, that if all
medical practice were at once cut off", and discon-
tinued, there  would be  less  disease, suffering*
and premature death.   Even leaving  all the per-
nicious, life-destroying  influences in the dietetic
and other habits of society, as they now are, dis-
ease would be less common and violent.  Nature,
by her own inherent energies, would  be  better
able to accomplish  the  work.  This, in fact,  she 
FOR  LADIES.
25
always must, since in all we do, we can only as-
sist.   And is it not a thought which should inspire
us with gratitude  and confidence, that there is in
our frail bodies snch a power constantly at work,
—ever watching an opportunity in which to act—
to restore those energies of the system which, by
our multitudinous excesses and improprieties, we
so often cripple and break down?   Even when
the day  is  so often  spent in the  habitual  vio-
lation of the laws of health, in the various abuses
of the body, and night comes  upon us with its ob-
livion of transgressions, this curative power, with
renewed energy,  sets to work in repairing those
injuries received,  in restoring those energies  lost,
so that when we  awake to the morning  light of
another day, we feel so restored, refreshed, and
invigorated, that  we should hardly know, by our
feelings, that the  day previous had been spent in
any way but that of obedience to the laws of life
and health.  Such is the nature of this most won-
derful power, and in it who does not see  the wis-
dom, goodness, and benevolence  of God ?
   In all we have thus said we would not have it
understood, that it is our care or  design to make
war upon the medical profession—to set up a fault-
finding disquisition; for, in the very midst of  this
profession we have lived, and those we most love
and honor are  of its  kind :  a husband, a father.
now each in active  life, and an  honored grand-
father, now no  more, whom  we  well remember,
and, as he took his only grand-child from house to
m 
26
WATER-CURE
house, in his carriage, among the country poor,
how he used to place buckets of water at the bed-
side of his fever patients, and this in direct oppo-
sition to  the opinions and practices of the profes-
sion of which  he was a member.  Gladly would
we see  the  profession  do its best—its thorough
work—confer  its best good on society, and prove
a blessing instead of a curse.   It is  not  a class
we  are  contending  with, but  their  errors  we
would remove.  We would most gladly see  the
profession, and the world, far in advance of what
they now are, or ever have been, in  knowledge
respecting the laws  of life, health, and disease.
And, in particular, would  we have mankind
throughout understand  and  so  obey  the laws of
fife and  health that they would  seldom need  the
services of a physician.  Now  and then only—a
wound dressed, or a broken limb set, and  the
like, would be  all that we should need.  And then,
if  life's laws  were  observed,  how  much  more
quickly would Nature restore her injuries than in
her present enfeebled, dilapidated condition ?  How
many  injuries and diseases  now terribly fatal,
would then be quickly removed ?
  It is said that an ancient king made such laws
that physicians should be paid in proportion to  the
health of the people.  This was  wise.  The good
man Bocrhaave said, that a physician should never
place himself in circumstances which  might make
it necessary for him to  pray that people might be
sick.  He should have some independent occupa- 
FOR LADIES.
27
tion other than that of treating disease.   Now we
are not going to set  about a task for which we
are  not qualified, to  advocate the  doctrines of
" Association" a movement of the day, by which
if it shall succeed, all will  be sure of a  " per-
manent home,  a sufficiency of  food,  clothing,
and  the conveniencies and  comforts of life, and
have equal opportunity for education throughout;"
a movement by which " all  wars, all oppression,
shall be banished from society, and  the world."
Most certainly, if such  a state  of  things  could
be, it would be far more favorable, as it regards
health  and the  practice of the  healing art.  But
all  this, and  like considerations, we leave for
others  to decide.
  We  have said we did not " design war" with
the medical  profession.  Even if we  were a little
excited to revenge, by way of the injuries received
through eminent physicians and their drugs, we
would  take a more philosophic course. We would
have the people, the  entire mass of society, so un-
derstand the laws of life and health, and so live,
that they would seldom need the  physician; and,
as for trafficking speculators in pills and poisons
with which to heal, and for those who are as hon-
est as any can be, although  drugs we so  depre-
cate, we would not have their business destroyed
merely as such.  Our philosophy  would  teach us
that it  were better to persuade all to be teetotallers
in drugs ; and in this way such business would be
at an end.  And so we would say in reference to 
28
WATER-CURE
 the selling of intoxicating liquors,  of which so
 much is now being said and done.  We would not
 advocate any thing that looks  at all like  legisla-
 tive compulsion.  We would have mankind under-
 stand the true why and wherefore for being tempe-
 rate ; and thus there would be no venders, for the
 good reason, that there would be no buyers.  This
 is the true way to reform.
   The  water-cure system is  a better one than
 mankind are  ready to receive.  All along, from
 its very commencement, there has  been  set up
 against it the strongest opposition.   At first, when
 Priessnitz had accidentally discovered that water,
 to cure, was the best thing, he was  suspected of
 imposition, (so common is it in  the  healing  art);
 and physicians, and others,  could not conceive that
 such cures could possibly take place, unless there
 was some  wonderful  agent at  work other  than
 pure  water.   Accordingly, we  are told  that he
 was prosecuted, (the  laws of the  country being
 severe upon quackery,) for having, as was alleged.
 some  secret remedy in the sponges used.   The
 sponges were examined, and, to their  surprise,
 nothing found.  At length, after  much  misrepre-
 sentation,  ridicule,  and persecution,  he was per-
 mitted, under sanction  of his Government, to go
 on in his laudable doings ; and with what success,
 the world is well beginning to heed.
  So much had people  become habituated  to tak-
 ing nauseous  drugs, and so necessary did  they
consider them to l><\ that  it  was past nil concept 
FOR  LADIES.
29
tion that water could  have any considerable effi-
cacy in preventing disease, and assisting Nature to
cure.   And so it has been throughout civilized so-
ciety. Far, and strangely, had mankind wandered
from the simple means of Nature.  The kingdoms,
animal,  vegetable,  and mineral,  have  all been
searched,  and their  contents largely used in dis-
ease.   And in all the variety of forms and com-
binations thus made, who does not know to what
a fearful extent  they  have been tried ?  Yet, of
the products of these kingdoms, there are not any,
not a single one, as  good as " pure  cold water,"
" Nor" in the language of a very recent writer,
" can any possible combination of  substances, ani-
mal, vegetable, mineral, each or all, be made, which
will, in  any way, compare with it."   Well might
the learned Hoffman declare, "that  no remedy
can more  effectually secure health, and prevent
 disease, than pure  water" ;—" and  that if there
exists any thing in the world that can be called a
universal  remedy,  it  is pure  water."  And  Dr.
Cheyne, of England, that " water alone is suffici-
ent and effectual for all  the  purposes of  human
wants  and  drinks."   And  Faust,  Zimmerman,
Parr, and others, " That pure  cold  water is the
most useful and healthy beverage for man"—" that
it cools, thins, and clears the blood"—" keeps the
stomach, head, and nerves in order"—" makes one
tranquil, serene, and cheerful."
  The  water-cure  system, more  than any other,
implies  the prevention of disease.  This is as it 
30
WATER-CURE
should be.  The pure  cool air—the daily appro-
priate exercise and ablutions—the total abstinence
from all stimulating and exciting substances—the
plain cold food—in short, the apostolic temperance
which it always implies, tends, in a manner  most
efficient, to promote health, and to prevent disease.
It involves no more nor less than a general remov-
ing of the causes of disease.   This was  the  aim
and object of the great Hippocrates.   His reme-
dies were few and simple ; and probably none be-
fore Priessnitz ever practised with greater success
than he. 
FOR  LADIES.
31
                CHAPTER III.

       Preservation of Health—Bathing.

  So numerous are the pernicious and health des-
troying habits, customs, and practices of  civilized
man, that one is  at a loss to know where  to begin
or where to end.  We shall, however, in  this, our
Water-Cure for Ladies, give  some general  rules
in regard to the preservation of health.   In the
present state of things,  it is necessary  that we
daily live in a state which we may, with propriety,
be termed a perpetual one of the water-cure. One
thing of  the utmost importance,  and which  can-
not be  too strongly recommended, is, that ablution
of the whole body should be daily performed,
and  this, too, by every individual, old and young,
without exception.   What! should females prac-
tise bathing at all times ?  says  one.  Certainly.
Because  of indisposition, should they discontinue
their daily bathing ?   Does Nature thus indicate 1
Should not  the  body, at such times, be  left free
from obstructions—the  pores open ?   We  can
truly say, both from experience  and observation,
that  by thus continuing ablutions during  their in- 
32
WATER-CURE
    disposition, they will be far less susceptible to cold,
    and relieved, in a great degree, from the ailings ■
    and pains to which woman, in the ignorance of her
    physical nature, has  become subject.  And  thus
    the necessity for those life-destroying opiates, now
    so often and anxiously sought and taken, would be
    prevented.  It should be remembered that physi-
    cians do not deny but that those opiates are always
    taken at the  expense of future suffering.   But
    bathing should always be performed judiciously.
    The person who is not accustomed to it should
    commence cautiously.  Suppose a person who is
    weak and nervous, and confined to the room, or
    perhaps to the bed, wishes to commence bathing.
    If the individual have strength, let her commence
    in the morning, on awaking, at which time  the
    circulation is  equal,  and  the temperature some-
    what raised.   Let there be a thorough rubbing of
    the whole body with a coarse wet linen cloth, tol-
    erably well wrung out.  Let this be done  quickly,
    and then immediately followed by a dry cloth, or
    crash towel, until the whole surface is completely
-\  dry and warm.  The  " rubbing wet  sheet" is by
/   some preferred, because when thrown around the
%   body, it seems to be more comfortable, by keeping
    off air, which may be  in motion, from the body ;
    air in motion, is apt to give an uncomfortable sense
    of chillness.  This is certainly a  very safe and
    excellent way of bathing.  When a shower bath
    of pure water can be had, or a plunge bath, it will
    be best for most persons to use these, as they are 
FOR  LADIES.
33
 more thorough ; still, the  rubbing bath, energeti-
 cally performed, is a good one, and incomparably
 better than none—and it may be taken by all,
 wherever a little water can be had. In travelling,
 when fatigued, we can often refresh ourselves, in
 a degree which will  astonish those who have not
 tried it.   Bathing, as  a  general rule, should  be
 performed only after digestion, that is, not within
 less than about three hours after the meal.   It is
 always safe and  beneficial when  a feeling of
 warmth  and pleasantness immediately succeeds.
 If there is any possible bad effect from the  bath,
 it may, with certainty, be known,  by headache,
 chilliness, or pains.   The  bad effect will also take
 place soon, if  at all.   No  one need, in the  least,
 fear any  remote injurious  effect.  It comes on
 at once, if at all.
  Some  object that bathing takes too much  time. '
 This is only a delusion.   It would be better to
 spend that much less  time  in  bed.   In  general,
 a few minutes  only is all that is required, or  even
 allowable, for  a bath.  Some, from the pleasant-
 ness experienced,  have been  inconsiderate, and
 have continued too  long.  Water is a powerful
 agent, and may be made  to produce  serious re-
 sults.  So  it was in  the case of the Englishman
in  the Russian  bath.   After  the sweating, the
Russian knows, by experience, that rolling in the
snow, or  plunging into  cold water, is not  only ne-
cessary, but agreeable.  But at the same time, he
has learned, that such practice can  be continued 
34
WATER-CURE
safely, only a very short time.   The Englishman,
finding it  so exceedingly pleasant, continued too
long, and thus lost his life.  It is  not  uncommon
for young ladies of this city to remain in the plung-
ing bath (in  such  weather as they find it agree-
able) for an hour or more, and to come out chilled,
and with their lips and finger nails blue ; when,
if they had remained a reasonable length  of time,
they would  have  come from the bath refreshed
and  benefitted,  both in health and  appearance.
Such  irregular and  inordinate  bathing  is some-
times the cause of serious and lasting  illness.
  The early morning, we  have said, is  the best
time  for bathing.  It  should not, as a  rule,  be
practised  when  the body  is very cool,  or when
fatigued, or when there is general or copious pers-
piration, from exercise.   At other times, after  di-
gestion is sufficiently progressed, it may be safely
practised.   Those who are weak,  and fear  to
commence all at once, may safely begin by going
over  a part of the body at one  time, more the
next, and so on.
  Whatever kind of bath we adopt, it is necessary
that there be much friction and rubbing.  Take
a person who is on a sick  bed, whose skin is  all
cold and inactive, (and  many such there are,  es-
pecially in allopathic and homoBopathic practice,)
give such a patient a well-regulated " wet cloth,"
and then dry, rubbing, and especially on the strong
parts of the body; and any who have not  seen
the good effects of this natural and powerful tonic, 
                 FOH  LADIES.              35

(for such it is emphatically,)  will be surprised at
the good effects thus easily produced.  How plea-
sant and refreshing it is, every one knows, to wash
clean the hands and face, of a morning, and how
unpleasant, to omit  such practice.  Precisely so
with the whole body, when once accustomed to it. 
36
WATER-CURE
                CHAPTER IV.


    Diet and General Regimen—Interesting
               Historical Facts.

  What  shall we eat, and what shall we drink,
are important as  well as interesting  questions.
Among all writers on  health, the subject of diet
has, very properly, received a large share of at-
tention.  It is a subject as yet, in general, little
understood ;  and, notwithstanding its importance,
and the attention it has received, there is great di-
versity of opinion respecting what constitutes the
best diet  in  different  circumstances.   It is very
certain that the  world is not yet right, as regards
diet. If it were,  the one half of the race would not
die in  the early  morning of life, and the other half
live to little else than suffering,  disease, and  un-
natural death.  How few among  mankind ever
enjoy any thing  like uniform health, and, in a good
old age, retain, as is natural, the unimpaired facul-
ties and powers of mind, until  the  vital princtple
yields, and the  body  is at last composed " in the
dreamless sleep of death, without a  struggle— 
FOR  LADIES.
37
without a pain."  Such a view of life and health
being the true one, it  need not surprise any that
we attach great importance to the  " taking care
of the body," nor that we should inculcate that the
world must greatly improve, and change the diet
and general regimen, ere they can live in the true
enjoyment  of health, and die  aught but violent
deaths.
   The dietetic rule of the greatest importance is
that which relates to quantity.  Mankind are in
the habit of  taking by far too much nutriment.
This excess,  on the whole, is certainly the great-
est  cause of disease, and  abridgement of life.
Food is generally prepared in  a too concentrated
form, thus tempting the appetite, and leading to
excess.  If our habits were in general correct, and
our food simply prepared, and  without the usual
multiplicity of forms, combinations, and concentra-
tions, the appetite would better regulate the quan-
tity.  Thomas Jefferson  said, " We never regret
eating too little."  There may be cases where
persons  have temporarily restricted themselves
too  much  in food.   But all such cases are ex-
ceedingly rare exceptions.
   There is also much error in regard to dietetic
changes.  It is generally considered unsafe to
make great  changes very suddenly.  But what
habit is more  powerful  than that  of alcoholic
stimulation ?   Perhaps that of stimulation  by to-
bacco is more  difficult  to overcome.   But the
drunkard does not die in making the  change.  His
              3 
38
WATER-CURE
feelings are at first uncomfortable. Yet " Nature,"
as Priessnitz  says, " will always acknowledge the
help given her": other things  being equal, there
is soon a decided improvement in health, strength,
and  bodily enjoyment.  And the same principle
holds good in all kinds of stimulation ; that is, in
the use of all substances  that  stimulate merely,
without contributing in any applicable degree to
nourishing the body,—such as all alcoholic drinks,
opium, tobacco, in every form, tea, coffee, spices,
salt, &c.  These substances we are taught to use,
merely from  habit and feeling, and not from any
good reason why they should be used.   So it is
throughout.  Mankind, in  these things,  do not
reason.  Do not require us to think, they say ; wine
makes us feel strong, the opiate quiets the nerves,
dispels pains, and causes  sleep, the  coffee gives
strength in the morning, and tea makes us bright
and wakeful at night.   Tell us  not, therefore, that
these, and like substances, are secretly undermin-
ing the health, or poisoning the vital  structures of
the body,  when we have evidence  so indubitable
as this.
  But some  are  always ready to say, " What,
deprive us of the good things that God has given ?"
Truly, what delusions, what errors mankind may
be led to  adopt!  The unfortunate  drunkard is
hated by the  world, because he acts from feeling.
His philosophy is as good as theirs.   The habit
is apparently a worse one, but not always more 
FOR  LADIES.
39
destructive.  " Excess in drinking" said  Hippo-
crates, " is almost as bad as excess in eating."
  If people would carefully  observe facts, and
not be so guided by appetite,  it would be easy to
determine what kind of diet and general regimen
is best adapted to the constitution.   History fur-
nishes an abundance of facts, to set the world right.
A few such may be  given.  These facts are in-
structive, as to what constitutes the  best diet and
general regimen, in reference to general health, to
the mind, and the morals, and to the prevention and
curing of disease.
   Of the natives of  Pitcairn's Island, it  is said:
Their diet  is  very simple,  consisting almost en-
tirely of fruits and  vegetables.  They rise early,
and take much exercise in  the open air.  Their
dress is simple, of their own manufacture, and  so
fitted as to admit of a free circulation of air over
the whole body.   Their strength  and agility are
so great that the most expert  English sailors can
not match them at  wrestling,  boxing, or carrying
weights.   Sickness  of any  kind is very  rare
among them.   The females, to some extent, assist
in the cultivation of  the soil, are extremely agile,
and nearly as muscular as the males.  Their child-
births take place mostly in the right time.  Their
labors are safe, easy, and of short duration ; and
the women all  understand the art of midwifery.
The infants are generally bathed three times a day,
in cold water.   It is  proper also to  mention that
the young of both sexes are  trained up in habits 
40
WATER-CURE
of industry, virtue, piety, and religion.   The young
women are particularly beautiful.   " A young
girl," says Capt.  Pipon,  " accompanied us to the
boat, carrying oft her shoulders, as  a present, a
large basket of yams, over such roads, and down
such precipices, as were scarcely passable by any
creatures except goats, and over which we could
scarcely scramble with the help of our hands ; yet
with this load on her shoulders, she skipped from
rock to rock like a young roe."  Their innocence
and simplicity is thus described :  " By our bedside
had already been placed some ripe fruits, and our
hats were crowned with chaplets of the  fresh
blossoms  of the nono, or flower-tree, which the
women had gathered in the freshness of the morn-
ing dew. On looking round the apartment, though
it contained several beds, we found  no partition,
curtain, or screens: they had not yet been con-
sidered necessary.  So  far  indeed from  conceal-
ment  being thought of, when  we were  about to
get up, the women,  anxious to show their atten-
tions, assembled  to wish us good morning, and to
inquire in  what way they could best contribute to
our comfort, and to present us  with some little
gift which the  produce of the island afforded."
  Among the peasantry of Russia, it is not un-
common to find  persons from 100 to 1J0 years
of age.  Both sexes, old and young, are much in
the habit of bathing.  Sickness is rare, and rheu-
matism comparatively  unknown among  them.
There  are seldom any medical men  in their vil- 
FOR  LADIES-
41
lages.   Their diet is, for the  most part,  coarse
unbolted rye bread.   They labor often from six-
teen to eighteen hours a day, with great  power
and activity, eating only about one pound of their
black bread, with a small bunch of garlicks.  The
men of eighty and ninety years  will do more la-
bor in loading and unloading ships, than the  mid-
dle-aged Englishmen or Americans.   They are
said to be full of agility,—singing with all the
buoyancy and blithesomeness of  youth.
  The Greek boatmen are  very athletic, and are
said to be the most active and cheerful people in
the world.   Their food is  mostly coarse  bread,
with grapes, raisins, or figs.
  The biographer of Howard, the philanthropist,
says: " In the period of fifteen or sixteen years,
he travelled between fifty and sixty thousand miles,
for the sole purpose of relieving the distress of the
most wretched of the human race.   The fatigues,
the dangers, the privations  he underwent  for the
good of others,  were such as no one else  was
ever exposed to in such a cause ; and such as few
could have endured.   He often travelled several
nights and days in succession, without  stopping,
over roads almost impassable, in weather the most
inclement, with accommodations  the meanest and
most wretched.   Summer and winter, heat and
cold,  rain and snow, in all their extremes, failed
alike to stay him for a moment in his course ;
whilst plague and pestilence and famine, instead of
being evils that he shunned, were those with which 
42
WATER-CURE
he was most familiar; and to many of those hor-
rors he voluntarily exposed himself;  visiting the
foulest dungeons, filled  with malignant infection,
—spending forty days in a filthy and  infected la-
zaretto,—plunging  into  military  encampments
where the plague was committing its most horrible
ravages,—and visiting where none of his conduc-
tors dared to accompany him."
  Howard, after his great experience, and  hav-
ing been thus much exposed to disease, in its worst
of forms, near the  end of his life, recorded in his
diary," I am firmly persuaded as to the health of
our bodies, that  herbs and fruits will sustain Na-
ture, in every respect, far beyond the best flesh."
Through the whole  of his philanthropic  course,
Howard lived upon a rigidly abstemious vegetable
diet.
  The following has been published as an abstract
from an account of an extensive experiment in
general regimen, made at the Orphan Asylum of
Albany:
  " The institution  was established about the close
of the year 1829, or the  beginning  of the  year
1830.  Shortly after its establishment it contained
70 children, and  subsequently  many more.   For
the  first three years the diet of the  inmates con-
sisted of fine bread, rice, Indian puddings, potatoes
and other vegetables, and fruit with milk ; to which
was added flesh  or flesh soup, once a day.   Con-
siderable attention  was  also paid to bathing and
cleanliness, and  to clothing, air,  and  exercise, 
FOR  LADIES.
13
Bathing,  however, was performed  in  a perfect
manner only once in three weeks.   Many were
received in poor health, and  not a few  continued
sickly.
  "In the fall of 1833 the diet and regimen of the
inmates were materially changed.  Daily ablution
of the whole body, in  the use  of the cold shower
or sponge bath, or, in cases of special disease, the
tepid bath, was one of  the first steps taken ;  then
the fine bread was laid  aside for that made of un-
bolted wheat meal, and soon after flesh  and flesh
soups were wholly banished ; and thus  they con-
tinued to advance, till in about three months more
they had come  fully upon the vegetable  system,
and had adopted  reformed  habits  in regard  to
sleeping, air, clothing, exercise, &c.  They con-
tinued on this course till August,  1836, when the
results were as follow :—During  the first three
years in  which  the old  system was followed, from
four to six children were continually on the sick
list, and  sometimes more.  A physician was need-
ed once, twice, or three times a week,  uniformly,
and deaths were  frequent.   During this whole
period there were between thirty and forty deaths.
After  the  new  system  was fairly adopted, the
nursery was entirely vacated, and the services  of
the nurse  and  physician no  longer needed, and
for more than  two years no case of sickness  or
death  took place.  In the  succeeding  twelve
months there were  three deaths, but  they were
new inmates, and  were diseased when admitted, 
44
WATER-CURE
and two of them were idiots.   The Report of the
Managers says,  ' Under this  system of dietetics
the health of the children has not only been pre-
served, but those who came to the asylum weakly
have become healthy and strong, and greatly in-
creased in activity, cheerfulness, and  happiness.'
The Superintendents  also state, that • since the
new regimen has  been fully adopted, there  has
been a remarkable increase  of  health, strength,
activity,  vivacity, cheerfulness, and contentment
among the  children.   The  change of temper is
very great.   They have become less turbulenti
irritable, peevish, and discontented,  and far more
manageable, gentle, peaceable, and kind to each
other.'  One of them further adds, ' There has
been a great increase in their mental activity and
power; the  quickness  and  acumen  of their per-
ception, the  vigor  of their apprehension, and the
power of their retention daily astonish me.' "
   The following is a statement given by a teacher
in Germany.  In this  school the diet was chiefly
of bread, vegetables, fruits, and milk.  Cold bath-
ing was also duly practised :
   " I  am at present the  foster-father of nearly
seventy young people, who were born in  all the
varieties of  climate from Lisbon to  Moscow, and
whose early education was necessarily very dif-
ferent.  These young men are all healthy : not a
single eruption is visible on their faces : and three
years often pass during which not a single one of
them is confined to his  bed : and in  the  twentv 
FOR  LAtDIES.
4o
years that I have been engaged in this institution,
not one pupil  has  died.  Yet I am no physician.
During the first ten years of my residence here,
no physician entered my house; and not  till the
number of my pupils was very much increased,
and I grew anxious not to overlook any thing in
regard  to them, did I begin to seek at all for me-
dical  advice.   It is the mode of treating  young
men  here  which  is the cause  of their superior
health ; and this is the reason why death has  not
yet entered our doors.  Should  we ever deviate
from our present principles—should we approach
nearer  the mode  of living  common  in wealthy
families—we should soon be obliged to establish
in our institution, as they do in  others, medicine-
chests, nurseries, &c."
  In  1832, when  that  most  fearful disease,  the
cholera, was daily expected in  this  country,  the
subject  of diet and general  regimen  was one of
agitation.   All were eager to know what course
was best to enable the body to resist, if possible,
the terrible epidemic.  Both  in Europe and this
country it  was generally believed  that a "gene-
rous diet," embracing a full share of flesh-meat,
flesh-soups, with the use also  of alcoholic stimu-
lants,  wine, brandy, gin, &c, and  with  strict ab-
stinence from fruits and vegetables, would best en-
able the system to  resist the disease.  A very con-
siderable number of persons, however, were per-
suaded to take a different course—abstinence from
flesh-meat and flesh-soups, and from all  alcoholic
             3* 
46
WATER-CURE
and narcotic  substances,—and at all times to ob-
serve, judiciously,  rules  in  regard to  bathing,
exercise, clothing, quantity and  quality of food,
the indulgence of the natural appetites and  pas-
sions ; and of those who pursued such a course in
the city of New-York, there was  not  a single
death by cholera, and but two or three instances
of slight attack.
  Such are  a few  of the  many interesting facts
with  which  a  volnme could  easily be filled, and
which clearly indicate to what an extent the health
of the body and the condition of  the mind are in-
fluenced by diet and general regimen. 
FOR  LADIES.
47
                CHAPTER V.

