WBF1

184-7    t
~c< cc «Ll « S

^otrcc
■ CC  «SCCC
• e c  <aczcc
C O '
-^  -cc
a c  «s: cc
C*<T
.* cccc
  CC«*C_
  co.ctr
  tfCCC
  <ascc

 . «SK<L
etc: "«llc_<i






       Tfctci:
 -dec



               *" <cv ■'<

                <£«%<• •'<^  V-



              ^  c
              Z  c.v"^
 ■; erect  &<i- ct^1  ".V

   =-<  cc> «&.c«r; c <  > 'V--^


 ^•i-fa  % c c* t ► '>



  ^ <* Cc i c <  or *;->5*

  ^^"    *""i  c c  c     t c
  ^|  *■ cc* Vc^.^



      **«!  CC  Ccc C* «
     - ,;<<*  CC  C-f<  C<*-_ ««'*•■<
     =- ? <  cc c c c c * jj£
     r  *cc  CC *■■<  c;c C?C<
     &  oc  CC cr c" C C <vfe

     r-Vcc  Cc cc  c< **<^

     -' <*c  <Cc C c c;C  *£**
      ~. *<c.   «< t«rc<  -%^


      ^■f « c   " C<-»-C c?


%^^~ "^c  .cc c«: *
          <>*?■  '  c?-c:c-«c_   ••■«
         CCC   <? < o<   - ir°
    C  c .>C   * CC< .c<  -
> iC
<i.  ; c:  4. %
cr ccidl  * -<v
Cc <i«*"~"  *«
C<- c«
G" cC.   -^ v
C'cc:   c<s
^^
C cCT. -
C CC
.«: <c
  <c  c

<c  ccr
 
		»* ?
		£■11 Bk^'
	' &*QI	
	,ijj^3	
$nJ		
k -
Sun-con General's Office

$'  ^ ,if>cM^ ^nv -^fc ^r^ a^f> >
   iiA-4. •^Lel^S' *A/4.' ,#foJ^o iiAo'l.-' (M^ •©
^
 
I*1
 
 
i
I
AN ESSAY ON WATER 
4,
/
^$
V 
/£
y
WATER
VERSUS
HYDROPATHY:
OR,
AN ESSAY ON WATER,
ITS TRUE RELATIONS TO MEDICINE
HENRY HARTSHORNE, M. D.


      'H <5t reX"fj jiaKpn-

             PHILADELPHIA:
     LLOYD P. SMITH, 19 ST. JAMES STREET.
|                  1847. 
/--/
W3  F
 H 33fw
C. SHERMAN, PRINTER,

   19 St. James Street.
/ 
PREFACE.
  The following essay has been printed, in the hope
of interesting and perhaps being useful to some, who
are not  deterred from placing a high value upon
simple means,  merely because  of their simplicity;
still being, with reason, opposed to  any  exclusive
reliance upon such means.
  To the really practical medical man, the  " uses of
water" comprise a magazine of his most serviceable
resources;  and to the student, they should  form an
elementary part, almost a department of their own,
in his early studies.   The extreme of ignorant pre-
tenders, or  more knowing impostors, forms no good
argument against these established weapons of art; 
VI
PREFACE.
but rather urges on  us  imperatively their  scientific
investigation.
  At a  time when  Hydropathy  must  be  ranked
amongst the reigning medical delusions, it becomes
particularly profitable  to  inquire what  are  the  posi-
tive and proper uses of water in  medicine, and  what
is the degree of their  estimation and appreciation by
the  profession.   It has appeared to me that the best
way of opposing the error of Preissnitz, would  be
fairly to expose, without  extenuation, the real  inte-
rest  and utility of water, with the  limitations which
experience and  authority have  defined.   This  has
been a prominent object in the succeeding pages.
   Pennsylvania Hospital, 2mo. 1847. 
CONTENTS.
                               CHAPTER I.
       General remarks on water—Its properties—Physiological actions—
         Action of water as a substance,......13