     Stimulants, Narcotics, and Condiments.

                     Salt.
  We shall be considered eccentric in the ex-
treme if  we state fully our convictions respecting
this substance.  So universally  has salt been used
as an article of diet, that it is considered indispen-
sable to our existence.  This  substance is used,
even by those who have given  attention to medi
r.-al and physiological subjects, more from mere habit
than from any good reason why. " How unpalata-
ble every thing is without  it,"  is the common ex-
pression.
  The facts in regard to the dietetic use of salt,
according to Dr.  S. Graham,  are these:  1. Salt
is wholly innutritious ;—it affords no nourishment
to any structure or substance of the human body.
2. It is utterly indigestible ;—it enters the body
as a mineral substance,—it is absorbed unchanged,
as a  mineral substance,—it goes the rounds of the
general circulation  as  an unassimilated, mineral 
4$
WATER-CURE
 substance, and is finally eliminated from the body,
 through the kidneys, lungs, skin, &c, as  an unas-
 similated, mineral substance.   3. Its acrid quality
 is offensive to the vital sensibilities of the  organs,
 —always causing vital reaction or resistance ; and
 this vital reaction constitutes the only stimulation
 ever provided by salt; and is, therefore, always at-
 tended with a commensurate degree  of irritation
 and vital expenditure, and followed by a corres-
 pondentdegree of indirect debility and atony;  and
 consequently  it  always and  inevitably tends to
 produce chronic debility, preternatural irritability
 and disease ;—the stomach, intestines, absorbents,
 veins, heart, arteries, and all the other organs of
 the system, are  always irritated, exhausted  and
 debilitated, by its presence.   4.  It never,  in  any
 measure, promotes digestion nor any of the assi-
 milating functions of the system ; on the contrary,
 it always retards those functions, and is unfavora-
 ble to all the vital changes.
   The scripture argument, in favor of salt, can-
 not be brought to bear upon the question in  any
 way to favor its dietetic use.  Salt when good, ac-
 cording to  scripture,  is certainly a preserver—an
 antiseptic,—a retarder of decomposition or putre-
 faction ; and  "good men  have a like effect upon
the moral world.  But when salt has lost  its  an-
tiseptic property, it  is good for nothing :_and
when men  who profess to be good exert no  an-
tiseptic influence  on the moral world around them,
they are like salt that has lost its savor." 
FOR  LADIES.
49
   Salt is a powerful  medicinal substance,  and if
 medicine  other than  water must be  used,  this in
 certain cases is one of the best.   Should it be ad-
 mitted, (which we  do not,) that medicine  is thus
 needed, it would not follow that salt were better
 used dietetically.  The very idea of medicine,  in
 the common meaning of this term, would  be an
 argument against its dietetic use.
   But we are told both  by the professional and
 the laity, that  salt is so abundant in nature—
 and that animals naturally take salt.   It is  known
 that animals never take of the  salt water  of the
 ocean; nor do they lick the stones,  grass,  &c,
 upon which the salt may be deposited.  Salt is by
 far the most prominent ingredient in the water  of
 the ocean, so that it would be reasonable to infer
 that if salt were natural or  necessary, as is  sup-
 posed, animals would  instinctively take it  where
 so easily obtained.  Then  we are constantly told
 of the " deer-licks" of the west and elsewhere. In
 reference to these, we have not been able  to ob-
 tain any chemical analysis of such springs.  We
 have from good authority, however,  that such
 springs are more brackish than saltish, and  that
 salt is not  the prominent   ingredient  in  such
 springs. Nor are we entirely certain that animals
resorting to these springs partake  of the  water,
whatever  it may be.  There are other reasons
why animals should thus gather  about cool wa-
tery places.
  That animals may be trained  to  relish salt or 
50
WATER-CURE
 any other stimulant, cannot be denied.  But  if it
 were necessary or best for animal existence,  or if
 it were necessary for  medicine, it may well be
 asked, why  are  salt springs  so seldom  found ?
 why not within the  reach of all animals ?   Most
 decisively, leaving the water of oceans  and seas
 out  of the question,  which  they will  not take,
 comparatively but a  very small portion of  wild
 animals could in a state of nature  ever  have ac-
 cess to salt.  This would be in  direct contradic-
 tion to all the analogies of nature.
   Since this  matter has become  a  question, some
 of our farmers have  made  the  experiment with
 animals,  by  keeping  them entirely  without  salt.
 Sheep on farms and  in fields, side  by side,  have
 been thus reared ; and it is the universal testimony,
 where such experiments have been made, that ani-
 mals invariably do best without salt.  A friend was
 lately personally informed by  a  highly  respecta-
 ble and well  known clergyman of Ohio,  that for
 years his animals had not had  salt; nor would
 they take it if offered.  He  stated unhesitatingly
 that they thrived  better without it; that  when un-
 accustomed to it from  the first,  the  mother  also
 not having salt, they always refused it;  that he
 had during the past year thus reared a calf which
 brought the first premium at a fair of the country
 around.   If cows  that are kept without salt  are
 made to eat it by mixing it in their food, it is found
to be true that a decided decrease  in the quantity
of milk is the result.   There is no  mistake in  this 
FOR LADIES.
51
 matter.  If it is true that animals at salt licks do
 take salt, we see no good  reason why the taste
 may  not be  acquired.  Animals can  be easily
 trained to the use  of salt.   If for any reason they
 should be induced to frequent such spots, gradu-
 ally they might get the taste in various ways, un-
 til the stimulating  effect inclines them to seek it.
   It is a mistake to suppose  that food cannot be
 relished  without salt.  Doubtless there are sub-
 stances used, the disgusting taste of which  is
 somewhat  bettered  by the more tolerable one of
 salt, and yet it is true in those cases that the salt,
 as it always must, takes its specific action upon the
 system.  But in the use of all proper  substances
 for human diet, let any one carefully make the ex-
 periment of abstaining wholly from salt for a few
 weeks, or at most  a few months,—they will find
 that there  is  higher  gustatory enjoyment than
 with the salt.   We will not pretend  to say  but
 that the stomach  may be  brought into  such  a
 state, that by discontinuing the  use of salt there
 might very  temporarily be  induced  a state  of
 depression or atony of the organ, as has by some
 been contended ; but this  we even doubt.  The
 tendency of salt is  to resist decomposition.  Now,
 digestion, although a process peculiar  to itself, is
 a species of decomposition.   It  therefore follows
 that salt must  in  some degree resist  digestion.
 This resistance, it may be said, is more than over-
come  by the stimulus  given the stomach.  But
facts prove the contrary.  Let a person, who has 
52
WATER-CURE
 been accustomed to salt from infancy, and his pa-
 rents also befure him, so that there is all the pow-
 er of habit possible, make this experiment; one day
 he dines upon certain kinds of food seasoned with
 salt; the next day, under the same circumstances
 precisely, he takes the same kind and quantity of
 food without salt.   The digestion of the last meal
 will be found to progress  altogether  more plea-
 santly than the first.   Any one can easily  make
 the experiment, and, if rightly conducted, will find
 this  result certain.  We are informed  by a  phy-
 sician  from Paris, that there is a certain order  of
 convents in France, where the inmates have been
 in the habit for  centuries of  abstaining  wholly
 from salt, and also from  animal  food.   This is
 done as a matter of penance, and it is notorious,
 that such persons are remarkable for  permanent
 health and long life.   There  are  certain  Indian
 tribes who use no salt, and who are  yet  strong
 and  healthy—remarkably  so;  so  that whatever
 may be said by chemical physiologists and others
 of the necessity for taking this stimulant into the
 stomach, and thus into the  circulation, facts plain-
 ly prove that this supposed necessity is chimeri-
 cal,  and does not exist.
  " It is well known,"  says Dr. S. Graham, " that
 sailors and others, when confined for a considerable
 lime to salted food, become afflicted with scurvy,
 always a very distressing  and  often a very fatal
 disease.   From careful and extended experience,
I am strongly pressed to  the  conclusion that the 
FOR LADIES.
53
use of salt is largely concerned in the production
of cancers  and other glandular diseases of the
human system—that it  exceedingly aggravates
many chronic complaints ;—and that it increases
the liability of the body to diseases of every kind ;
—that it is directly conducive to scrofulous, pul-
monary, and skin diseases, and  disorders of the
mucous membrane.   In short, there is every rea-
son to believe, that it not only serves to predispose
the body to every form of disease, but also seems
to aggravate and perpetuate every species of dis-
ease when it is actually induced, and that it seems
to hasten  on a premature old  age, by rendering
the solids  dry and inelastic." Our advice, then, to
all, both old and young, is this—get rid of the habit
as soon as possible:  and if any must be used, let
it be very finely pulverized, and always sprinkled
over the food after it has been cooked, rather than,
by boiling or otherwise, cause it to be permeated
through the whole mass.   A much smaller quan-
tity will thus answer the object, viz., the taste;
and always the less the better.

  Mustard, Pepper, Ginger, Clones, Spices, fyc.
  Of the  other various  stimulating condiments,
such as mustard, pepper, ginger, cloves, allspice,
vinegar, &c, &c, and in  short, all substances of
the kind, that merely stimulate without affording
any appreciable amount of nutriment to the body,
little need be said, other than  that they are all 
54
WATER-CURE
more or less pernicious; and this always in pro-
portion to the extent in which they are used.
  Dr. Beaumont, of the United States' Army, who
experimented so ably and largely upon the various
substances generally used for diet, and whose case
was a most  favorable one, it being that of a young
Canadian whose stomach was accidentally wound-
ed in such a manner as to leave an opening which
was closed  by a kind of valve which grew over
the part, determined, that when the same kinds of
food were taken, and at the same hour on succes-
sive days, if dressed with a pretty fair  portion of
mustard and vinegar, the food, instead of passing
through digestion sooner, as is generally thought
to be the case, was retained in the stomach a full
half hour  longer than  without  the  condiments.
Mustard and pepper, when taken with  the food,
he found remained in the stomach till all the food
was digested, thus resisting its action to the last.
The mucous or inner  coat of the stomach also
presented at such times an unnatural  appearance.

                   Tobacco.
  As society advances in what is popularly called
temperance, the  narcotic stimulant, tobacco, is
more freely used.   This is  at least partly owing
to the fact, that true temperance is not generally
understood.   An increased  quantity of tobacco is
very often used  by those who discontinue strong
drink.  Those who use alcoholic drinks generally
are in the habit of stimulating by tobacco.  In the 
FOR LADIES.
55
present stale of physiological knowledge, it could
not be otherwise than that stimulation by tobacco
should be, in a measure, substituted for that by al-
cohol.  With those who  understand the subject,
it is nothing more than was expected and predicted,
that such increase should take place.  According-
ly, in the short space of three years in New-Eng-
land, where so much attention has been  given to
temperance by the Washingtonians and others,
the use of tobacco has increased in proportion, ten-
fold.   This state of things is one most lamentable.
It is not merely the bad effect of the tobacco that
is to be feared.  It indicates to the true physiolo-
gist this much—that if temperance people do not
learn to reject stimulation throughout, the interest
in the cause will with inevitable certainty, sooner
or later, be in a great measure lost, and many will
again return to their strong drink.
  Tobacco is believed  by many to be really use-
ful as a remedy.   In those cases where it is used
to prevent  gastric disturbance, and to " keep the
food on the stomach," it would be  better to avoid
the causes of those symptoms.   It sometimes ap-
parently benefits the individual  for the time, but
the effect on the whole is injurious.  It is constant-
ly bringing about a state of things in  the system,
which infallibly increases the difficulties.  For the
good effects  proposed  there are other and  better
means.
  Tobacco is a very powerful acrid narcotic poi-
son.  It requires but a small quantity to produce 
50
WATER-CURE
immediate death.  This  has  been often proved.
Fatal results have not unfrequently taken place by
its medicinal use.  In view of this  fact, medical
men are extremely cautious how they use it.  A
very  small quantity, in infusion, passed  into the
bowels to relax the  system,  has been known to
prove fatal.   In extreme cases,  it is used only as
a last resort before surgical operations.
  Those who use it to  any  considerable extent
are certain  of experiencing a manifest weakness
of neryes, and often a trembling, which is exceed-
ingly troublesome and inconvenient.  We know
different  persons who  are  thus  afflicted : one in
particular, a very robust, strong man, whose habits
are extremely active in the open air, at all seasons
of the year, and yet, notwithstanding the great
strength of constitution and  nerve, his hand has,
by the use of tobacco, at  last become so tremulous
that  he can scarcely convey food  to his mouth.
His teeth  also have  been so  softened  by its  long
use that they are literally worn to the gums.
  Tobacco  will sometimes cure the tooth-ache.
But in such cases there  are  better  means to be
used ; and better than use the tobacco, would  it be
to bear the ache, and reject the poison.  It is  alto-
gether in every  form injurious.

                    Opium.
  Most unfortunately  for  the  human race, this
deadly drug, also, is becoming  more and  more
used.  Its preparations are largely manufactured, 
                 FOR LADIES.               57

and at rates that place it within the reach of all.
Not so rapidly as tobacco, but for  the same rea-
son, is the use of this drug increasing in society.
Among females it is the  cause of immense misery.
Morphine is  the  preparation in which it is most
used.   There is great deception in the effects pro-
duced by opium. In many cases, severe pain  can
be speedily removed, and there is also experienced
a pleasant stimulation, and sleep often follows its
use,  when it could not otherwise be obtained.
Such results are strikingly calculated to mislead
the unthinking,  for who would think of looking
beyond the immediate effects produced?   If pain
is  removed,  such evidence is sufficient.  Those
who choose  to note  the after-effects can have little
trouble in satisfying themselves of  the pernicious
effects of this drug.  It should never be used, for
there  are means more effectual, and entirely safe,
by which to reduce pain.
  The following very serious cases happened in
the practice of the late Dr.  Physic, of Philadelphia.
They are thus  given  by Dr. Randolph : " Two
children, twin brothers, at the age of three months,
were  thrown into a  state of complete stupor, from
whence they could  not  be aroused, from having
been given by the mother each a drop of laudanum,
to  allay the restlessness from hooping-cough.
The vial from which the laudanum was taken had
been  left uncorked, so thai a quantity of  the
article had  almost  wholly evaporated,  and  the
mother was  able  to obtain for the one  a single 
58
WATER-CURE
drop, while for the  other  she  added two drops
of water,  stirring it about,  which she  adminis-
tered.  The poor mother was entirely  ignorant
of the immense additional strength thus gained
by the evaporation which had taken place.  The
children  had  both  been  in  convulsions.  The
emetic prescribed could not be given, as the chil-
dren were incapable of swallowing. Their coun-
tenances had  become  livid, breathing laborious,
and  the pulsations  had  almost entirely  ceased.
By a variety of means the children were, how-
ever, both restored; the  principal of which was
to pass a flexible tube down the oesophagus,  to
the stomach, and thus, by the use of a  common
syringe, the  stomachs  were completely  washed
out.   This operation, so simple and easy, once
known, and so effectual, was well worthy the dis-
tinguished man.  It had never, to his knowledge,
been performed previously.  As  a result, one of
the children was  saved—the other died the next
morning.  Such an instrument (syringe and stom-
ach  tube) should be in every house, and can  be
obtained at a small  expense.

                      Tea.
   Shall we say any thing about this very charm-
ing thing.  " I would rather live on two mouthfuls
a-day," says the mendicant, " than do without my
tea."  " Priessnitz deprecates  all exciting things,
such as tea, coffee, wine, &c," and yet  his laro-e
company of invalids, often  amounting to 500 or 
FOR LADIES.
59
600, are habitually more cheerful than any like
company to be found elsewhere.
  Little need be said respecting tea.   There  is
nothing more easy of demonstration than that it
is one of the most destructive  poisons in nature ;
and  yet physicians often gravely  tell  us  that
tea is very valuable.  Long ago physicians in dif-
ferent  parts  of  Europe  proved, by actual expe-
riment, the poisonous nature of tea; and  yet we
have lately, going the rounds of the press, the fol-
lowing statements respecting the herb: "At  are-
cent meeting of the Paris Academy of Science,
M. Peligot read a paper on the chemical  compo-
sition of tea, in which he states that it contains
essential principles of nutrition, far exceeding in
importance  its stimulating proportions.   One  of
his experiments  upon the nutritive qualities of tea,
as compared with those of soup, was by no means
in favor of the latter.   What was more essential
as regards the chemical or hygeienic character of
tea, was to ascertain the exact proportion of the
azoted (nitrogen) principle it  contains.  M. Peli-
got began by determining the total  amount of ni-
trogen in  tea, and finished by finding that it  was
from 20 to 30 per cent, greater than in any other
kind of vegetable.  He  states  that  by reason  of
this  quantity of  nitrogen, and  the  existence  of
cafeine, (a substance rich in nitrogen,) tea is a true
aliment."   Wise conclusions these !   Then all we
have to determine for health is, the amount  of
nitrogen, whether it be in a rock of granite, prussic 
60
WATER-CURE
acid, or any thing else. M. Peligot, why not com-
pare atmospheric air, which is four-fifths nitrogen,
with soup, as an aliment ?  Cluery,—whether such
men are paid for declaring such doctrines, or are
they serious ?  If  they are, the adage is true, " it
takes the  most learned to make the greatest mis-
takes."  When we hear such teachers, it may well
be said, " Ccecus iter monstrare vult," (a blind man
desires to  show the road.)   Let those who wish
to be guided by such teachers, try  the experiment
fairly.   Why not eat the tea in substance !   We
would suggest that it be well ground or pulverized,
so that the most is made of the precious article.
As  to its use, in any way, if to any considerable
extent, we will vouch  for the pale faces and un-
strung nerves which it will cause.
  Such plenitude  of  nonsense is hardly  to  be
equalled.   The French Academy, (however, said
to be mostly of doctors,) seems  to have something
of experience in this way.   It would have it, that
the  blood  did not circulate—that it  was  more
healthy to wear those ancient wigs, stored with
wisdom, than the natural hair.  And now also  it
takes upon itself to speak disparagingly of water-
cure.  But, for the present, we let it pass.

                    Coffee.
  There is little if any less error  respecting the
use and effect of coffee than of tea.   In  modera-
tion it is often recommended, as a healthy and sa-
lutary drink.  Let it forever be remembered that 
FOR  LADIES.
61
water is the  best thing.   The following experi-
ments, made by Dr. J. Burdell, of this city, as well
as the experiments of Dr.  Beaumont, and others,
show at once the true character of these articles :
  " During my dental practice," says Dr. Burdell,
" I have had an opportunity of observing the con-
dition of those  of my patrons who were in the
habit of drinking strong tea, and I have found that
such  persons  have weak, irritable, and sensitive
nerves.   This led  me to make some experiments,
the result of  which I now present to the public.
   " I took a pound of young hyson tea, and after
steeping it in soft water, boiled  it down to  half a
pint.  I  then procured a rabbit, of about three
months' old, and kept it without food  a sufficient
length of time to leave the  stomach empty, then
gave it ten drops of the decoction,holding its head
in a position to cause the fluid to enter the stomach.
The  animal appeared to be  somewhat exhilarated
for the  space of three or four minutes, then laid
down on its  side and began  moaning as if in great
distress, and  in about ten minutes from the time of
my administering  the dose  its struggles ended in
 death, the limbs being distended and very stiff.
   " I also tried the effects of tea on a young cat, of
the same age, after  making another decoction
(from black tea, which the person who sold it said
was  of the best quality, and was highly recom-
mended by a celebrated  physician, to a lady in
delicate health,) similar  to  the  first, but  rather
more powerful, as I boiled it down to less  than a
               1 
62
WATER-CURE
gill, which resulted in the same way,  but in a
shorter time, as the animal ceased to breathe in less
than three minutes, although the dose was not as
large as I gave the rabbit, being but eight drops.
  " I also took a pound of coffee, in its natural state,
and boiled it in the same  manner as I did the tea,
and administered it in the same way, but had great
difficulty in keeping it in the stomach long enough
to produce much  effect, before it was thrown off
by  vomiting; but when  it could be kept  down
for any  length of time, it  destroyed  life,  but
took longer to do it than tea.  The cause of this
is, coffee is of a  more oily nature.  Those who
feel sick at the stomach will seldom call for coffee,
but tea. The cause of this is, tea acts much quicker
in stimulating the energies of the stomach.  For
this reason it may be used as a medicine. 
FOR  LADIES.
63
               CHAPTER VI.

          Food and its Preparations.

  To those  who  love flainness,  simplicity, and
" temperance in all things," and who would desire
not to " make the  table a snare," a few directions
respecting plain food may not prove useless.
  Among all writers on  health, respecting flesh
meat, it  is  the common  statement, that  in this
country there  is by far too much used.  It were
better taken but once a day, and then in moderate
quantity, and of the least  objectionable kinds.  It
is an interesting fact, that writers  upon diet and
hygiene in general agree that those kinds of flesh
meat allowed in the Mosaic dispensation are far
more healthy than those which are forbidden.   It
is most certainly true  that the best health of body
and mind does not require the use of flesh meat at
all.  In the Jewish  economy, there  were many
things permitted by divine direction, and  this of
necessity, which things, in the light of our day, in
the Christian  dispensation, are  not  allowable.
" Moses," says the Saviour, " because of the hard-
ness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your 
64
WATER-CURE
 wives, but from the beginning it was not so."  And
 it was precisely upon this principle that flesh meat
 was allowed.  We see, therefore, in those ancient
 regulations,  the  benevolence of God in thus re-
 stricting man to the least hurtful kinds of flesh.
   It is often said that it becomes necessary through
 long habit to  continue flesh-eating.   Those who
 make such assertions do not well understand the
 physiology and capabilities  of  the human body.
 The habit of flesh-eatingis nothing as powerful as
 that of stimulation by alcohol, opium, or tobacco;
 and yet who ever dies—or rather, who is not bet-
 tered, other  things  being equal, by leaving  such
 habits ?
   In some parts of  the world flesh meat is taken
 in an uncooked state.  There is no doubt  that it
 is to the unaccustomed stomach in this form the
 best.  None but the lean part of flesh should be
 used.  " Ye  shall eat no manner of fat; of ox, of
 sheep, or of goat," we read in Scripture.
   In  killing  animals, the  Jews,  in observance  of
 their ancient laws, " do not  stun the  animal with
 blows, producing stagnation and  congestion of
 blood ; the throat is cut with a remarkably sharp
 knife, and all the veins and arteries are emptied ;
 the lungs are searched with the hand ; if the liver
 attaches to the ribs, or there  are impurities, mal-
 formation, or any apparent disease, it is condemned,
 and the leaden seals are not attached to the meat.
 It is thus that the observance of  ancient laws bv
this ancient people gives them  great  protection 
NJ
                  FOR LADIES.              65

 against feeding on diseased animals."   " Most of
 the animals," says Dr. Graham, " which in modern
 times are fitted for the slaughter-house and for in-
 terment in living sepulchres, are actually in a state
 of disease when they are killed : and  therefore,
 shocking as the thought may be, the human stomach
 in these days of elegant refinement, and of science
 and religion, is actually made a kind of'potter's
 field' to receive  the unknown dead of every dis-
 ease !   Why should we  marvel, then, that putrid
 and  malignant, and violent diseases,  as  well as   ^
 those of a more chronic character, and less alarm-   <
 ing symptoms, but more general prevalence, should   jg
 so severely scourge the human family,—and espe-   £;
 cially in civic life !"
   The best way of cooking flesh meat is the more i  ^
 ancient one,  by  suspending it  before a fire and '
 turning it until "done."  This, however,  is not
 very different from roasting in  a large oven.  Boil-
 ing in pure water is also  a very good method.  It,
 however,  renders the  meat less nourishing, and Vs* ^"
 also less stimulating.  Stewing or frying, espe- ^  k ^
 cially when done  in fat, or grease,  or butter, is X
 most pernicious.  Flesh soups and broths are very  *;i   >"^
 objectionable forms of preparation.   They are in^ V
general too complex, and do not admit  of masti-      %
cation  and sufficient insalivation, so important to  *,  -^
digestion.   If used at all, they should be boiled ^   ;v
with much rice,  hulled  wheat,  barley, or  some- N^  j "
thing of the kind. It is also far better to take such •£-
dishes with a large proportion of bread, and al- ^6    y
' -*^V  -A

$sg 
66
WATER-CURE
ways cool or cold, and with the less of seasonings
the better.
  Salted fish and flesh are more difficult of diges-
tion than flesh.  Many a one gets a severe head-
ache by partaking of such articles.  At first, from
the stimulation of the salt, there is perhaps a feel-
ing  of satisfaction—a something " that seems to
stand by," as  the  laborer would say.  But such
feelings are delusive.  If flesh is smoked in addi-
tion, it is still  worse.

                    Butter.
   Nearly or quite all writers on diet agree that but-
ter is very apt to disagree with " weak stomachs."
According to  the interesting  experiments  of Dr.
Beaumont, butter, fat meats,  and oily substances
of every kind, are with difficulty digested, and al-
ways tend to  derange the function of the stomach.
" Bile," says Dr. B.," is not essential to chymifica-
tion, (digestion in the stomach ;) that is, it does not
naturally pass to the stomach.   It is seldom found
in that organ except under peculiar circumstances.
I have observed  that when fat or  oily food has
been persevered in for some time, there is gene-
rally bile present in the gastric fluids of the stom-
ach."  Irritation of the pyloric  (lower) extremity
of the stomach, and  external kneading with the
hand, on the right side, over the  region of the liver
and pylorus,  occasions  a flow  of bile into  the
stomach.  " With such exceptions," says  Dr. B.,
" bile it  never found in the stomach in a state of 
FOR LADIES.
67
health, and it is only in certain morbid conditions
that it is found there."  " When much oily or fat
meat  has been used, the oil always maintains an
ascendency in the  stomach."   " Bile  is required,
and necessarily called into the stomach, only for
the purpose of facilitating the chymification (di-
gestion) of all fatty and oily aliments."  Is it there-
fore any wonder that in the Jewish economy, by
divine direction,  it should  be commanded,  " ye
shall eat no manner of fat;  of ox, of  sheep, or of
goat" ?
   The following  rules are  plainly deducible from
Dr. Beaumont's observations:
   1. "Bulk is nearly as  necessary to the articles
of diet as the  nutrient  principle.  They should be
so  managed that one will be in proportion to the
other.  Too highly nutritive  diet is  probably as
fatal to  life and health as that  which is insufficient
in nourishment."
   2. The more plain and simple the  preparation
of food, and the less of seasonings of any kind, the
better for health.  " Stimulating condiments," (salt,
pepper, vinegar, mustard, &c.,) " instead of being
used with impunity, are actually prejudicial to the
healthy stomach."  " Though they may assist the
action of a  debilitated stomach for a time, their
continued use  never fails  to produce an indirect
debility of that organ.  They affect it as  alcohol
or other stimulants do—the present relief afforded
is at the expense  of future suffering." 
68
WATER-CURE
  3 .Thorough mastication and slow swallowing
are of great importance.
  4. A due quantity of food is of the utmost im-
portance.   " There is no subject of dietetic econ-
omy," says Dr. B., " about which  people  are so
much in error as that which relates to quantity."
" Dyspepsia is oftener the effect of overeating and
overdrinking than any cause."
   5.  Solid food, if  properly  masticated, is more
  asy of digestion than soups and broths.
  6.  Butter, fat  meat,   and all  oily substances,
being always of hard  digestion,  tending  to de-
rangement of the stomach, are better omitted.
  7. Alcoholic liquors of every form, the various
stimulating condiments, as mustard, pepper, spice,
&c, tea, coffee, and narcotics of  every  kind, all
tend to debility, derangement  and  disease  of the
stomach, and, through it, of the whole system.
  8. Simple pure water  is the  only fluid necessa-
ry for drink, or for the wants of the system.  The
artificial  drinks  are all more  or  less  injurious.
" Tea and coffee," says Dr. B.. " the common be-
verages of all classes  of people, have a tendency
to debilitate the digestive organs.   Let  any one
who is in the habit of drinking either of these ar-
ticles in  a  weak decoction,  take two  or three
cups,  made very strong, and he  will  soon  be
aware of their  injurious tendency; and this  is
only an addition to  the  strength of the  narcotic
which he is in th8 constant habit of using:."
I 
FOR  LADIES.
69
                 Milk—Cream.
   Milk has been much extolled.  It is more natu-
 ral for the young than for  adults.   Pure country
 milk  certainly agrees with many  persons  well.
 None should be used by old or young, except that
 from  healthy animals, which are fed upon pure
 healthy food.   Milk from  cows kepi upon  " still
 slops," such as is often sold in cities, is the cause
 of much mischief.   The food of the animal affects
 very  materially the milk.   It thus  sometimes be-
 comes highly poisonous.   The life of the animal
 is sometimes saved by the poison being  thrown
 out of the body  by the secretion of milk.   Thus
 two mothers, the one  with  a  child at the breast,
 and the other without, may take poison sufficient
 to destroy life.  The child of the one is poisoned,
 and the mother saved, while, in the other case, the
 mother's life is destroyed.   Many a poor child  is
 actually " drugged to death," through the  milk of
 the drug-taking mother.   The habit of alcoholic
 stimulation, is thus often brought on.
  Some who cannot bear milk, will  find  that
 cream, especially if diluted with pure soft water,
is agreeable  and salutary.   All kinds  of pastry
and pies can  be  made not only more healthy, but
palatable, by using good cream instead of butter
or lard.  Cream  being soluble in water, while but-
ter  and lard  are  wholly  insoluble, its action in
the stomach is very different.
  Notwithstanding much may be said for neces-
              4* 
70
WATER-CURE
sity of habit,  yet any and every person, however
long and much  they may have  used flesh meat,
will  be  benefitted  by  immediate  substitution of
cream or milk  for  flesh.  And  we  also  believe
that an  exclusive  vegetable  and  fruit diet for
adults is capable of such  selection,  that a  still
higher degree of health and enjoyment will attend
its use.

                    Cheese.
  This  article, although  so much  esteemed by
many, is, by writers, generally reckoned to be
very hard of digestion. It varies very much as
to quality.   The " good old cheese  put down in
wine or brandy, so much  esteemed  by some, is
quite bad enough to give a  hyena, or any thing
else, a fit of dyspepsia."

                     Eggs.
   Eggs, very slightly  boiled, are quite  a  healthy
form of food.  It is better, however, to use none
except such as are furnished  by  " clean fowls/'
according to  the Levitical law.  Death  is said to
have been occasionally the result of using eggs in
which partial decomposition has taken place.   By
such decomposition a poisonous gas, (sulphuretted
hydrogen,) is formed.  Eggs  should always be
fresh—should never be cooked  hard, and, above
all, never fried in butter or fat. 
FOR  LADIES.
71
                    Bread.

   Bread is said to be the staff of life.  Such it
should always be in our diet.   Probably the  best
on the whole that can be made is that of unbolted
wheaten meal.   The wheat should be the  most
perfect that can be raised on a  pure healthy  soil,
(for the character of all vegetable productions de-
pends much upon the  character of the soil.)  It
should be perfectly clean, and if necessary should
be rapidly washed in pure water, and  then dried
in a clean, airy place in the sun.   It should then
be coarsely ground by sharp stones or a mill, so
that it may rather be cut into meal  than mashed,
and kept in a dry and clean place  for  use.  Peo-
ple, by the bye, generally have but little notion
of real cleanliness.   The mucilage  of the bran of
such  wheat is one of the mildest substances  that
can be introduced into the stomach in the way of
nutriment; and good bread or mush made of such
meal  is  better for keeping the bowels  and diges-
tive organs in a healthy state, than any other sub-
stance that can be  used.  We know  there has
been not a little of prejudice and sneering about
these  forms of using wheat.   Those who think
that  the coarse  bread is  less  palatable or  less
healthy than the  fine,  certainly have  not  well
tried the experiment.  For a long time  the supe-
riority of coarse bread has been known.  In the
time of King George III. of England, the soldiers,
when  compelled to use coarse bread from scarcity 
72
WATER-CURE
of provision, were found to be more hardy, and
soon relished the bread to which they at first sneer-
ingly gave the name of "Brown George."  Magen-
die, the celebrated French physiologist, in experi-
menting, found, that always when he fed his dogs
upon fine bread and water, they died in fifty days,
(varying but a day or two,) but when they were
given coarse military bread, {pain de munition,) and
water, they lived, and in no respect suffered.  The
fine bread was highly  nutritious.   If mere saw-
dust had been mixed with it in due  proportion,
the dogs would have lived.
  The  bread furnished at Priessnitz's  table is
always coarse.   Many have  complained of the
" hard fare," and  think the accommodations any
thing but comfortable.  But  he says  the  cures
would go on much more rapidly if the table were
not half as well served as now.  The bread, how-
ever, is by no means what it  should be, as is also
true of the other  food there used ;  but the bread
is ai leas<asgood as is used by society in general,
and is not'-in a too concentrated form—a consider-
ation of great importance.
  In towns and cities where baker's bread is so
much  used, it is seldom that we  can find any but
bad bread.  This is owing to the fact that people
will have such bread.  Say the bakers, *' We know
the  bread is well-nigh spoiled  by  so  much raising,
but such  our  customers will have."   It is seldom
true, in this country, where bread stuff is so abun-
dant, that bread is injured by chemical substances, 
FOR  LADiKiS.
73
 as has been supposed by some.  Such substances
 are too expensive, even if there was a disposition
 to use them.  The bread is  too much fermented
 and raised.
   Considering the importance of bread, and its
 universal use, it is surprising that so little atten-
 tion has been given the subject. Throughout so-
 ciety how very rare it is to find good bread.  Many
 of our good country-women  are in the constant
 habit of having bread that is perfectly sour. Others
 again have  little or no rule in  the matter, so that
 they never have bread  twice alike—occasionally
 good, but generally bad.  Many pay  little  or no
 attention to the subject—trusting  this important
 matter to those who take little or no interest in it.