                               CHAPTER II.
       Effects of temperature in baths—Cold bath—Reaction,   -     -  25
                               CHAPTER III.
       Relations of water to Hygiene—Death from drinking largely while
         heated, properly explained—Effects of substances  in combination
         with water—Use of bathing,.......37
                               CHAPTER IV.
       Medical uses of water—Diluents,......50
                               CHAPTER V.
       Use of water internally in fever—Cold affusion—Douche—Hot ap-
         plications to the head in influenza, by Dr. Graves,      -    -  62
                              CHAPTER VI.
«      Ablution in the  plague—Yellow fever—Scarlet fever—Ice, &c, in
         cholera—Intermittents,........82 
vin
CONTENTS.
                      CHAPTER  VII.
Inflammations — Hemorrhages—'Tetanus — Mania—Warm bath in
  spasmodic complaints — Asphyxia — Cynanche — Chorea — Use of
  moist air—Hemorrhoids—Use of mineral waters,  by M.  Dupas-
  quier,...........93

                      CHAPTER VIII.

Intestinal obstructions—Application of water to obstetrics—Exten-
  sive cupping,..........103

                      CHAPTER IX.

Uses of water in surgery—Wounds—Fractures—Water-dressing—
  Dislocations—Hernia,........Ill

                       CHAPTER X.

Termination of  the subject, with remarks on the German " Water-
  Cure,"  ...........12U 
WATER
             VERSUS

HYDROPATHY.
                   CHAPTER I.