                Wheaten Bread.
   The wheat, we  have said, should be the very
 best that can be  obtained—should be perfectly
 clean,  and  ground into coarse meal, and  never
 bolted.   This makes the most palatable as well
 as the most healthy bread.  The best mode of rais-
 ing is that by good lively yeast.  The meal should
 be wet with  perfectly  pure  soft water,  slightly
 warm, mixed with the yeast, and  well kneaded,
 (which  is generally too much  neglected.)   This
 is laborious, and needs perseverance and strength.
 Bakers use a brake, which can be made on a small-
er  scale for house  use.   The dough is thus very
easily beaten or kneaded sufficiently, which cannot
be done too much.  Then it is to be put by in a 
74
WATER-CURE
trough or tray, and covered over with linen, and
then a woollen cloth, kept for that use.  It should
be kept in a place at from 60 to 70° F., or about a
moderate summer heat.   At 80°, fermentation or
raising, goes on  very  rapidly ;  at  70°, rapidly;
rather moderately at 60° ;  and not at all below
about 30°.  All the circumstances which can  be
reduced to rule—the quantity of meal, water, and
yeast—should be methodically attended to.  The
thermometer, scales, measures, &c, are necessary.
As the temperature cannot always be controlled,
the dough will need watching.   That the process
does  not  go on too fast, a tin  tray may be used,
which can be set in water, and  may easily be  re-
gulated in temperature.  Recollect that fermenta-
tion goes on well only where the yeast has pene-
trated the mass, so that the most thorough mixing
is necessary ; otherwise the  bread will be filled
more or  less with holes, which is always a sign
that the mixing has not been done right. It should
raise about one-third in bulk.
   When the dough  is sufficiently raised, it should
be quickly worked over and moulded into suitable
loaves, and put into the oven.   Whatever kind ot
oven is used, the heat should be so managed that
the baking goes on evenly above and below. The
more rapid the baking the  better, if that the bread
is done  thoroughly through, and not  burned.
Coarse bread needs a hotter oven than fine.   As
to kneading, &c, the same general rules apply to
fine flour bread as to coarse. 
FOR  LADIHW3.
75
              Varieties of Bread.
  A variety of substances can be used with meal
or flour, in making bread. Apples, sweet and sour,
potatoes, pumpkins, squashes, &c, are  sometimes
used.   Potatoes should be  of the best quality,
boiled in clean water, which should  always be
changed, boiling  hot, two  or three times  before
they are done.  The water from potatoes is well
known to possess a very acrid  and perhaps  poi-
sonous quality ;  so that the potatoes  are  easily
changed in quality by thus changing  the  water.
A very perceptible difference in the blandness of
the article is  thus  made.   When they are thus
done, the water drained off, and well evaporated,
they are mashed  fine, while  hot.  Potatoes thus
prepared are used as a "shortening" for pie crust,
&c, by those who prefer plainness in food.   The
pumpkins and squashes are  to  be  sifted ; Indian
meal and rice  flour should  be at least scalded, or
perhaps both boiled.  Indian of any form  needs
thorough cooking.
  Rye is a grain liable to great variation  of quality :
if grown upon a dry sandy soil, and free from
ergot, it is by many reckoned to be an excellent ar-
ticle for bread.  Some prefer it to wheat; it is not
so nutritious.  But  it is a universal error to take
too much nutriment.  The " rye and Indian" bread
of old  times, when properly made, is most  excel-
lent. 
76
WATER-CURE
        Sal Mratus in Bread, Cakes, <£c.
   The raising of bread or cakes  is produced by
 carbonic acid gas. This gas is produced by fermen-
 tation and other means.  If dissolved sal aeratus
 and an acid are  brought together, a chemical ac-
 tion takes place by which the gas is given off, and
 when thus generated among the particles of the
 bread stuff", causes the bread  to raise or swell.  As
 a general rule, it is better not to use sal aeratus; but
 sometimes quickness is an object.  Sal aeratus is
 often used in greater  quantity than is  necessary
 to produce the desired object.   The least quantity
 possible to produce the  required result should be
 used.   It should never be used without some acid,
 as sour milk, sour cream, cider. <fcc, for it to neu-
 tralize.  It is better to mix or knead  well  the bat-
 ter or dough first with  the acid substance alone,
 and when every thing is ready for baking, having
 the sal aeratus all dissolved in water, mix it very
 rapidly through the whole mass, and, as quickly
 as possible, have it baking,  before the gas  has
 much time to escape.

               Unleavened Bread.
  If we take two equal portions of flour or meal;
raise the one, bake, and use as soon as cool, and
then the other properly mixed and baked, without
raising of any kind, and eat the two different spe-
cimens under the same  circumstances,  we shall
find that the  unleavened bread  agrees best with 
FOR  LADIES.
77
 the stomach.   Of our Saviour and  his times, we
#-ead of the " breaking of bread."  Such bread was
 doubtless unleavened and baked  in  a thin  form.
 It is certain such bread, rightly made, is  exceed-
 ingly  healthy.  It  needs  thorough mastication,
 otherwise it is liable to swell in the  stomach and
 prove  oppressive.  Whatever kind of unleavened
 bread is made, the flour or meal should have suf-
 ficient time to soak and swell  before baking-.  A
 most delicious bread of this kind is made  by mix-
 ing  a  portion of thoroughly  boiled hominy  or
 corn-meal, with wheat-meal, and well baked  in
 cakes.   Good unleavened  bread  can be kept for
 a  long time.  When it becomes uncomfortably
 hard and dry, it  can  be sprinkled over with  clean
 water to soften, and  then  for  a  few minutes  be
 put into an oven ; or it can be  steamed, and  thus
 again be made fresh and  good.   We have  seen
 the experiment made with unleavened bread  at
 boarding-houses,  and  when well  made  it  finds
 favor.  A very good plain Indian cake is made, by i
 taking a fresh egg or two with  a quart  of sour ;
| milk, a tea-spoon full of salseratus, and  scalded \
 or boiled corn-meal  well stirred, until of  a  thick
i batter,  and then quickly baked.  Some prefer add- /.
 ing  a  little good molasses.  Both  the egg and
; the molasses may be omitted.   A still plainer and
 very excellent form of " Johnny cake" is made, by
 mixing good sweet Indian meal with pure boiling
 water, which  is shaped upon a board and baked
 before a fire, or upon a sheet of tin in a stove or 
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oven.  It should be made smooth with  the back
of a spoon dipped in water to prevent sticking.  •
   In all cases when griddle-cakes  are  made, or
when for any purpose an oily substance is to be
used to prevent sticking, the best is  good sweet
oil used with a tuft of sponge  or of cloth upon
the end of a stick.  The next best would be fresh
unsalted  butter.  In many cases of baking, the ob-
ject is  brought about by sprinkling  meal or flour
upon the dish.
   A serious objection to corn bread is,  that  it  is
generally eaten hot,  and with butter, which in
the melted state is much worse  than  when used
cold, but which should not be used at all.  Sup-
pose we should eat the butter without salt, as do
many  of the Europeans, which  is better,  how
insipid it would  be.   This  shows the  power  of
habit.

      Bread, when and with what to be eaten.
   Bread, of whatever kind, should not  be eaten
warm.  All kinds of raised bread should  be left
until at least twenty-four hours old, and  more es-
pecially  is  this necessary when the fine bread  is
used.  The coarse bread is far less injurious  than
fine, if it must be  used  immediately.  All kinds
of unleavened bread  are allowable as  soon  as
cold.

        What should be taken with bread ?
   Nothing but water, rather than butter.   Let any 
FOR  LADIES.
79
one who has the least inkling of the  no uncom-
mon thing dyspepsia, try this prescription—not a
drug one :   The first twenty-four hours take  no
tood of any kind, but drink largely  of water  at
and before the usual meal-times.  This  tends to
prevent the  morbid craving that in  many cases
takes place.   Then let  the fast  be broken by a
very light meal of good  bread and water, and thus
perseveringly  continue.  Our word for it, dys-
pepsia will  soon be "starved out,"—and life too,
some of our very learned doctors will say.  But
this  is  not  true.  A robust,  laboring man can
habitually live upon wheat-meal  bread and wa-
ter alone,  any reasonable length  of  time, and
this too in high health and strength—other things
being favorable.
   There is a great variety of substances that may
be prepared and eaten as a condiment with bread.
It is much better to use good cream,  which is so
easily soluble in the salivary and gastric fluids
than  butter.  There are many good things, as
fruits, jellies, tarts, honey, syrups, &c, which can
easily be had at all periods of the year, and which,
if well prepared and kept, and used  in appropri-
ate quantity only, are far more healthy than but-
ter or flesh-meat.  The  butter  spoken of  in  the
Bible, in connexion with honey as  an article of
food, we are told by good  authority, was  in  all
probability nothing but good sweet cream.
   Those  who must use butter in  spite of  the
plainest proof of its perniciousness, should always 
80               WATER-CURE

use it sparingly and never in the melted form.  It
should  always be fresh from  the  healthy cow,
and  be free from salt.   How common has it been
for physicians and others to prescribe toast—bread
completely saturated with butter—a dish too bad
for the  strongest stomach.  Persons in the last
stages of consumption are often told that such a
dish is harmless, and may  be  freely indulged in.
And how comes this  deep delusion ?  Precisely
in this wise :  According to feelings, the food ap-
pears to agree perfectly well  with  the stomach;
and it is not at all suspected that "the iniquities
of the stomach are visited upon the weak and dis-
eased lungs, and through them upon the  whole
system."  Hot short-cakes  with butter are often
thus used by invalids and persons diseased.  While
such practices are continued, seldom will there
be a complete restoration to health  ; and  if such
restoration does  take place, it will be very much
retarded.

              Crackers, Cakes, $c.
   Fine  crackers of all kinds are more or less in-
jurious, being in a form too concentrated.  Often
they are made of inferior flour, and  with stale but-
ter and lard for shortening.  The water crackers  ;
or sea biscuit are the least injurious. Good crack-  !;
ers can be made of wheat-meal  and water only,  :
if thoroughly kneaded and  beaten, until quite dry
or'flaky," and  then baked quickly,  until they
are dry through.   Some mix in, scalded or boiled 
FOR  LADIES.
81
 Indian meal, with a little sugar.   These Graham,
 wheat-meal or dyspepsia crackers, as they are call-
 ed, are  often badly  made by  city bakers,  and
 should not be eaten.  Those that are well made
 are sometimes found to disagree, from  not being
 sufficiently masticated, thus leaving them to swell
 and prove oppressive in the stomach.  Soaking and
 steaming them is often necessary, before using. If
 they  become somewhat stale, they can be im-
 proved by moistening and rebaking.  Some bakers
 say that  crackers, as well  as bread,  are  sweeter,
 baked upon the cleaned bottom of a brick oven.
 The probable reason is, that the air comes in con-
 tact with  more  of the  surface  of  the article
 baked.
   Cakes  and crackers can be made plain in  a
 variety of ways without using butter or lard,  and
 can, with good culinary skill, be  made more pa-
 latable than when those articles are used.

                    Toast.
   A good plain toast can be made by using sweet
cream instead of butter. The bread may be sliced,
toasted on both sides, and dipped  in boiled sweet
cream, thickened with a little rice flour, fine flour,
or arrow root. Rich milk  can be used  instead.
A cracker  toast  may  be made by steaming  the
crackers  and  using milk or cream.

             Panada, or Panado.
  Stale bread or  crackers boiled in water, milk, 
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or water and cream, to a suitable consistence, are
in this form a very convenient article of nourish-
ment for the sick.

                   Puddings.
  These can be made in  a variety of ways, and
if properly made and taken in temperate quantity,
more as a condiment to plainer and wholesome
articles, they are very good.  It is well, however,
for us always to remember that " Nature's wants
are  few and easily  supplied."  Those  who are
contented  to  "eat to live," rather than "live to
eat," will find  it necessary to spend but little time
in the multifarious preparations and forms of food
used in civic life.

             Wheat Meal Pudding.
  We  may scald one  part of good  fresh  wheat
meal with  about two parts of milk.  Add  a little
sweetening, with raisins or other  fruit, if desired,
and bake an hour.   It is better to stand  awhile
before  baking.

              Loaf Bread Pudding.
  A well baked stale loaf of bread may be tied in
a linen  cloth, and boiled, which, with good sauce,
answers well for a plain pudding; or it may  be
steamed.

                   Another.
  Good stale  bread made fine, soaked well  in 
FOR LADIES.
83
milk, with currants, raisins, or some other fruit,
sweetened and well baked, makes  a good pud-
ding.  Cracker puddings are made  in  much  the
same way as those of bread.

            Boiled Indian  Pudding,
   Indian  meal is to be scalded in water, milk and
water, or  milk ;  the meal of quantity to make it
stiff, to which sugar or molasses, and some kind
of fruit, is to be added,—apples, cranberries, whor-
tleberries, currants, if desired.   Boil  four  to  six
hours tied up  in a thick cloth, or put in a boiler,
in either case  leaving room for it to swell.  The
boiler containing the pudding  is to  be placed in
another boiler of water.

             Baked Indian  Puddins.
   This should always be  mixed up awhile, an
hour or two or more, before baking.  One part wa-
ter, one of meal, and two of milk, answers well__
all milk may be used,  which makes it little if any
better.  The milk or milk and  water,  after boil-
ing, should be poured upon the meal, which is  to
be well stirred.  Sweeten  sufficient with good
molasses or syrup.  Fruit may also be added.  It
should be baked from four to eight hours, accord-
ing to the size.

              Hominy Pudding.
  Two parts of boiling milk or milk and  water,
with a pint of meal well stirred in, to which about
two parts of well boiled  hominy is added, with 
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 sufficient sweetening, and bake well.   Fruit may
 also be added.   So also may rice.

                 Sago Pudding.
   Sago, a   farinaceous vegetable  substance,   is
 often used  for puddings.  It is obtained from the
 pith of certain kinds  of  palms,  growing in dif-
 ferent parts of the world, in tropical climates.
 It comes in grains.  It needs to  be  soaked and
 washed  several  hours,  and  the  water to  be
 changed a number of times,   to remove the
 earthy  taste.  One part sago, thus prepared,  is
 to  be poured  into about  two parts  of  boiling
 milk or milk and water.   After it has  stood
 awhile, add a sufficiency of cold milk, and some
 kind of fruit  or not,  as  desirable, with sweet-
 ening if preferred, and bake.  Some  add beaten
 eggs.  These render it richer and more complex,
 and thus less healthy.

                Tapioca Pudding.
   Tapioca is also a farinaceous substance, and
 highly  nutritious, prepared from the cassada
 root.   It is to be washed and  made in  any way
 similar to that of the sago pudding.

                     Pies.
  A great variety of these can be made without
butter or lard—a few of which only we shall  give.
The plainer the crust  the  better,  so that it will
answer  the purpose.   Raised dough for  bread 
FOR LADIES.
85
 makes a very good crust for pies if well wet with
 rich milk or cream.  Some like a little scalded or
 boiled Indian meal, to  be mixed.  Scalded rice
 flour, may also be  added.  Sour cream or sour
 milk rendered sweet by a little sal aeratus, may be
 used.  One part of nice mealy potatoes mashed
 while hot,  with three or  four parts  of flour  or
 wheat meal, may be used  for a plain crust.

                   Apple Pie.
   If the crust be very plain, it may burn before
 the apples are done.  The apples should be sliced
 very thin if to be used while raw.  A better way,
 perhaps, is  to stew the apples before making the
 pie.  Some prefer removing the crust,  and sweet-
 ening after  the pie is done.  Dried  apples should
 always be made perfectly  clean  and stewed be-
 fore baking.  Other fruits may be added.

                   Tart Pie.
   Almost any fruit can be  used to  make a  tart
pie.  The fruit  should be  well stewed  in some
kind of vessel that will not injure it, by the metal
uniting with the  acid of the fruit.  A glazed stew-
pan is the best.  It must then be sifted and sweet-
ened, and baked  with a thin crust in shallow pans.
The pies are ornamented in any desirable form
with strips of the crust.

                 Mince Pies.
  " For the  stomach's  sake," these, of  all kinds,
             5 
86
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are better let alone.   The following is  recom-
mended by some :   One part cream or milk, one
part stoned and chopped raisins, one part  good
molasses, two parts sour apples, chopped fine, two
parts stale rye or wheat bread crumbs ; seasoning
with lemon juice.  Lemon rind, grated cinnamon,
&c, are used, but better omitted.

                  Fruit Pies.
   Blackberries, whortleberries, cherries,  raspber-
ries, &c. &c., are baked in a deep plate; they are
to be sweetened to the taste.   Some stew a little
and sweeten before making the pies.   The crust
should be well joined at the edges, to prevent the
juice from escaping.

              Apple Custard Pie.
   Take about equal parts of grated apples, sweet
or  sour, and  milk, which  are sweetened to the
taste,  and baked in deep  plates,  without  upper
crust.

                   Rice Pie.
   Wet  two or three table-spoons full of rice flour
with milk or water till a thick paste ; scald well,
or boil the paste three or four  minutes in about a
quart of milk or milk and water, and bake in a
deep dish, without upper crust.

                Pumpkin Pie.
  Some prefer that the inside of the  pumpkin be 
FOR LADIES.
87
not scraped, merely removing  the  seeds.  They
are to  be peeled, and cut into small  strips, and
stewed slowly, until thoroughly done|; when done,
let it steam slowly over the fire ; when cold, strain.
A plain pie is made of equal parts  of milk  and
pumpkin ; and some prefer an egg or two to every
quart of the  mixture.  The thicker of pumpkin
the less eggs  are needed.  Sweeten  to the taste.
Some  add grated lemon  peel, ginger, spice,  &c.
These require a hot oven.  It is well to scald the
mixture  just before pouring in to bake.    The
crust is not thus so apt to burn.   The less of  eggs
the more baking is needed.   Bake  as soon as the
pies are filled, to prevent clamminess of the under
crust.   The  prepared, pumpkin  can be kept for
months in cold weather, if well sweetened.

            Carrot and Squash Pies.
   These are made in a way similar to the pump-
kin pie, and are very  excellent, if properly made.

                  Potato Pie.
   Boil good mealy common  potatoes,  or good
sweet ones,  in different waters,—strain them.
One part potatoes to six or eight  of milk,  with
beaten eggs,  and bake with under-crust only.

                 Tomato Pie.
   Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, letting
them remain in the  water a few minutes.   Strip
off the skins, cut in  slices, sprinkle  sugar  over 
€
88               WATER-CURE

them, and bake  slowly for an hour, with upper
crust.

          Rhubarb, or Pie Plant Pie.
  Tender stalks, with the skin stripped off, are
cut into thin slices.  One layer of rhubarb with
one of sugar, till sufficiently  thick ; cover with a
top crust,  well  closed at the edges, and  prick
holes.  Bake slowly till done.

          Potato Flour for Cakes, fyc.
   Take the best mealy potatoes, pare and  wash
well; grate them finely in a vessel containing wa-
ter, until theim is about as much potato as water.
It is well to stir. When well settled, pour off the
water carefully ; dry the flour, grind or beat itf
and sift.  This is excellent where great  lightness
is an  object, as in sponge cake.  It may be cooked
in a variety of ways for children and the sick.

              Plain Bread  Cake.
   One or two parts of sugar, to three or four of
raised dough, and one part of good cream, or milk
will do.  Mix all thoroughly.  If too soft, add flour.
Fruit can also be added.  Let it raise awhile be-
fore baking.

                A  Plain Cake.
   Two or three parts of sour cream or milk, with
sal aeratus, to sweeten;  then  stir  in five or six
parts of flour or meal of wheat, and bake. 
FOR  LADIE8.
89
               Plain Rice Cake.
  Stir equal parts of fine rice flour and sour cream,
or rich sour milk, well  together, and let stand an
hour or two ; then sweeten, and add a  little flour
or meal till of proper thickness.  Use also a little
dissolved sal aeratus.

  These are but a few of the many forms of pre-
paring puddings, pies, cakes, &c,  which might
easily be  given, and will serve something of a
guide to those who prefer  plainness in cooking.
But in all  preparations of food, let  it ^Jways be
remembered that the taking of too  much^nutri-
ment is, in the aggregate, the greatest cause  of
disease in the world ; that the tendency is always
excess, and that complicated preparations always
tempt one to  excess.   The  prayer is, " Lead us
not into temptation,"—inculcating that  we  avoid
temptation.
                    Fruits.
   There are a great variety of ways of preparing
and  using fruits.   Most good fruits,  as  apples,
peaches, pears, plums, &c, when  perfectly ripe,
agree best, especially with the accustomed stom-
ach, in an uncooked state.  We have known per-
sons, very fond of fruit, as good apples, who, from
weakness of digestion, could not partake of them
in an uncooked state, and who in a very short time 
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accustomed themselves to their use, by commenc-
ing with a very small quantity at a meal.  Good
fruit, taken  at  suitable times, and in a suitable
quantity, is very healthy.
   Of the various  preparations and preservations
of fruits we need not speak.  In  general, it is
best to use  only  such as grow  in  the climate
where we, live, and such as are healthy and per-
fectly  ripe.   Fruit, of whatever  form or kind,
should only be used as a part of the regular meal.

                   Vegetables.

   Many of the vegetables in  the larger markets
are unfit for use, from the  acrid quality  of the
soil on which they are raised.   The quality of
the vegetable  depends much  upon  the soil  on
which it grows.   Some  thus  become fibrous or
tough, and acrid of taste.  In boiling,  nothing but
the purest, softest water should be used, and each
kind should  be  done by itself.

                   Potatoes.
   This most excellent vegetable  should not  be
used till it has come to maturity.   It  is better to
remove the peeling, at least from the blossom end.
It is well to  let them remain in cold water some
hours  before  boiling.  The   water  should  be
changed boiling hot  two or  more  times  before
they are done.  At  the instant  they are done
through, the water should be poured off, and  the
kettle uncovered and left on the fire till they are 
FOR  LADIES.
91
quite dry.  They should be of the same size and
kind at the same boiling.  They may be made
into nice  balls after mashing, and moistening with
milk or cream.

                Vegetable Soup.
  Take any desired vegetable or vegetables, slice
and  chop fine,  boil in water with a little rice, or
rice or potatoe  flour.  Boil an hour  or  two, and
then add sliced  potatoes, and boil until done.  If
the soup  is thus too thick, add more water;  if too
thin, add flour or ground rice.   It is made richer
by adding scalded milk or cream.

                Beans and Peas.
  Beans  in particular are a very rich form of nu-
triment.  Peas and beans should  be soaked a num-
ber  of hours, or over-night, and then, if to be
baked, they should be cooked very slowly, to pre-
vent their breaking. The water should be changed
two or three times, while they are becoming soft.
When sufficiently done,  they are  put in a deep
pan.  They may be baked in an hour or two, but
better longer ; if in  a brick oven, five or six hours,
or eight  hours.  The  water should cover them
considerably, a half inch, or an inch.   If they are
for a stew, boil  thoroughly, and  add a little  rice,
potatoe,  or other flour.   Cream  or milk may be
added.   If they are for  soup, do them until they
can be rubbed through a sieve.  Beans in particu-
lar are insipid enough without salt  to those who 
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 have always used it.  It does, not, however, take
 long to  overcome the  habit.  Those who have
 overcome this habit, relish all food better without
 salt.

            A Good Way to boil Rice.
   Rinse well with cold water a number of times.
 Rice absorbs  much water  while  boiling.   Put
 about one quart of water to a tea-cup of rice, and
 others would say a little salt.  Boil carefully about
 fifteen minutes.  Then turn the water all off, and
 let it steam over a few coals about fifteen minutes
 with the lid off.  Much care is necessary in boil-
 ing rice. The beauty of boiling rice  is to do it so
 that each kernel stands out by itself.   The water
 poured off makes good  starch, n boiled by itself a
jfew minutes.   The  water should boil hard when
 the rice is put in.

                  Wheat Jelly.
   Wheat jelly is one of the  most soothing sub-
 stances that can be introduced into the  stomach.
 Soak the wheat over-night, and  boil  four to  six
 hours.  The jelly may be pressed through a coarse
 cloth, or may be eaten  as it is; with some kind of
 fruit or sauce.   It is  most excellent for regulating
 the stomach and bowels.

                   Rice Jelly.
   Wet rice flour with water, and let it stand awhile
 to soak.  Put it over a slow fire, from time to time 
FOR LADIES.
93
adding hot water.  The water may be a little
sweetened.  Milk may be used.

           Sago and Tapioca Jellies.
  These are made in a similar way as that of rice.
The sago in particular needs much rinsing.
5* 
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              CHAPTER  VII.

Quantity of Nutriment in Food, and  the Physio-
        logical Effects of different Kinds.

  On no subject is there more delusion  than on
this ;  nor are medical men always free from it.
Some distinguished men of  the  profession have
spoken of the vegetable  diet as being a starving
one.  A worthy individual of this city died about
two years ago, who had been living upon the so-
called " Graham system."  He was said by a medi-
cal  man of this city to have  starved to death.
This  statement was  considerably circulated, and
by  many believed.  The facts in the case were,
however, entirely different. One day he was busy
at his usual occupation, and the next day he was
dead.   A post mortem examination revealed the
mystery.  He died of inflammation of the stom-
ach.  This man unfortunately had, what might be
termed, a pill mania.  It was Morrison's pills for
every thing.  If a friend had any ailment, no mat-
ter  what, the pills must be taken.  It was known
that himself often took enormous quantities of these 
FOR LADIES.
95
 pills.  There is no reasonable doubt but that  he
 was thus poisoned to death.
   Strange as it may appear, many kinds of vege-
 table, farinaceous food contain double the amount
 of nutriment, pound  for pound, that average flesh
 meat does.  Even  the common potato is very
 nearly as nutritious as the average of flesh meat»
 which is estimated at thirty-five  per cent.   Rice,
 wheat,  peas, beans,  &c, contain from  eighty to
 ninety-five per cent,  of nutritious matter—so that
 a pound of rice has as much nutriment as two and
 a half pounds of average flesh.   A pound of good.
 bread of wheat has about twice as much. This is
 according  to chemical  analysis..  But there is a
 more important difference than this.   It is in what
 may be termed the vital character of the food ; or
 rather in the vital character of  blood, flesh, &c,
 which is formed by the use of such food.  That
 the constitution or character of chyle, blood, &c>
 is  changeable to almost any extent by differences
 in food, no physiologist will question.  " The hu-
 man blood," says Dr.Graham, "formed from ani-t
 mal food, will putrify, when taken from the living \
 vessels, in a much shorter time,  and much more i
 rapidly, than that formed  from pure vegetable 1
 aliment; and there is always, other things being
 equal, a much greater febrile and putrescent ten- I
 dency in the living  bodies of those who subsist '
 mostly on animal food, than in those who subsist j
wholly on pure vegetable aliment;  and hence the j
susceptibilities of  both the fluids  and the solids to i 
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the action of morbific causes, is  greater in  the
flesh-eater than in the vegetable-eater."  " Hence
if two healthy men of the same age—the one sub-
sisting principally upon flesh, and the other upon
vegetable food and water—be suddenly killed in
warm weather, and the bodies  be laid out in the
ordinary manner, that of the vegetable-eater will
remain two or three times as long without becom-
ing putrid, as that of the flesh-eater."  These are
most important and  instructive facts, and should
be  deeply pondered  by all.   And yet we are
gravely told, that because the chemical  composi-
tion of the chyle and  blood, formed from animal
and vegetable  food, and the ultimate chemical
constituents  of both  animal and vegetable food,
are so  nearly or  entirely the same,  we   see
the goodness of God  in the natural constitution of
things.  What philosophy this !   Who does  not J
know how much sooner a wound  will heal in one j
whose diet is pure and principally or entirely vege- \
table, with pure water for drink, than in one whose j
diet and drink are gross ?                      *
  As to  the relative amount of nutriment in the
two kinds of food, all well understood facts of ac-
tual experience prove the same thing as  chemical
analysis.
  The great mistake made in reference  to  this
subject is, that writers in general  have confound-
ed  stimulation  with  nutrition.  Animal food is
far more stimulating  than vegetable food.  Hence
on leaving  off animal  food, a  person may feel a 
FOR  LADIES.
97
temporary depression, and a  want of the accus-
tomed stimulation, and which will  in some cases
be very annoying.  The individual is thus deluded
into the belief that the stimulating food is neces-
sarily more nutritious.  If, however, a good selec-
tion of vegetable food be made, other things being
equal, this uncomfortableness  of feeling, produced
by  the lack of stimulation, will soon pass off, and
there will be a very perceptible increase in the
health  and vigor of body and mind.  But mankind
act so much from  present feeling, and  are so in-
competent to take an extended view of these sub-
jects, in which there are such  a variety of circum-
stances to be noticed, that comparatively few can
make much progress in physiological reform. The
woman who toils  long, and  for her tea, coffee,
snuff, opium, &c,  which seem, when  she is so
fatigued, to  give her such strength and freedom
from pain, does  not  know that she is really fast
diminishing her present comfort, as well as cutting
short life—and that  her course of life, physically
speaking, is one of certain destruction.
  Many, who have adopted the vegetable system,
which does not  simply refer  to abstinence from
flesh, as seems so often to be  supposed, but which
implies  correctness in the whole regimen of man,
have gone from bad to worse; and then  they at-
tribute their failure to the system.   A case like
the following is no uncommon one.  A person be-
comes dyspeptic, and has perhaps, besides, a com-
plication of bodily afflictions.  From these he fails 
98
WATER-CURE
to get any permanent relief.  A multitude of medi-
cines he perseveringly tries, and is yet " nothing
bettered, but rather grows worse."  At  length,
when driven to the last extreme, a dietetic reform,
as the one expedient left, is resorted to.   Stimu-
lants and flesh meat are avoided ; immediately the
health, strength, and appetite improve.  The in-
dividual goes on perhaps for years in this improve-
ment.  His food is relished in a high degree, so
that unknowingly he gets  the habit of taking too
much.  The health and strength again fail, until
he at last becomes as much afflicted, or more so,
than before.  He again takes to his flesh, and  per-
haps stimulants.  The food now being more stimu-
lating and much less nutrient—by the stimulation,
the appetite seems satisfied with less, and thus the
system is not overtaxed and irritated, and clogged
with  the excess of nutrition, and there is  at once
an amendment in health.  And the ftesh meat after
all gets the credit.   The individual does not now
 remember  that the flesh  meat,  stimulation  and
medicine at first proved of no avail.
  Much has been said  respecting the necessity of
eating flesh, train-oil, &c,  in cold  climates.  Oil,
it is said, is rich in carbon; and as the action be-
tween the carbon of the food  and  the oxygen of
the air breathed  is supposed  to be the cause of
animal heat, therefore the oil is necessary as  food
to afford a supply of carbon.  But this is altogether
too much of a random theory,  and  is leaving too
much out of the question the wonderful and mys- 
FOR LADIES.
99
 terious agency of vitality.  The living human body
 is a thing as different as can be from an arrange-
 ment of chemical apparatus by which  heat may
 be generated  by causing carbon and  oxygen to
 unite.  The question in reference to train-oil, fair-
 ly stated, would be, Is it natural ? Is it in any way
 best adapted  to  promote the vigor of the  body ?
 We say the experiments of Dr. Beaumont cannot
 be mistaken on  this point.  It  matters not how
 much carbon is thrown into the body in the form
 of oil, oily animal  food,  or oil  of any kind, if it
 proves a source of irritation to the  stomach, as it
 always does, if used  to  any considerable extent.
 And then, most important of all, facts prove that
 animal food and oil are not conducive to the high-
 est endurance  of cold, or to the best physical con-
 dition of man  in any respect.   Among the exiles
 of Siberia, none  endure  the cold so well as those
 who have been accustomed to a simple vegetable
 diet.  The peasants of Russia are well known to
 be hardy, vigorous, and well able to endure cold,
 and yet they  live almost wholly on coarse rye
 meal  bread, with only a little of garlics or some-
 thing of the kind.   Rheumatism is quite unknown
among them, and so  diseases of every kind, and
 many live from 100 to 120 years of age.
  " The Laplanders," says Dr. Lambe, " are of a
 dwarfish stature.  It may be thought that this is
 the effect of the rigor of their polar cold. But  we
 find interspersed  among  them, and  inhabiting  the
same  country, numerous families of industrious 
100
WATER-CURE
  Finns, who cultivate the earth, and subsist chiefly
  on its produce ; and this race, though they remain
  for centuries in the same country, do not appear
  to be in  the least smaller than the Swedes and
  Norwegians."
     The Laplanders, and numerous  other tribes in
  the extreme north of Europe and  Asia, although
  they live almost  entirely on flesh, are yet  the
  weakest, smallest, and least brave people on the
  globe.
     Whatever mode of living  is best  adapted to
  health and  strength, must also be best to enable
  the body to endure cold.

  Meals, Times  of Eating, Quantity of Food proper
                 for Children, fyc.
i     The times of eating, whatever may be our food,
   should be  regular.  The meals should never be
  nearer each other than six hours.   Some portions
  of mankind eat but once, others twice, and so on,
I  '. in the twenty-four hours.  Three times for adults
)  i is as much as  is ever allowable, and indeed twice
  would generally be better for sedentary persons.
  The meal should never be taken in great haste,
  nor should we hurry to or from the meal to busi-
  ness or  excitement of  any  kind.  The habit of
  sleeping immediately after a meal is not favorable
  to  health.   Those who labor a  great deal  too
  much, as is often the case among those who labor
  at all, may on the whole be benefitted by so doing. 
FOR LADIES.
101
If sleep be taken after eating, the sitting position
should  be maintained.   The stomach  can  thus
better act.   Some  have  supposed  that animals
sleep very soon after eating. This is not the case.
They do  not for some  time  go to sleep, but are
inclined to rest.  Incomparably  better is it to sleep
awhile before the meal, with an empty  stomach.
To one who  is fatigued and  needs  sleep, such a
" nap" will prove most refreshing.   One will thus
feel  often as clear and bright as in the morning
after a refreshing night's rest.
  The morning meal should be a light one.  Break-
fast should break the fast with only  a few mouth-
fuls, some say.   It is a matter of great surprise to
many who have made the experiment, to see how
little food is really necessary to sustain the body
in good health.  We know a most excellent Irish
servant-woman,  who takes but  two  meals a  day.
She being asked why she did not eat  a good break-
fast, said,  " Sure and I can't do  all this work if I
trouble  my  stomach with the  breakfast."  Her
duties were arduous, and she had found  by expe-
rience that the breakfast was a source of irritation
rather than a help.   We  do  not pretend  to say
that  this rule is best always.  If one of the three
meals is  omitted, it may be the supper.  There
are few, if any, in civic  life, who would  not  be
benefitted, and who would  not rest better at night,
feel better in the morning, and be better  prepared
for the  duties of the  day, by habitually omitting
the third meal.   We have known the experiment 
102             WATER-CURE
to be made for  years, and always with  good re-
sults ; and we have fully tested the  matter in our
own person.  There is not a doubt  but that more
could be accomplished, and good health be more
common, if people would  rise early, from four to
five o'clock, set earnestly  about the labors of the
day till late in the morning, take the morning meal,
rest a little, and then pursue the remaining duties
of the day, until four or five in  the afternoon, after
which, when  sufficiently rested, take the  last meal.
This should be  followed by recreation, relaxation,
or at most very light labor.  Such a course would
be much better than the common one of bringing
meals and business so much together.  We should
thus be  not  only able  to accomplish more, but
would be at all  times less liable  to disease, and
would experience higher enjoyment of both body
and mind.
   The meal should always be taken slowly.  It is
better to omit  it entirely until the  next regular
meal time, than take it out of season or in haste.
And always after a fast, the following meal should
be light.   Cheerfulness, pleasantry and good feel-
ing should be sought at the time  of meals.  It
was a rule of the  great  Washington, always, as
soon as possible to change the  conversation if it
should turn upon sad subjects,  such  as  sickness,
disease and   death.  Pleasant   conversation and
cheerfulness should  be sought,  so that there  may
be higher enjoyment than that which results from
the pleasure of eating. 
FOR  LADIES.
103
   How inconsistent are human beings,  in refer-
ence to food.  How often, when they know right
well from bitter experience,  that  such  and such
preparations of food,  which the depraved  and
morbid appetite so powerfully craves,  if eaten,
will render them unfit  for business,  unfit for  en-
joyment—for religion—for every thing good and
noble; and  more,  often—that  one  will thus be
made  severely, painfully sick ;—and  then the
horrid  dreams—the incubus, and the nightly trou-
bles innumerable.   How often, for mere gustatory
feeling in taking food and drink, do mankind thus
act,  and in so  doing, they exhibit  that  most
strange perversion  of the  noblest  faculties, by
which   the  all-wise  institutions of the  Crea-
tor are not only disregarded, and God himself set
at defiance, but all  true happiness and present en-
joyment are actually  lost.  " Know thyself"  is
ever a wise maxim, and well would it be for hu-
man  kind, if its true  import could  be  fully un-
derstood.

         Food of Infants and Children.
   We  have already  alluded to the great mor-
tality of infants and children—a mortality  which
saddens the heart of one  to  think of, and  which
should ever come to the world in tones of sorrow
and of instruction.   A  mortality which, notwith-
standing the immense accumulation  of disease
upon human nature for centuries past, and which
has rendered the earth almost one entire charnel- 
*
104             WATBR-CURE

house of disease, suffering and death, could, with
a right understanding of physical human  nature,
be at once almost wholly prevented. This is better
tidings than the world is able to receive.
  The food of the infant is  an  important  matter.
That which is the best and most natural is the
milk of the healthy mother.   But it  is  no doubt
true, that the milk of many mothers and nurses  is
altogether less  salutary than a proper substitute,
from a healthy animal.  People are  little  aware
how much the  quality of the  mother's  milk  is
changed by the state of the mother's health, the air,
exercise, bathing, and medicine, and the food she
takes.  Through these influences, the milk may
be  rendered mild,  bland,  unirritating,  perfectly
healthy, or just the reverse.  It is therefore true
that many an infant is thus destroyed by the mo-
ther's own milk; and which might otherwise have
been saved.  The various  stimulating teas, cor-
dials, tonics, anodynes, and the stimulating and
pernicious food  of the mother, are all, through the
secretion of milk, visited most fearfully upon the
infant.  We therefore most earnestly entreat that
mothers may well understand this subject.
   When by any means the child  is deprived  of
the mother's milk, and when a healthy and tem-
perate nurse cannot be obtained, a good substitute,
and perhaps the best, is  the  prepared   milk of a
young healthy cow.  It is very important that the
milk be always  from the same cow.   It is also
better if the cow have no salt—that she be kept on 
FOR  LADIES.
105
healthy food as nearly of the same kind as may
be  from day to day, without still-slops, or un-
healthy food of any kind.  Cow's milk is gene-
rally  recommended to be  well  sweetened with
sugar.  This is decidedly  wrong.  Sugar is  a
difficult substance, even  for the  adult stomach.
The milk of the mother,  furthermore, has but
very little more of saccharine matter  in it than
that of the cow. There should be but little sugar
added—not  more than a tea-spoon full to a pint;
and but little, if any water at all.  It  is  also ne-
cessary to  remember that  the milk  of different
cows  varies very much in richness ; and that the
milk of the same cow is  much richer  in  winter
than in summer. It  will often be exceedingly
difficult to carry out these  regulations.  But the
very least that we should do  in reference  to the
quality of milk,  is to know positively that we get
the best that can be obtained  from the country.
No possible  pains should be spared to accomplish
this.
  It is not well to feed the  infant with a  spoon.
The food is thus swallowed too fast.  Something
should be contrived  which will cause, as  nearly
as possible, the same motion of the mouth as that
by sucking.   This motion promotes the natural
flow of saliva.   We  do  not speak from experi-
ence, but we think the plan of substituting diluted
cream, which some  have recommended strongly,
not a good one.  It does not so nearly resemble
the milk of the  mother.   However, if, from any 
106
WATER-CURE
 cause, the milk of. the young healthy  cow  seems
 to disagree, cream from the same cow deserves a
 trial.  Certain it is, that cream is very healthy for
 some adults when milk  cannot be taken.  Ising-
 glass,  arrow root, baked  flour, and particularly
 animal broths, sometimes  recommended, are not
 good for infants.
   No  infant should be nursed oftener than once
 in three hours during the day, and not more than
 once, if at all, during the night.   Few are  aware
 how much depends  upon  habit.   Many children
 are  accustomed to pass the whole night without
 nursing.  After a few months, perhaps three or
 four, the  time  between nursing should  be very
 gradually lengthened, and  by the  time  they are
 towards a year old, nourishment should be taken
 but  three times in the twenty-four hours.   We
 lately knew a weakly child weaned at the age of
 eight months, which was   accustomed to taking
 foud only twice in the twenty-four hours; and the
 infant, with  good regulations  throughout, gained
 most rapidly in strength  and health.  But three
 times a-day, taking the same quantity as at twice,
 in this case, would probably have been better.