General remarks on Water—Its properties—Physiological actions—
              Action of water as a substance.
   The full  developement of the subject proposed in
our  title, would occupy a  large volume; but as the
detail  essential in treating of a new and little known
topic is entirely  unnecessary here, we shall merely
call  attention to those  points, which may give rise to
the most interesting remark.
   Any system of medical treatment, based  upon the
actions of but one agent, must be in theory and prac-
tice wrong; and therefore what is called Hydropathy
must be entirely  a false system.  And yet the  asser-
tion  may be hazarded, that as no element is more es-
sential to the body in health, so none may be applied to
so many therapeutic uses, as water.  This is not at all
contradicted by  the  assertion, that its  effects  are
                        2 
14
WATER VS.
never sufficiently energetic  in  any mode of applica-
tion for it to be depended  upon  alone in any  violent
disease.  If mere hygienic regulations, regimen and
diet,  are of vast importance  in the prevention and
cure  of dangerous, nay,  of all diseases,  how can
great value be denied to an agent which in some form
is useful in our attack  upon almost  every affection,
as palliative, and often  as a really  curative  means?
The sum of human happiness is diminished as much
by lesser, and  more frequent, as by greater ills; few
of the greater arise indeed, except  as consequences
of the less,  when  neglected, qr beyond our  power to
remove.  And in  some applications, water is a  means
of very  great  energy, for use  or for  abuse.    The
design  of this essay is to  oppose  the  latter, by  a
sketch of the authorized  limits of the former.
  We might infer a priori the  importance of water
as related to hygiene and therapeutics, from the facts
of what  may be called its natural history.   Constitu-
ting in inorganic matter, 'three-fourths of the surface
of the globe ;*  and in man three-fourths of  his whole
  * An interesting subject is the constant supply of water to its vast
accumulations and expenditures, as lakes, rivers, and such masses as
the great Niagara Falls, &c.  The theory of central heat is thus ap-
plied by a writer in the Polytechnic Magazine to the explanation of
hot springs, as well as to that of earthquakes,  as similarly caused.
" We well know," says he, " the ease with which water descends be-
tween the strata of any rock,—and if it arrives, as it may very easily
do, between the secondary strata to the point even where water boils,
namely less than half a  mile, steam will be generated.  This will 
HYDROPATHY.
15
body.   The blood containing according  to Berzelius
tWu' anu* ^ne lymph an(l all the secretions nearly the
same proportion, its  presence  is  indispensable,  so
far as we know, to the existence of all living beings.
Spallanzani and  others make  exception in  the case
of  mosses  and  some  infusorial animals,  but it would
certainly be most  difficult  to  prove their assertion.
" Thales,   Paracelsus,  Van  Helmont   and  Boyle,
reckoned water  the  stamen of all things."   Sir I.
separate the  strata a little  farther, more water will sink down," &c.
" Hot springs may be  explained on the  same principle,  only the
water does not arrive at so  great a depth before it  is again returned
to  the surface."  In an essay by T. Jameson (1788), an  analogous
idea is suggested, with regard to the spring waters of Bath.   It is
interesting also  to find in one of the Greek authors the following
passage; " oruv ettv  a.i 7nry*i w- frtr^eaiv......» art o%ev S-e^a
uShth irrtv,  h a-iS>if>0( ytvtirai, » %*\x.o;, »......TauTst......
Trttvra. wo fii>t; yivov tou Stpy.ov." But this hypothesis does  not seem
to  me necessary to explain the supply of great lakes, or of Niagara.
An analogy to the process, by means of rain, and springs and streams
joining together, is furnished by the circulation of living beings.  At
each contraction of the heart of a whale, 10 or 15 gallons pass out
through an aorta a  foot in diameter: yet  all this  is supplied by the
minute capillary circulation.  Whewell (Bridgewater treatise) con-
siders the other theory to be erroneous so far as regards the supply of
springs  from the sea, or subterranean reservoirs.  The only argu.
ment, however, by which he sustains this assertion, is drawn from
calculations  made by Dalton, (Manchester  Memoirs, v. 357) of the
amount of rain, evaporation, &c, in  England ; without mentioning, at
least, if considering, those elements  of the discussion arising from the
immensity of our American Lakes, the Niagara  cataract, and from
hot springs,  &c. 
16
WATER VS.
 Newton said, " that  all beasts, birds, fishes, insects,
 trees and vegetables, grow out of water, and by pu-
 trefaction return to water again."*   The connexion
 between vitality and  moisture, led the  ancients to
 suppose that water was  the parent of every thing
 possessed of life.  This notion is  said to  have been
 derived from a statement  made by Moses (Genesis i.
 20.)  It is taught in the Koran,  and has been em-
 braced  by Milton (Paradise Lost,  book vii. line 234).
 Apart from such fancies, must not an element occu-
 pying so large a space in  organic  life be, in the hand
 of remedial art, assisting  not resisting or supplanting
 nature,  an agent of the very greatest value 1
  There is a remarkable contrast  between the diffe-
 rent attributes  of water.   In  its  sensible properties
 there is scarcely anything more strictly negative, and
 yet some of its qualities  are strikingly and  usefully
 concerned in the grand operations of Nature—as the
 slowness with which it conducts, and its  high capa-
 city for heat, in rendering the ocean with its rivers,
 &c, a grand moderator of temperature, and  its high
power of refracting light, in producing  the rainbow
beauties of atmospheric scenery.  Of electricity, ice
is a non-conductor,  but water conducts it, although
imperfectly.  The experimenter finds this to  his cost
in damp weather, in the difficulty of then  insulatino-
his charged reservoirs.  And is it  not probable that
* Pereira. 
HYDROPATHY.
17
similar phenomena are far  more  extensive  than  are
usually noticed?  that what is called the influence "of
the weather" is to a considerable degree owing to the
conducting power of aqueous vapour, in many cases
actually  depleting  the body  of its  usual stimulus of
electricity ?*   A farther  consideration  of this subject
would be here out of place.
  * There are other instances in which the action of this conducting
power may be suspected:  e. g. the soothing, lulling, tranquillizing
influence of the  warm, or tepid  bath.  It  is an interesting topic.
However averse we may be to the fancy that" electricity is life," or that
electricity or galvanism, is the nervous fluid; still we cannot, I think,
resist the facts which show that not only like all other bodies, but in
a greater degree than any  other body, the animal frame contains and
is influenced  by  this principle.  Does it follow at all, because it is
thought there must be a  vital force, and still more  certainly an in-
tellectual power  governing all, that,  contrary to all analogy, their
existence should disprove that of electricity, or other imponderable
agents in the body, or even their great importance in the economy ?
The effects of lightning, or if not these, the minor peculiar effects of
electricity and galvanism on the body, living or apparently-dead, and
to my mind many of the phenomena of pain  (for instance the effect
often observed of simple contact of an external body in relieving local
pain, the resemblance of which to the discharge of  an accumulated
imponderable  fluid, however fanciful it may appear, has often forced
itself upon my mind) as well as of pleasurable sensation, and finally
the influence of the weather upon our bodily feelings and condition,
all support  this view, without giving  the slightest reason for suppo-
sing that electricity is life, or even is the " nervous fluid."  In damp
weather, or during the prevalence of east and northeast  winds,
many persons suffer from lassitude and weakness, while one whose
nervous  forces were redundant has  told me that he "always felt
better at the time of a northeasterly  storm."  Some distinguished
                             2* 
18
WATER VS.
   Being constituted of two of the most active among
the  simple elements, the formation and decomposition