  Quantity  of Food for Infants and Children.
  No definite rule can be given as to the quantity
of food for infants and children.  They are  gene-
rally fed  too much.   If  the  food  is of proper
quality, and  a right course has, from the first, been
pursued, appetite will be a safe guide.  In many 
FOR LADIES.
107
cases of disease, it will be necessary, for a while,
to keep all nourishment from the system.  To re-
duce a morbid craving for food, water, in suitable
quantity, and at suitable intervals, should be given.
In febrile and inflammatory diseases, as in measles,
scarlatina, scarlet rash, small pox, inflammation of
the  bowels,  diarrhoea, dysentery,  &c,  &c, the
greatest caution is  necessary in the  quantity as
well as the quality  of food: very often, in  such
cases,  it is better that, for days, even no food be
given.
  If children are permitted to eat  too frequently
and too much in quantity, and irregularly, there
will be created a morbid craving appetite, which,
like  the drunkard's  thirst, will grow more and
more  imperious  and   troublesome.    Children
brought up in such a way, are always fretful and
ill-natured, and  are very  liable  to bowel   com-
plaints, worms, and diseases of various kinds.  To
thus irritate their little systems, is cruel in the ex-
treme.  All,  therefore, who  desire the happiness,
health, and cheerfulness of their little ones, should
have, at all times, the  strictest regard  to their di-
etetic habits.

                   Weaning.
  The  suitable time to wean the  child will  vary
at different seasons of the year, and in different
cases.   As a rule, it should not be before the first
teeth are well out.   This may safely be taken as
an indication that the system is  prepared  for at 
108
WATER-CURE
least a portion of more solid food.  It has been
laid down as a rule, that weaning should never
take place  between  the   spring  and  summer
months;  but for such  a  rule  there is no  good
reason. 
FOR  LADIES.
109
               CHAPTER VIII.

  Watej—Drinking—Proper Quality of Water.

   How often has it been asserted that cold water
is the best of all drinks.  And yet this fact, though
so universally acknowledged in theory, is  seldom
carried out in practice.
   Water, as  a drink for  patients  and invalids,
Priessnitz generally orders  in  quantity  ten  or
twelve tumblers daily.  In some cases much more.
Patients at Graefenberg of their own accord some-
times go to great excess in drinking.   One case is
given where  a man drank, before  breakfast,  27
glasses, containing between a quarter and half a
pint each.  Another  took 13^ quarts during the
day, experiencing only a slight head-ache  in con-
sequence.
  Let any one who is troubled with indigestion try
the experiment of using pure cold water at proper
times,  and in suitable  quantity, instead  of  their
warm drinks, and they will very soon experience
the strengthening effect of  cold water upon the
stomach.  It is sometimes necessary,  in case  of
very weak persons, to take  off the  chill  to com-
         6 
110
WATER-CURE
mence with.  In some cases, very small quantities
only can be borne at first.  These can and should
be repeated every few minutes. Suitable exercise
also promotes the good action of water thus taken.
  Drinking medicinally should generally be prac-
tised an hour or two before the meal: most should
be  taken before the  breakfast,  less before  din-
ner, and least before supper.  In a state of high
health, we  should  probably  seldom need  drink.
The watery portions of fruit and other appropriate
food would be  sufficient.  It is  doubtless most
natural and healthy to eat much fruit, and this al-
ways contains much  water.   Some  think it is
better not to drink at meals.  One objection would
be, that there would necessarily  be too  much of
a " washing down"  of the food.  Priessnitz allows
much drinking at the meals.  He says  cold water
will digest any thing.   By copious drinking at the
meal  digestion will  pass off comfortably, when at
times it otherwise would not.  Still  there are per-
sons of firm health who have gone  without drink
for a  long time, but they ate freely of fruits which
afforded the necessary supply of water.
  Drinking, other than at meals,  should  not, as a
rule, take place until after digestion.  If our food
is of a proper character, we  do  not usually feel
any thirst very soon after  eating.  If, however,
we have taken food which is too stimulating, thirst
is liable to occur, in such case it should always be
gratified.   We may lay it down as  a rule, that al-
ways  when the body is not heated by exercise, or is 
FOR  LADIES.
Ill
/ not much fatigued,  and thirst is felt, we should!
I  drink until satisfied.  But every one knows howf
[  frequently over-heated persons and animals have
  destroyed life by too sudden and hasty drinking.
  Those who are very thirsty  should drink very
  cautiously.   Slowly sipping water will allay thirst
 I more safely and more efficaciously than the rapid
 - swallowing of large quantities.
    In high fevers, much  good  at times has been
  done by the drinking of cold water.  In some in-
  flammatory diseases it has been no very uncom-
  mon thing for physicians to keep the strictest sur-
  veillance, that no water be drank ;  and this how-
  ever intense the thirst might be.   In such cases,
  often, every thing which can be thought of, desir-
  able or pleasant, seems to be comprised in the two
  words, cold  water.  Often patients, in the night,
  or at other  times, while alone,  have gotten them- j  ,
  selves to a bucket of water, and have thus been ;  j
  cured.                                        l  I
    The quality of  water to be used is easy to be
  understood.  None but that which is pure and soft
  should be taken.   To obtain  this  many  will be
  obliged  to  depend  upon  the  cistern  and  filter.
  These can be constructed at a small expense. 
112
WATER-CURE
               CHAPTER IX.

     Air— Ventilation—Exercise— Clothing
                 and Sleep.

  There is scarcely a practice in society more
pernicious, and in which there  is more delusion,
than in that of breathing " bad air."   Nor is this
error to be  found only  among the non-profes-
sional of society.  We well  remember of being
under the necessity, more than once, of returning
from the halls of a medical college,  with a fever
upon us, in consequence of remaining through a
long lecture, in an impure atmosphere, filled with
tobacco, and other vile exhalations, enough to  sick-
en one  to think of.   The learned  professor had
perhaps been discoursing  upon the  beauties and
wonders of the function of respiration, the beauti-
ful theories respecting the causes of animal heat,
how it takes place through respiration and the cir-
culation, and of the great importance of purity of
atmosphere.   The breathing of impure air is a
most fruitful  source of disease.  Whenever the
temperature of the air  is such that  close rooms
can  be  endured,  bad air is almost  everywhere
breathed.  In dwellings,  school-rooms, churches, 
FOR  LADIES.
113
  public halls and steam-boats, ventilation is almost
  always neglected.
    Some, on being convinced  of the necessity of
  ventilation, begin at once, and go to an extreme
  by which a severe cold  is taken, and perhaps a
  general fever is brought on.   If  we say  to  per-
  sons, always sleep with fresh air coming into the
  room, they are apt to throw open doors and  win-
  dows, and thus create a current of air which  may
  prove very injurious.  The  rule  at  all times
  should be, that we  accustom  ourselves as much
  to open air  as can be  done  with comfort,  and
  without direct violence to the system.   Let those
  who care to  make  a change,  and who  have
  hitherto   been  accustomed to  close parlors  and
  sleeping rooms, commence the experiment cauti-
  ously and judiciously.   If it be a sleeping room,
  let it be well ventilated through the whole day ;
  then, in the night, let there be a window  or door
  slightly open,  so as to keep up a constant change
j  of air, and to  avoid all currents, and if necessa-
  ry in making this change, use more clothing.  The
1  feet should always be kept warm and dry. Such
  is the sympathy between the  capillary functions
  or circulation in the  feet and the  rest of the  sys-
  tem, that  violent colds, fevers, and inflammations
  may be, and often are, most readily induced by
  exposures to cold and  moisture.
    We often speak of the great changes in the at-
  mosphere as being a source of frequent disease,
  which in the present state of things is often true. 
114
WATER-CURE
But as far as  the temperature is concerned, we
make far greater changes than those which be-
long to Nature.   Think of the change in passing
from the heated air of a room at 60° or 70° Fah.,
into an out-door atmosphere, at the freezing point,
or perhaps at zero ; and this, too, often when thin-
ly clad.   Is it any wonder that such atmospheric
changes as these, acting upon the skin, and parti-
cularly upon  the delicate structure of the lungs,
should often bring on  colds, inflammations  and
consumption ?   The greatest wonder is, that  such
things do not far oftener take place than now.
   The great attention given to air and exercise is
an important matter in the  success  of Priessnitz
and in the water-cure generally.   Priessnitz wise-
ly insists that patients must daily and frequently
take free out-door exercise.  Accordingly his first
 object is to allay pain, so that exercise may  be
 taken.
   If by  any means out-door  exercise cannot  be
 taken,  labor  or exercise should be  taken in a
 room,  the larger  and  the more ventilated the
 better.   But  it is always better, when allowable,
 that it be performed in the open air.  Those who
 are so feeble that they  cannot exercise,  must be
 exercised by bathings, rubbing,   and friction.   All
 exercise is strengthening, and most salutary,  un-
 til  it becomes  fatigue. Then  it  should be  at
 once discontinued.   Great  care  should always be
 taken that the body  be kept perfectly warm after
 exercise; especially if it have  been violent, and 
■■■**.
 such as to induce sweating.    Bathing should ne-
 ver, as a rule, be resorted to under such circum-
 stances ; nor drinking, except with the greatest
 caution.
   It has been a question whether exercise should
 be taken immediately after meals.  It is doubtless        Ji
 better to avoid sluggishness  and inaction, and on        ^
 the other hand powerful exercise should not take
 place.   This is more particularly  to be avoided        Jy
 if the meal has been a full  one.   It is a  law  of the
 living  system, that two or  more  strong actions
 cannot well  go on in the system at the same time.        A^*
 We feel  a  kind of chill often after  the  meal, i
 which  shows that the nervous energy of the sys- '
 tern has become more  concentrated towards  the I       2^
 stomach.  If bathing, powerful mental or muscular j
 exercise, should now be commenced, the nervous \
 energy would be  drawn from  the  stomach, and j
 thus there  would be  a  disturbance  set  up in f
 the family or republic of actions which are con- {      Jj^s.
 stantly going on in the  body  in health.                  *&
   The philosophic Jefferson  highly extolled exer-
 cise, by walking.   The Europeans had prided        *
 themselves on taming the horse; but he doubted
whether the taming the  horse had not been of more
injury  than  of advantage to man.   Walking  is
one of the most natural and healthy kinds of ex-
ercise.   It should be  connected with  sociality
and cheerfulness ; and  then  it should be varied
with jumping, hopping, skipping,  and  running: 
116
WATER-CURE
but what lady dare do those things in these days
of refinement ?

       Exercise of Infants and Children.
   Whatever motion is  used, none but that of a
gentle kind should be allowed.  Carrying in the
arms is a very natural and good mode of exercise
for the  infant.  Whatever  exercise is  adopted,
whether  by carrying  in the  arms, rocking, or
swinging, it should be  particularly  remembered
that no limb or part of the body be  kept long in
one position.  Weakness or distortion of the limbs
can thus easily be induced.
   There arc differences of opinion respecting the
use of the cradle.   It should be  used with cau-
tion.  The effect of such rocking as  is often prac-
tised, is injurious upon the brain.  Swinging is still
worse.   We knew  a case of idiocy which was,
by the friends, believed  to  have been caused by
swinging in a basket, which was done much, she
being a fretful child.
   If infants are well managed in every respect,
there will, in general, be little difficulty in getting
them to  take rest, and to keep  quiet, without any
rocking,  swinging,  or any very particular atten-
tion of any kind.  Very soon they begin to creep,
an exercise in which thev should be  encouraged.
It is admirably adapted  to bring into play nearly
or quite all the muscles of the body, and this with-
out very great fatigue.   The clothing should, as
far as possible, be so arranged as to admit of free 
FOR LADIES.
117
motion of the various  limbs and  muscles of the
whole body.  The  more  the  child exercises, at
the same time not becoming fatigued, the better it
will be, and the faster it will grow  and  gain
strength.
  Children are often held in an improper position,
bearing  the hand upon  the abdomen or chest, or
letting the head hang  too low.  Young  infants
should be  held mostly  in  a position nearly hori-
zontal, with  the head  somewhat elevated.   All
motion in moving it  should be of the gentlest kind.

                   Clothing.
  There is not a doubt but  that  little or no clothing
is strictly natural to man, in such  climates as are
best adapted to the human  constitution.  The body
would thus be more strong and vigorous, and uni-
formly healthful, and more beautiful and symme-
trical in  its conformation ;  the mind would be ac-
tive and powerful, and the moral character far
less liable to become tainted.   Of  this, strange as
it may appear to those who have not examined
the subject, we have not a doubt. Clothing is there-
fore always to be considered, in some measure, an
evil;  and the question always  arises, what is the
best under the circumstances 1   In the  colder cli-
mates and seasons of the year,  it would be neces-
sary to use clothing to retain the heat of the body,
to preserve the due temperature.   Vet few have
any adequate idea how greatly the calorific func-
tion of the body  can be increased by a correct diet
              6* 
118
WATER-CURE
and regimen.  Priessnitz always requires of his
patients that they lay aside their flannel and cotton:
" For,"  says he," they render people delicate and
less able to contend against atmospheric changes."
Many object; to whom he answers, " Wear it then
over your linen, but when you are accustomed to
cold water,  you  will not miss it.  After the bath
you have now taken, exercise until you provoke
perspiration.  You need then  have no fear of
catching cold."
  People are almost always going to extremes in
clothing, now too little, and now too much. Cloth-
ing, too, is illy proportioned over the  body, some
parts having too many thicknesses, and other parts,
more important, with little clothing, or none at all.
There is much injury by pressure in clothing.  No
part of the  body, however strong, can bear con-
tinued  pressure with  impunity.   Clothing for  in-
fants and all. should be such as to admit of free
motion, and  circulation of air over the whole body,
and  always the less  the better, if due warmth is
kept up.

                     Sleep.
  If people  were  " temperate in all things," there
would be no difficulty as to sleep.  In general, there
is too little sound sleep.  By improper kinds and
quantities of food, unventilated clothing and rooms,
sleep is often any thing but refreshing.
  Infants and  children need  more  sleep  than
adults,  and  old persons more  than  the middle 
FOR LADIES.
119
aged.  Sleep  should  not  be taken after a meal,
until digestion has well  progressed.  This rule is
of great importance.   The plan  many have  of
sleeping soon after the meal is very pernicious.  If
sleep is needed in the middle of the day, as it often
is, it should be taken before the  meal, and  will
then be found  exceedingly refreshing. 
120
WATER-CURE
               CHAPTER X.

        Water-Cure Processes—Sweating.

  This  process is often of very great benefit.  It
is said that Hippocrates did not administer medi-
cine to produce sweating. His plan was merely to
pour water over the body, and then place upon
the patient sufficient bed-clothes to retain the ani-
mal heat, which would sooner or later be  a  sure
means to bring on perspiration.  This method is
decidedly better and more certain of success than
that of giving powerful medicines internally, which
irritate the system and internal organs.   This plan
used by Hippocrates is very much like the  one  in-
vented  by Priessnitz, viz. by the wet-sheet.
  Sweating, in many cases, is advisable in  the fol-
lowing  manner.  A  mattress or bed is covered
with one or more thick woollen blankets ;  the pa-
tient, undressed, is extended upon the blanket,which
is very  closely drawn around the body, and, first
one side and then the other, is  well tucked under
and adjusted; then the second blanket is wrapped
about in the same way, and the third,  and so  on,
until there is sufficient to retain the warmth.  The 
 
 
FOR  LADIES.
121
heat of the body thus retained acts upon the sur-
face, which, if continued long enough, will produce.
the desired effect.  The sensations are rather un-j
pleasant  until perspiration  comes  on.  In  many'
cases it takes place very readily, in others it will
require  hours.  It is, in  most cases, best to use
the wet-sheet well wrung out for sweating.
   The confined position,  as well  as  the irritation
of the blanket, and heat retained, is somewhat un-
comfortable.   When  perspiration  is  well  com-
menced, the sensations are more agreeable.   Any
diseased  part, as swellings, tumors, ulcers, and the
like, should be bandaged by  wet cloths before
packing  up.  It is agreeable and  useful to take
frequent  and small draughts of water as soon as
perspiration commences, and to have an abundance
of fresh air admitted to the room. A urinal vessel
is, if necessary, adjusted before packing up.  Per-
sons accustomed to the process often  sleep  after
sweating commences.  Those who perspire with
difficulty should be enveloped with great care, as
to the closeness, so as to retain all the heat;  and
it is well for the person to make motion with the
limbs as much as the confined  position will allow.
If sweating, however, comes on  without such ex-
ertion, it  is better.
   "The  principal advantage,"  says  Capt. Cla-
ridge, F.S.A-, " of  this new process, the invention
of which  is entirely due to Priessnitz, is, that it
does not  stimulate  the blood like  other sudorifics.
The organs  of respiration, which vapor baths 
122
WATER-CURE
excite extremely, are left rJerfectly tranquil.  Any  \
slight irritation which the body may experience, is  j
calmed  by the fresh  air, whilst  the blood is re-  j
freshed  by  the  cold water.   Thus congestion  j
(rushing)  of blood to the head  ©r chest, is pre-  j
vented.   These  advantages give to the  process
such  efficacy that it may  be resorted to  daily
for months, without weakening the  body.   When
there is any tendency to a  rush  of blood to the
head, or to headache, a cooling bandage should be
kept upon the forehead and temples."
   Immediately after sweating, thorough ablution is
to be quickly performed. If the patient is to pass to
a shower or plunge bath, it is best to wrap the body
closely in a blanket, an assistant wetting the feet
and parts to be exposed to the air.
   If, by any means, perspiration does not ensue,
the ablution should  be performed the same as
usual.   This warming in the blanket is often use-
ful to precede  the bath, and will enable weak
persons to endure  the bath  much more comfort-
ably and safely.
   This  highly valuable  process may easily  be
practised  to  excess.   In  those  of a  sanguine
temperament and active circulation, there might
very readily be brought on too great an increase in
the circulation.  This should always be guarded
against. Where there is sluggishness of circulation,
and a cold and inactive skin and general  habit of
the body,  the process is susceptible  of very great 
FOR  LADIES.
123
benefit.  Priessnitz  does not now sweat his pati-
ents as much nor so frequently as he once did.
  The following experiment  with  the sweating-
blanket  was  made   by  Sir  Charles  Scuda-
more, M.D., F.R.S.: " On awaking at five a. m.,
I had some headache,—pulse rather full, at  56 ;
animal heat  98°.  In the course of ten minutes
after being packed up, I was comfortably warm;
least so in the feet, when I desired more weight.
At the end of an hour and ten minutes, when the
warmth of the whole  body was much increased,
without sensible perspiration, the pulse was raised
to 66, full and soft;  the animal heat 99°.  At the
end of two hours the  perspiration was universal,
but not copious,—pulse 68 ; heat 100°. In another
half hour, perspiration in a greater degree, but
not streaming,—pulse  68; heat  101°.   At the
end of two hours and three quarters, I quitted the
bed for the full bath, into which I plunged instant-
ly, while hot and perspiring, and made two immer-
sions, and came out exceedingly refreshed."

            Wet Sheet, or Lein Tuch.
  This is a process  against which there is a vast
deal of prejudice.  This arises from ignorance of
some  of the simplest laws of Nature.  People
learn  too  often right  well, from experience,  the
bad effects of laying in  a damp  sheet, or of re-
maining with damp clothing of any kind.  When a
person is exposed to  a  damp bed or damp cloth-
ing in the ordinary way, a great amount of heat is 
124
WATER-CURE
 in this manner conducted off from the body, (water
 being a rapid conductor of caloric,) and thus  the
 body is greatly exposed, and the most serious re-
* suits  may follow.  Every one knows how liable
 we are to take cold, or to bring on inflammations,
 fevers,  &c,  in this way.  The  mere  exposure
 of  the  feet will  thus often produce severe  ail-
 ments.   In this  process  a  number of woollen
 blankets are to  be smoothly spread  out upon a
 bed or mattress, in the same way as for  sweating;
 a well wrung sheet of thickness, weight, and size
 proportioned to the age, size, strength, and condi-
 tion of the individual, is laid  upon the blankets.
 The patient lays at length upon the sheet, which
 is very quickly wrapped  closely about  the  body,
 all  except the head and face ; and then also, in the
 same manner, first one  of the  woollen blankets,
 and then as many more, one by one, as  is neces-
 sary to retain the heat.  The^rs^ impression, ex-  \
 cept  in very high fever, is  unpleasant, but  the  \
 packing all properly arranged, there soon follows
 a very soothing, pleasant sensation  of warmth.
 If the object  be to reduce a high fever,  the sheet
 should be changed as often as the patient becomes
 warm.  Two or three wet sheets are better when
 the object  is to  reduce  the  temperature of the
 body, and thus the quickness of the heart's action,
 and the circulation, as in high fever. The refrige-
 rant action  continues longer, and the invalid is not
 much inconvenienced by frequent moving.   Sir
 Charles Scudamore, M.D., F.R.S., while atGraef- 
FOR  LADIES.
125
enberg,  says, " I made the  experiment of lying
on three wet sheets, instead of one.  The first im-
pression on laying down, was that of greater cold-
ness, but when packed up, this subsided into a sense
of pleasant coolness that was refreshing.   This re-
mained, so that at the end of an hour and a quar-
ter I was not  warmer than  I  had been in ten
minutes with the one sheet.  It  was particularly
agreeable that the back remained cool so long.  In
an hour and a half I had the same general warmth
as with half an hour of the one sheet.   In another
quarter of an hour I was becoming so warm that
the animal heat had risen one degree.  Had I re-
mained longer, I should doubtless have perspired
freely.  I was much satisfied with the experiment,
as showing the long continued refrigerant power
of the three  sheets, in  comparison with the one.
   The wet sheet, according to Edward John-
son, M.D., " produces two  diametrically opposite
effects, accordingly as it is used.  If it be changed
repeatedly as fast as the patient becomes warm,
as, for instance, in cases of fever, almost  any
amount of heat may  be abstracted  slowly and
gradually from the body.   But if  the patient re-
main for half an hour or an  hour, the  most deli-
cious sensation of warmth and a gentle breathing
perspiration are produced, while all pain and un-
easiness are removed.   It produces all the sooth-
ing influence upon the entire system which is pro-
duced by zwarm poultice on an inflamed surface.'
   Thus much for the ridiculed  wet sheet.  Had 
126
WATER-CURE
Priessnitz done nothing more for mankind than to
discover this most  powerful  means of relieving
human suffering, his  name would have been re-
membered to the latest.   We  are often told that
there is nothing new in the water-cure.   Water is
not new,  nor  were ships, with Columbus.  But
Columbus sailed to a new world.  So Priessnitz,
with a well known  and efficacious agent, has
found out a new way.  The wet sheet, physicians
must learn to use, or others will.   Priessnitz will
inevitably receive due honor.
   Bandages, or umschlags, are applied in a great
variety of ways, and  are the same to any part
that the lein-tuch  is to  the whole body.  They
are used to cool or calm, to warm or stimulate,—
thus producing diametrically opposite resulis.

        Cooling Bandages, (Umschlags.)
   When a part is inflamed, or hot  and painful, a
bandage of  one or more thicknesses is wet and
placed upon  the part, and  is  to  be changed as
quick as it begins to be warm.   If the part is very
hot, the colder the water, and the  oftener they are
changed, the better.

Stimulating or Warming Bandages, (Umschlags.)
   The more these are wrung out,  the more stimu-
lating they will be.  They are useful  in a great
variety of ways.  When wrung out of cold water,
the first impression is that of cold. If properly
applied, they immediately become  warm by the 
FOR  LADIES.
127
heat of the part.  Enough of dry cloth of some
kind should be placed over them to  retain the
warmth.   Oiled silk is sometimes  used to retain
the moisture  longer.  As  a rule, they should  be
changed as soon as they begin to be dry.

               Body Bandage.
   This is more generally used to produce the
warming or stimulating effect;  but sometimes  it
is  made a cooling application.  The body band-
age is much used in diseases and weaknesses of the
stomach,  liver, bowels, and other organs.   Its
width, weight, and length vary according to the
necessities of the case. One or more thicknesses of
linen or muslin, of proper length to pass  two or
more times about  the  body,  is  a  good form.
Enough in length  is wrung out to cover the abdo-
men, or, if necessary, to act upon the  spine,  also
enough is wet to pass round the body.  It is to be
applied as tightly as can be borne comfortably,
and to  stimulate, must always immediately  be-
come warm,  otherwise the result may be  bad.
Some will need  more of the dry covering than
others.   A woollen wrapper may be  used, if ne-
 cessary.

        Rubbing Wet Sheet, (Abreibung.)
   This is a very mild, convenient, and useful ap-
 plication.   A  linen sheet of  coarse quality  is
 slightly wrung out, or left dripping.  It is thrown
 quickly over the  body, sometimes over the head; 
128
WATER-CURE
and immediately active rubbing is to be given by
an assistant or two, and  the patient, also, if able,
until the skin becomes red and warm.  This is
followed by very active friction  with a dry sheet
or cloths, until the surface is completely dry. The
temperature of the water used here, as  always,
should correspond with the strength of the patient.
Those who are too weak to be up  can often be
much  benefitted  by a judicious rubbing of the
whole body, while in bed.  A very good  rubbing
bath can be taken with good crash towels. Especi-
ally for the weak and those who have  not  much
exercise, plentiful rubbing the body is most excel-
lent ; it  is very strengthening.

             Sitz, or Sitting  Bath.
  A small tub of sufficient size, set upon a very low
stool, or any thing by which  it is  raised a few
inches, is quite sufficient.   Unpainted wood  is the
best material, metal  being unpleasant  and cold.
The water is used from one to five  or  six inches
deep.  The length of time this bath is used va-
ries from a few minutes to two hours, or more.
To avoid exposure to cold it is best to uncover
only the  part of the person to be exposed to the
water.  This bath  is to Priessnitz  of  so  much
importance that it is prescribed to nearly or quite
every  patient.  " It has the effect  of strengthen-
ing the nerves, of drawing the blood and humors
from the head, chest, and abdomen, and of reliev-
ing pain and flatulency, and is of the utmost value 
FOR LADIES.
129
to those of a sedentary life.   It is sometimes well
to take  a foot bath, tepid or cold, at the same
time.  If  a large quantity  of cold water were
used in this bath, it would remain cold too long, and
thus drive the blood to the head and upper parts
of the body, which might be very  injurious ; but
the small quantity of water used, at once becomes
warm,  and  thus admits speedy  re-action.  In
some  local diseases of  the  lower  parts  where
there is  inflammation,  and the cold water feels
most agreeable, the water is frequently changed.
If there is any inclination to headache  or too
much heat in the head, a cold bandage upon the
forehead and temples is good.  It is often well to
rub the  abdomen briskly during this bath.
  " The sitz-bath may  be  used  by any person,
whether in health or otherwise, without the slight-
est fear  of taking cold.  Let those  subject to gid-
diness, head-aches, or congestion of blood in the
upper regions, try this, and they will at once per-
ceive its utility."

                  Half-Bath.
  This  consists of a tub of suitable size, the water
usually  from three to  six inches  deep.  It is less
powerful than the entire bath, and  is often taken
a few days preparatory to more  powerful baths.
This bath should seldom be taken lower than 60°
Fahrenheit.
  Capt. Claridge gives a remarkable case in which
a half-bath was used with great success : 
130
WATER-CURE
   " A person who had recently lost his wife and
 two  children, was  attacked  with  brain  fever.
 Priessnitz  ordered  him a tepid bath, in which he
 sat and was rubbed by two men, who were occa-
 sionally changed.  The man became so deranged,
 that it was with difficulty that he could be kept in
 the bath.   In ordinary cases, this disease succumbs
 to the treatment in two  or three hours ; but  the
 patient in  this case became speechless at the end
 of this time.
   " Priessnitz, with that coolness which is so lead-
 ing a feature in his character, said,' Keep on until
 he either talks much or goes to sleep.'  The latter
 the man at last did, but  not until he had been in
 the bath  for nine hours  and  a half, when  he  fell
 asleep from exhaustion at half past ten at night.
 He was then put to bed. and  the next day the
 fever had left him, and, though weak, he was able
 to walk about.  If, in this case, Priessnitz had be-
 come alarmed, after the first two or three hours,
\ and had discontinued the mode of treatment, to try
! some other  experiment, the  consequence might
| have proved fatal."

                   Foot-Bath.
    This should  be frequently  used, and should al-
 ways be taken  cold, when there is a  certainty of
 reaction and warmth.   There is very great sym-
 pathy between the feet and other parts of the
j body.  Every one knows how easy it is to take a
 cold in the head by exposing the feet  to cold and 
FOR LADIES.
131
moisture.  The feet  should always be kept per-
fectly warm and comfortable.  It is always better,
if we can, to make the body warm its own feet by
cold foot-baths, exercise, frictions, &c.   But when
for any reason we cannot, we should use artificial
means, the best of which probably is the tepid or
warm bath, of warmth enough  only to make the
feet comfortable ; then immediately the feet should
be plunged in cold water, which is only agreeable,
or they may be well rubbed a moment with a wet
cloth, and then follow well with a dry one.  By
night and by day, it is of the highest importance
that  the feet be kept entirely comfortable.

                 Head-Bath.
   A shallow wooden  bowl, or vessel  of suitable
size, with a rounded groove for the neck, is all that
is needed for this bath.  The person lays at length
upon a mattress, rug, or carpet, and thus immerses
the part to be exposed.  This bath is very useful
in affections of the head.  Usually, for a  short
time, the back and  sides of the head  are placed
alternately in the water.   The  following case, il-
lustrating the use of this bath, with others, is  given
by Richard Beamish, Esq., F.R.S.  The case was
given by the patient himself.
   " In his twelfth year, after a dangerous nervous
fever, his hearing was found to be nearly gone.
Opinions were obtained  from  the most eminent
physicians in Germany, all of whom declared, after
having experimented on him, that  he would ever 
132
WATER-CURE
 remain  deaf, and  that, as years advanced,  the
 deafness would be  more confirmed.
   He arrived at Graefenberg in January, 1843.
   The treatment was as follows:—
   Morning, wet-sheet, and plunge-bath, with rub-
 bing ; but for the first fortnight the bath was tepid.
   Noon, head-bath, from twelve to fifteen minutes.
 After which a walk; then wet-sheet, followed by
 rubbing with the dripping-sheet (abreibung), and
 sitz-bath for twenty minutes.
   Afternoon, head-bath; walk; wet sheet, follow-
 ed by plunge-bath,  and hand-rubbing.
   Night, head-bath twelve to fifteen minutes.
   In eight days, on  coming out of the plunge-bath,
 he perceived a difference in his power of hearing,
 as his nose, which  had been long stopped up, had
 begun to cleanse itself.   The  idea then occurred
 to him of sniffing water up his nostrils ; he obtain-
 ed Priessnitz's sanction, and thus  conducted his
 operations:—
   Head-bath, twelve and a half inches diameter*
 four and a half inches deep;  from  two to three
 inches of water.
   1st. Face well rubbed with water twenty times.
   2d. One side  of  his head immersed till cold,
 then rubbed tiH warm.
   3d. Back of head, ditto.
   4th. Ears well rubbed till  warm, and again the
 side of the  head immersed as before.   This three
times.  The other side then followed, in a similar
 manner.    Water now  sniffed  three  times, and 
FOR LADIES.
133
forced through the passages to the mouth; the
head then being thrown back, the water was re-
turned by the same channels to the nostrils.
  The face once more rubbed twenty times; again
the water was sniffed, and again the head was im-
mersed and rubbed.  The sniffing was repeated,
and the operation concluded by rubbing the face
twenty times.
  la four weeks he was  enabled to  hear distinctly.
A quantity of white matter continued, however, to
exude from his ears. Sweating was now ordered;
but it proved  too much for him, causing him to
swoon after  the plunge-bath, and  he was unable
to resume it until he had been four months under
treatment.
  In four months and a half he commenced the
douche, Priessnitz desiring  him to proceed with
great care, for fear of a relapse. For some weeks
he only used it for one minute at a time, which he
subsequently increased  to five minutes.  During
the progress of the cure he had many attacks of
fever, which readily yielded to the wet-sheet and
abreibung.
  When  he arrived at  Graefenberg he was in a
state of great debility; but when I became ac-
quainted with him in June, he was one of the most
robust of the patients.   He took his departure on
the 12th of July, deeply impressed with the value
of hydropathy, and bearing within himself the best
testimony to its power."
         7 
134
WATER-CURE
                  Eye-Bath.
   A small vessel of  suitable size is filled, so that
 the eye is immersed, and is to be alternately open-
 ed and shut.   It  is  also  well to bandage the
 forehead and temples, especially at night, in cases
 of weak or inflamed eyes.  Head and other baths
 are to be  resorted to in connection with the eye-
 bath.

          Finger, Arm, and Leg Baths.
   These are very useful for a variety of ailments,
 such  as whitlows, wounds, ulcers,  ring-worms,
 eruptions, &c, &c.

                 Shower-Bath.
   Very weak  persons may  commence, if they
 choose, with tepid water for this bath.  Such per-
 sons, however, often  commence  at once with the
 cold shower, and in  the coldest of weather, with
 great benefit.  Few, if any, who  are able to walk,
 need fear, provided the necessary precautions are
 taken.   It should be taken very quickly by begin-
 ners, immediately rubbing  the  whole body  with
 dry cloths  until perfectly warm and dry.  Some
 prefer  taking the shower upon the head without
 any covering; others use  an oil cloth cap.   It is
 not well to let the hair remain wet, if the head be
 wetted.  This  is a mild form  of  bath, and for
quickness  and efficiency is to be  highly recom-
 mended. 
FOR LADIES.
135
                  Drop-Bath.
  This consists of drops of water falling from a
height, and can be made to produce powerful im-
pressions, by the height and  duration, with  rub-
ing, in various  local and chronic diseases.

                 Douche-Bath.
  This consists of a stream or jet of water from a
height, and is to be received upon different  parts
of the body according to the  necessity of the case.
It is capable of affording the most astonishing re-
lief in rheumatism and  other diseases, often in a
very few minutes.   It is very seldom to be taken
on the head or face, and  those  who have weak
chests should  avoid  it on that part.   The  time
usually recommended is from one to fifteen  min-
utes.  " The douche," says Professor Dunglison of
Philadelphia, " is one of the most successful means
for taming the most furious  maniac.  It is  also
useful in chronic rheumatism, stiff joints, &c."  It
must always be taken with great caution.
  " The most  intense impression which can  be
made by the application of cold water  is by the
douche—and there must be in the system a very
considerable amount of vital  force to  enable the
patient to bear this mode of application.  A  mis-
application may so far lower the  vital  resistance
as to make the re-action exceedingly  difficult or
even impossible.  It may knock the patient so vi-
olently down as to make it difficult for him to get
up again—thus giving rise to dropsical  swellings 
136
WATER-CURE
of the legs and feet, venous congestion, piles, va-
ricose veins, and other symptoms of deficient vi-
tal action.  It sometimes produces the most ex-
traordinary effects,  as  weeping, laughing,  trem-
bling, &c.  In its proper place, however, it exer-
cises a most powerful influence over disease ; and
seems to exert an  especial impression upon the
absorbents.  I have seen tumors of long standing
most rapidly absorbed, and disappear, under the
use of the douche."—Dr. Edward Johnson.
  A case is given by Dr. Weiss, in which a gen-
tleman, aged 64  years,  took a  douche rather late
in the day and retired to his  room  to  rest.  He
was found in a  state of insensibility, sitting in  a
chair, supported from  falling  by  two chests of
drawers.  Involuntary  motion of the bowels had
taken place.  Affusion  with cold water, with fric-
tions, produced vomiting, and the pulse and respi-
ration were thus restored.

                  Injections.
  These are very useful in various  parts of the
body  and for a  variety of purposes.  They are
used  both  tepid and  cold.   The bowels, when
there  is the most obstinate constipation, can easily
be moved by water alone,  thus  leaving the sys-
tem free from irritation by  drugs.   There is a va-
riety  of instruments  for this purpose, some of
which, as the force-pump syringe, are very con-
venient and easy of use.  It is always safe  to use
slightly tepid water, but sometimes better  cold. 
FOR  LADIES.
137
 In very obstinate bowels, when the clyster is re-
jected, it should be  repeated  until  the necessary
 result is produced.  By the proper  use  of this
 most valuable remedy, the liver itself can be acted
upon, when it is necessary.  In diarrhoea,  dysen-
tery, colic, and inflammation of the stomach, liver
and  bowels, injections, in  connection  with other
means, are highly useful.  Care should always be
taken that the instrument be properly filled  with
water, so that no air is introduced.  This  would
be liable to cause pain.

         Cautions in the use of Water.
  No one should undertake to prescribe  or use
water to produce any powerful impression upon
the body, without well understanding what they
are to do.
  The strong statement of the great physiologist
and  physician Magendie,  who said  that " the
practitioner mixes, combines, and jumbles toge-
ther  vegetable,  animal  and mineral   substances,
and administers them right or wrong, without a
single clear idea of the why and wherefore of
what he does,"  is  not  unfrequently  verified in
practice.  It  appears to  many, a very  simple
thing to  use pure clean water.   But let it  be al-
ways heeded, that the agent is one of power.  It
can be made  to cause great injury.  No mode of
treating disease needs more skill, more caution,
and a greater knowledge of the human body, than
does that by water. 
138
WATER-CURE
   Dr. Shew gives us the following rules, " No
strong impression should be made upon the system,
either internally or  externally, within about three
hours after a meal," to which we may add, if, by
any means, the food has remained in the stomach
undigested, as it sometimes does for many  hours,
then a powerful bath will be very  likely  to  in-
crease the difficulty.  Copious  and yet judicious
drinking will then be advantageous.
   " Under this rule, water may  be safely used to
produce a strong impression, either internally or
externally, or both,  when there is no  sensation  of
chilliness, when the temperature of the body is
raised, (as by fever, sweating,  or  the  warming
blankets,)  when there is no general or profuse per-
spiration brought on by exercise, or when the body
is not fatigued."

Inflammation of the Stomach  and Bowels, treated
                 by Priessnitz.
   "A child, three years old, was subject to inflam-
mation of the stomach and bowels.  A second at-
tack, with aggravated symptoms, which he had
while at Graefenberg, was treated as follows:—
The well-wet bandage, covered only with a thick
dry sheet, was applied  every five  minutes, from
the neck to the knees, for  upwards of  an  hour,
when, the heat being reduced, the last was per-
mitted to remain ten minutes ; the head and chest
being also implicated in the inflammatory action,
thicker umschlags were  applied to those parts; 
FOR  LADIES.
139
the feet and legs being cold, they were well rub-
bed with the  hands, and  covered with a blanket.
After the application of the last umschlag he was
placed in a tepid bath  at 70° Fah., where he was
retained for an hour ;  his body being rubbed gen-
tly during the whole time ; additional  cold  water
was occasionally added to retain the  bath at  a
uniform temperature, and a tumbler of cold  water
was also poured on his head, at intervals of about
a minute.   Four times during the day was this
process, repeated ; the periods being reduced as
the fever became less,  and at night the bandage
was changed every half hour.   On  the second
day the little sufferer refused to go into the bath,
but begged himself from time  to time for fresh
bandages.   Priessnitz  at once adopted the child's
suggestion, and directed  that his feelings  should
be attended to.   In the  course  of the day  the
child desired the bath, in which  he was  accord-
ingly placed, and where  he remained  till the heat
in his armpits, and back of his neck, was reduced
to that of the rest of his body ;—this being Priess-
nitz's index of the proper duration of a bath under
such circumstances.   In four days the child was
quite restored  Subsequently a pustule appeared
on one foot, which discharged freely, and his cure
was perfected."—Beamish.

        Ulcerated Sore Throat and Fever.
   " In April last I was  called  to attend  a boy, 
140
WATER-CURE
 Henry Merchant.  I found him suffering from ul-
 cerated sore throat  and  fever.  He  had been
 seized the day before with great languor and  de-
 jection of spirits, with pains in his head, back, and
 limbs.  His eyes were heavy and inflamed ; great
 heat was experienced at the pit of  his stomach,
 and vomiting constantly recurred—strong symp-
 toms  of typhus. Some pills had been administered,
 to stop  the vomiting,  but  without effect.  I  di-
 rected the wet sheet to be  applied, and renewed
 when hot, and as much cold water to be given as
 he was disposed to drink.   The vomiting  imme-
 diately stopped.  After the third wet sheet  he
 was rubbed in a shallow tepid bath  till his teeth
 chattered.  When he was put to bed a gentle per-
 spiration soon broke out; the fever  was entirely
 destroyed ; he slept soundly all  night, and the
 next morning was convalescent.  A covered wet
 bandage to his throat (erregender  umschlag) for a
 few days, with copious water-drinking, entirely
 removed the  ulceration, and  he went  about his
 usual  avocations  with strength  unimpaired."—
 Beamish.

                   Measles.
  " This was the case  of  a child two years old,
who had been for some days  very restless, with
derangement of bowels, and great heaviness, and
whose joints had begun to swell.  Found consider-
able fever, eyes much swollen and inflamed, with
defluxions of sharp  tears, and considerable sen- 
FOR LADIES.
141
sibility to light, and  a tendency  to an eruption of
the skin.
  Directed covered well-wet bandages to be imme-
diately applied to the body, arms,  and legs, and the
child to be permitted to drink as much cold water
at 56° as it desired.  To be kept as much as pos-
sible in bed, or in a room of equal temperature,
and to have the bandages renewed as soon as hot.
In the course of the day, as fever subsided,  the
eruption appeared, and at noon, there was no  dif-
ficulty in pronouncing it to be measles.  After the
application of the last bandage in the evening, the
child  was washed  all  over in tepid  water, 70°
Fah.  The eruption covered the  body,  face, and
forehead.  It passed a quiet night,  the bandages
being only once required.  The  following  morn-
ing the fever had  entirely disappeared, the swell-
ing of the joints had begun to subside,  and  the
eruption was dying away. Bowels relieved natu-
rally.   Appetite restored.   The less wet bandage
only was now retained on the body, and changed
four times in the course of  the day.   The  body
was washed morning and evening in tepid water.
On the third day, the eruption had almost entirely
disappeared, and the child was convalescent, and
has not been confined a single day since."—Bea-
mish.

       Asthma and Affection of the Liver.
  "A gentleman under  treatment at Graefenberg
for asthma, affection of the liver,  and much gene-
         7# 
142              WATER-CURE
ral derangement, for which  medical advice had
been sought in various quarters, while looking  on
one evening at the dancers  in  the  Grand Salle,
suddenly fell down in a fit.   The alarm  for his
safety  was  very general.   Priessnitz was sent
for, who directed that his  feet  should be  well
rubbed with cold water until the blood circulated
strongly  in them, and cold water be applied to his
head and chest.  He  very soon recovered. I add>
that he was very corpulent, that in four months he
was enabled to put a decanter under his coat, and
that in six months he left the establishment per-
fectly cured of all his ailments."—Beamish.

                Severe Shock.
  " Robert Hale, a slater and plasterer, fell  from
the top of a house in Prestbury, a height of thir-
ty-two feet. His fall was unbroken,  save  by the
window-sill of the lowest window, against which
the back of his head  came ;  thence to the  ground
on his  back.  His brain received a  considerable
shock.   When  taken up he was senseless, and
nearly  black in the face.  No bones were broken.
In the  evening, some time after the  accident,  he
requested my advice.  I found his pulse  96, and
hard.   The greatest suffering complained of was
in his  back.  About half-past eight o'clock the
principle of counter-determination was put into
practice.  Sitz-bath,  and rubbing of the extremi-
ties, succeeded  by wet sheet, with cold wet ban-
dages to  the head, and a free supply  of water to 
FOR LADIES.
143
drink.  About eleven o'clock he  got  to  bed, his
head enveloped in a wet  cloth: some sleep was
obtained.  On the following morning and evening
the same process was repeated, the sole addition-
al application being an enema of tepid water.  The
wet sheet was only again required the  morning
of the second day,  when he was enabled to leave
his house, entirely free from every feverish or un-
comfortable symptom."—Beamish.

        Case of severe taint of the system.
  " Few have any accurate idea how much may
be accomplished in many cases, by what may be
called a very mild course of treatment, at the same
time adopting a severely rigid diet.  To illustrate,
we will give a case:  A most worthy lady of this
city took the child of a deceased friend,   and
nursed it at her own breast.  Its  little  system
soon told the sad story  of its father's licentious-
ness, that it had inherited the most loathsome of
diseases, and with the poison  of  which its body
was completely charged.   The good  woman,
having the highest confidence in the purity of her
own system, could not be persuaded  that it  was
dangerous for her to nurse the little one in such a
state.  She thus continued to nurse the child, un-
til, before she was aware of the danger, her  sys-
tem had become  powerfully  affected, and soon
the most offensive  sores began to break  out upon
the breasts and different parts of the  body.   She
was therefore compelled  to wean the little suffer- 
144
WATER-CURE
er, so that if possible there might be effected the
expulsion  of  the  loathsome  disease from her
system.  On taking medical advice, she  was in-
formed that this could only be done  by the free
use of mercury.   This she was unwilling to take.
Through a friend  the advice of Professor Mussey
was obtained,  in  which she was recommended to
take no medicine, but to  adopt  a most rigid ve-
getable diet,  with  suitable  bathing,  exercise,
&c.  The advice was strictly and perseveringly
followed, and in a few weeks, strange to tell, she
was restored to perfect health."

     Inflammation and Swelling of Breasts.
  " On the evening of the third day after my wife's
first accouchment, I came home from Guy's Hos-
pital, where I had been detained since morning,
and found her groaning and weeping with intense
pain, the breasts  red, and enormously enlarged,
which the frightened nurse was vehemently rub-
bing with  brandy and oil.  The skin was exces-
sively hot and dry, and the pulse was leaping along
at the rate of 120.  It was in the month of Janu-
ary—so I walked  into the street with a pail, which
I filled with snow, and bringing it into the sick
room, I piled a heap of it over both breasts, con-
tinually adding fresh snow as it melted.  In a very
few minutes the milk span out in streams, to the
distance of more than a foot, and the tears of tor-
ture were at once changed for those of pleasure,
accompanied by that hysterical  sobbing, which is 
FOR LADIES.
145
 the common result of a sudden transition from in-
 tense suffering to perfect ease. The mere absence
 of pain in these cases takes all the characters of
 the most delicious and positive pleasurable sensa-
 tions.   In half an hour the inflammation had sub-
 sided, the breasts had become comparatively flac-
 cid, the fever  had entirely subsided, and not only
 all danger, but all inconvenience, had utterly van-
 ished.   But for this timely  succor, suppuration
 must  have supervened in both breasts, and large
 abscesses would have been the inevitable conse-
 quence."—Dr. Ed. Johnson.

 Great Debility and Suffering after Confinement.
  "This lady, aged 63, had been a sufferer for
 eighteen years, ever since  her last confinement,
 from a constant pain, more or less acute, in the
 neighborhood  of the  womb.
  Three medical gentlemen, whom she named,
 attended her during her illness, and all concurred,
 according to her statement, in the opinion that she
 would  never  be restored to health, or be freed
 from pain as long as she lived.   Up to the time of
 her placing  herself under my instructions, the pro-
 phecy had  been but too well  fulfilled, notwith-
 standing her attendance for six months at a time
at the  Dispensary of Cheltenham,  and that  she
changed her days of attendance  to obtain  the ad-
 vantage of various medical opinions.
  Many times she had  prayed,  if it were God's
will, to be released from her sufferings with  her 
146
WATER-CURE
life, and though at times capable of some exertion,
the effects of disease were so strongly marked as
to leave little hope of recovery.
  On the 11th of October, 1842,1 commenced the
application of cold water, internally and external-
ly, in various ways.
  In four days, a trembling which pervaded  her
limbs, ceased, and  her  body  had recovered  its
erect position.  In nine days the pain which had
tormented  her so  long, and which was to have
been  her  companion  through life, was scarcely
perceptible, and  she was enabled to perform  her
regular  household duties.   In twenty-one days, I
ceased to attend ; her health being re-established,
and her strength fast returning."—Beamish.

      Puerperal Ulceration of Right Leg.
   " Mrs.  Hale,  aged 64,  had been suffering for
seventeen years from a puerperal  ulceration of
her right leg.   After  her  last confinement, nine-
teen years before, her left limb became ulcerated,
which was healed after two years'  contest with
drugs, lotions, and ointments; but soon after the
right  limb  also broke out, which resisted all the
prescriptions of the Dispensary physicians, which
she ultimately abandoned, as affording no relief.
In October, 1842, I undertook the case, under the
most  unpromising circumstances; the whole sys-
tem was deranged ; no one function was properly
performed.  Scanty fare, and uncertain attend-
ance, increased my difficulty ; notwithstanding, by 
FOR  LADIES.
147
the application of the wet sheet, the sitz-bath, the
leg-bath,various umschlags, with occasional sweat-
ing, followed by the rubbing wet sheet, I had the
satisfaction to observe one organ after another re-
sume its healthy action, and at length, in the mid-
dle of March, 1843, in five months, to see her
perfectly healed."—Beamish.

                Eruptive Fever.
  "This case is that of Mr. Johnson, of Prestbury,
who had been suffering for some days from a cu-
taneous eruption, called miliary, or millet fever,
with a continuous hard and dry cough.   For two
nights he had had no rest; fever high; bowels
constipated.   The wet  sheet was immediately
applied, followed by the tepid bath.   A lavement
relieved the bowels, and. the free drinking of  cold
water refreshed the parched system.  The wet
sheet was repeated twice a day, followed by tepid
bath,  and this formed the principal treatment.  It
was commenced on the 15th May, 1843;—on the
22d the patient was  able to go out, the eruption
having entirely disappeared, and the cough rapid-
ly subsiding.   He  continued steadily to improve,
taking a wet sheet every other day for another
week, when his cough was entirely removed ; and
he declared to Mr. Crump that  " Hydropathy was
a wondrous quick thing to cure people."  It  may
be well to state  that Johnson  had been afflicted
with  this  disease  some  years before, and  had
swallowed a large quantity of drugs, with little 
148
WATER-CURE
 effect; for he continued to suffer as many weeks
 under the ordinary treatment as he did days under
 the hydropathic, and was left in a state of great
 debility for long afterwards.  Other cases of fever
 have  come under our treatment, with equal suc-
 cess."—Beamish.

            Rheumatism in the Head.
   " In the case of this lady, I  found her suffering
 from a severe attack of rheumatism in the head,
 under which  she had  labored for eight  months.
 The pain was described as  intense, with spasms
 extending to the cheek-bones, showing a near ap-
 proximation to tic-doloureux.  Her left arm was
 rendered  nearly useless, and  her loins were  so
 painful, and her back so feeble, as to prevent her
 rising from  her chair  without  assistance.  Her
 head was, as usual, enveloped  in flannel, and  her
 ears were filled  with cotton.  Blisters had been
 applied to the  back of her head, leeches had been
 used inside her mouth, and she had had two of her
 teeth extracted, but no relief was obtained.
   My first operation was to remove all  flannel
 and cotton, and  in their place to apply cold wet
 bandages; to direct a wet compress for her stom-
 ach, with sitz and foot-baths  twice a day, and the
 free-drinking of cold  water before meals.
   On  the second day symptoms became much ex-
asperated, and she hesitated whether she should
 proceed.   She did persevere,  however,  and on
 the sixth she was repaid by freedom from all pain 
FOR  LADIES.
149
 in her loins and back, and the full use of her left
 arm.  By the 2d of November—in thirteen  days
 —she expressed herself as being in the enjoyment
 of a better state of health than she  had known for
 y ears."—Beamish.

                  Scarlet Fever.
   " This case was that of my own little girl, four
 years of age, who was on Saturday evening at-
 tacked with scarlet  fever.  On Monday morning
 the fever had attained to such a height that I per-
 ceived no time was to be lost.  Her pulse was
 what may be termed flying, and, as  a consequence,
 the eruption could not appear.  The wet  bandages
\ were applied, at seven o'clock in the morning, to
i the abdomen and bowels,  and changed as soon as
 they showed a tendency to dry. At eleven o'clock
 the pulse was 125, and the  eruption was fast ap-
 pearing.   By the  evening, fever was  entirely re-
 duced, and  the eruption covered her body.   On
 Tuesday it began to disappear from the  face and
 neck, and the swelling of  the throat  and face be-
 gan to subside.  On Wednesday it was  found no
 longer necessary  to  confine her to bed, and that
 evening  she was quite convalescent."—Beamish.

      Serious Irregularity in Menstruation.
   " This irregularity had  existed five years,  ever
 since the last confinement.   The  periodical dis-
 charges  were protracted  sometimes to twelve
 days, leaving her  in a deplorable  state  of weak- 
150
WATER-CURE
 nest, and producing, at  last, dropsical symptoms.
 Priessnitz's  treatment was  as  follows: morning,
 leintuch, or  wet  sheet,  from three-quarters of an
 hour to an hour, followed by two abreibungs, one
 immediately after the other, that the temperature
 of the body might be quite reduced to its  normal
 state,—a point necessary to be  attended to  after
 the sweating in blankets, or warming in leintuch.
 At noon, and afternoon,  an abreibung, or dripping-
 sheet,  for five minutes, and sitz-bath for fifteen
 minutes.  But when the catamenia  returned, she
 was directed  to  go to  bed, and apply covered
 umschlags from  the breasts to below the  hips,
 and round the calves of her legs, and to change
 them every half  hour during the day, and as of-
 ten  as  possible during  the night.   This treat-
 ment had the desired effect  in  stopping the dis-
 charge.  In four weeks  a tremendous auschlag, or
 crisis, appeared on her body, larger than anything
 Priessnitz had ever before witnessed, and, as I was
 informed, scarcely  to be comprehended.   This
 continued open for four months and a half;  a large
quantity  of bloody matter was,  at the end of that
time, thrown out from the uterus ;  her strength
rapidly returned, and her cure was accomplished.
She remained six  months at Graefenberg, to satis-
fy herself of the  permanency  of her renovated
condition.  Priessnitz recommends rest and tran-
quillity  in these  cases,   and considers walking
bad."—Beamish. 
FOR  LADIES.
151
     Priessnitz's Treatment before and during
                  Confinement.
   We  are told,  the  success  of Priessnitz  in
 his  treatment  of females  previous  and subse-
 quent to confinement, is as remarkable as his treat-
 ment of fever, never having lost  a patient under
 either condition.
   During pregnancy the  sitz-bath and abreibung
 are frequently applied, particularly the former, if
 there be pain in the back ;  cold  and tepid baths,
 also, are recommended, and the  stimulating wet
 bandage, he considers, lessens the first pains, and
 causes a speedy labor.   After  confinement,  he
 recommends the body to be rubbed all over daily,
 portion  by portion,  with  a wet  towel, and  then
 with a dry  one ; the rest of the body being kept
 well covered.  In milk fever he directs a slight
 sweating, with subsequent  rubbing  with a wet
 towel.
  For pain in the breast or bowels, the umschlag
is applied.  Should the legs  swell, the stimulating
bandage is  again resorted to.  If there be giddi-
ness, or head-ache, uncovered bandages to  the
forehead, with frequent leintucher, will be found
efficacious.

       Priessnitz's Treatment of Infants.
  " Should  the bowels or stomach of the infant be-
come deranged, he applies either a soft umschlag,
or places it in warm water to the waist; the bow- 
152
WATER-CURE
els being gently rubbed ; or a lavement of cold or
tepid water is administered.
   When teething comes on,  and fever prevails,
the well warmed umschlag should be applied as a
small shawl across the shoulders and chest, to be
renewed when it becomes hot.  Great care must
be taken that this bandage is perfectly covered, or
injury will arise.
   In all feverish complaints of children the wet
sheet is always safe, renewed when hot, and after-
wards the tepid bath; the child being kept as
much as possible in bed.
   This treatment applies to  measles, small pox,
scarlet  fever,  &c., and which I have had many
opportunities of testing."—Beamish.

                 Constipation.
   This  is a very common complaint in pregnancy.
It is generally easily  removed by suitable diet.
Clysters of water, tepid  or cold, the body band-
age, sitting and other baths, with  due exercise,
will remove the difficulty.   The bowels should
always  move at least once a day.

            Irregular Menstruation.
   " Order is established in this  important function,
by slight perspirations,  general  cold  ablutions,
sitz-baths,  and  foot-baths, much  exercise,  and
plentiful drinking cold  water.   Instances of cures
of this complaint at Graefenberg are innumerable." 
FOR  LADIES.
153
             Uterine Haemorrhage.
   " In haemorrhages  of the matrix, apply cold
bandages to the abdomen, and if these are not suf-
ficient, cold water must be injected into the matrix:
to these means must be added an abundant drink-
ing of cold  water.  This treatment requires the
advice of some hydropathic practitioner."

                  Tooth-ache.
   The following is Priessnitz's treatment:  " Two
basins are filled with water, one of which is cold,
the other tepid;  the mouth  should he filled  with
the tepid water, and held in the mouth till it begins
to be warm, then change it;  during this, the
hands should be dipped  constantly in cold  water,
and  with them  violently  rub the  whole  face,
cheeks, and behind the ears; this operation should
be continued till  the  pain ceases.  It is also good
to rub the gums even until they bleed.  I never
saw toothache resist this  treatment.  Sometimes
it is necessary to add foot-baths."—Munde.

                 Consumption.
  This terrible and formidable  disease is seldom
accidental.   Its foundation is usually laid  before
birth.  It usually consists in the formation of tu-
bercles in the lungs, which sooner or later inflame,
ulcerate, and break  down.   Real  consumption,
when fully established, is seldom cured,  There
are sometimes cases, however,  that are  cured ; 
154
WATER-CURE
 and in many other cases the disease can be kept,
 as  it were, stationary, and by proper  treatment
 and care, life  can be prolonged, and rendered far
 more comfortable.   The greatest care is  neces-
 sary in respect to every circumstance, even to the
 most minute,  the purity and temperature  of the
 air, the clothing, diet, bathing, exercise, and state
 of the mind and passions.
   Dr. Billing, senior  physician  to  the London
 Hospital, a man of very  great  experience and
 simplicity in  his practice,  in  speaking of con-
 sumption, says, "Some years  ago,  a gentleman
 of  the  name  of  Stewart, adopted  a rational
 mode of treatment, with which he had consider-
 able success ;  but  because  he could not  work
 miracles, his plan was  unjustly  depreciated.  His
 method was entirely tonic, and  especially the cau-
 tious use of cold and tepid ablutions of the skin,—
 a modification of cold  bathing—a remedy  which
 is found so universally  beneficial in promoting the
 resolution (cure) of strumous (scrofulous) tumors.''
  " One thing of  which I am  convinced  is, that
 the  true principle of treating  consumption is to
 support the patient's strength to the utmost." This
 with certainty can be  most effectually done  by
 hydropathic treatment.  To one who is sufficiently
 acquainted with the human system, and the water-
 cure, the indications of treatment are easily un-
 derstood.  In  the more  advanced stages, it  is ne-
 cessary to palliate the urgent symptoms, to  mode-
rate inflammatory action, and support the strength. 
FOR LADIES.
155
         Pregnancy and Child-bearing.
  It were, perhaps, superfluous to say that during
 pregnancy the strictest care should be taken of the
 health.   It was an aphorism of Hippocrates, that
 women, in this state, attacked with acute disease,
 always die.   There  are, of  course, exceptions,
 but the state is certainly most unfavorable, if one
 is attacked by acute disease.   The danger  to be
 dreaded  is twofold: first, from the disease itself;
 and second, from the danger of abortion, as acute
 disease of the mother very often destroys the child
 unborn.  It  is  the  universal  testimony, that the
 treatment of acute diseases  during pregnancy
 should be one of great caution.  Watch the " first
 symptoms of febrile disease, and meet them in the
 onset with decided but not violent remedies,—and
 above all, be strict in attention to regimen."
  All correct rules as to  quantity and  quality of
 food, times of eating, bathing, exercise, content-
 ment, avoidance of  all bodily  and  mental excite-
 ments, should be well  understood,  and  strictly
 heeded by those in a  state of pregnancy.   Re-
 specting  this state, while  we  insist upon the im-
 portance  of attention to the general  regimen, let
 us say that if ever there is a time when one should
 be at peace with the world, and with Him in whom
we  always " live, move, and have our being," and
should rely  with implicit confidence  upon  His
protection, and at the same time should use every
possible means by which health can be preserved, 
156       WATER-CURE FOR LADIES.

it is during the period of child-bearing.   We do
not believe, as some tell  us, that woman  should
not understand  the functions of her system ;  nor
that such knowledge would be prejudicial to health
in child-bearing.  We do not believe that it was
" ordained" that woman  should  suffer  any thing
like  what she now  does, in her present state of
knowledge.   We do believe, we do know, that wo-
man might so understand the laws of her system,
and  so live, that in  this period of suffering, and
often fatality, there would  be a  comparative  im-
munity  from those  dangers and  evils  now  so
terrible.  Ever, "The way  of the transgressor is
hard," but,  " Wisdom's ways are  ways  of plea-
santness." 
 
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NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
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