authorities have gone very far  in their opinions on this subject; as
Linnaeus, who thought that the function of the lungs was to secrete
electricity from the atmosphere :  also Hunter, Haller, and Abernethy,
(see Abernethy on Hunter's theory, p. 68.)  The best resume of the
real knowledge, yet attained about it, is, as far as  I  have  seen, in
Holland's  Medical Notes and Reflexions, p. 591-596.  He justly
concludes  " that we are not yet justified in laying down any definite
dogma on the subject."  The amount of investigation  in regard to it
is daily increasing.  As  one  instance of this, we  have account of a
paper received at the session  of the Paris Academy, June 10th, 1844,
in which  they endeavour to demonstrate the existence of a fluid,
being neither that of electricity nor  magnetism, but  intermediate,
and having exclusive  reference  to the nerves.   The  authors were
Thilorier  and Lafontaine.  Also a  lecture recently,  by Professor
Keenan, maintaining that the body is  an electro-galvanic  apparatus,
and the view of T. Wharton Jones, (London Med. Gaz.) that mus-
cular  fibre consists of a series  of electro-magnetic disks ;  besides
the later investigations of Baron Reichenbach.  It would  seem, as
Dr. Holland remarks, that we must be on the eve of some great dis-
covery in psycho-physiology.  There needs but the mind of a Newton
to generalize what is already known.  But,  however this  may be
with scientific men, in the common  practical  opinion of the mass it
is different.  Electricity, men seem to think, is a something existing
only  in the  clouds,  in  lecture-rooms and in books; that agent
which puts out life in a moment, which  destroys fleets  and cities,
whose equilibrium the mere combing of one's  head, or the  pulling
off of a garment visibly disturbs, and a little rubbing together of silk
and glass most palpably, can  have no effect in common times on the
body.   And it is of no consequence, whether you attempt  to  provide
against its changes or not. Flannel is worn principally, because it is
a slow conductor of heat; in fact this  is the  alleged ground  in the
selection of all  clothing; but can it be, that electricity is so idle in
the vicissitudes of nature as not to require a thought ?  Its changes 
HYDROPATHY.
19
of  water attend  many  chemical  processes, natural
and artificial.  Some of its relations  would  appear to

are often  more sudden, vivid and impressive, than those of caloric;
having these,  and indeed all the four ancient principles, fire, air,
earth and water, often immediately under its  control.  Should this
Catiline among the  elements be alone without its  guard ?   The
practical inference from this reasoning is, that it is at  least well
worthy of consideration, whether a more  decided non-conductor of
electricity  than flannel, would not be a greater  protection, and
possess positive advantages.  Such a material  is silk.  A physician
who prefers it for undergarment to any thing else, has found in its
results with  others,  no reason to regret  having recommended  it.
But flannel is  thought also to  have its advantages.  It is I believe
generally considered warmer, and a greater defence against changes
of temperature than silk;  but this must be simply because its cheap-
ness allows of a greater thickness and quantity than is usual of silk,
for experiments as old as Count Rumford have proved that the latter
is the slower conductor.   A real advantage of flannel however to
many is, the stimulus it affords to the skin, sometimes acting as an
efficient revulsive.   It  certainly  produces much more perspiration
than a silk garment.   This in some cases is desirable, but in  others
its excess is  debilitating, and  more than that occasionally exposes
one to catarrh, &c, like  any other dampness continued  about the
 body, and on a reduction of temperature.  After a trial of each on
 my own  body, I cannot  but think, that any one whose exercise  is
 much varied,  so as to increase at times his  heat considerably, followed
 by rest and consequent cooling, is much more apt to  take cold under
 the excessive perspiration caused by flannel,  than with  that much
 more moderate, when silk is worn next the skin.  The stimulus of
 flannel I  know opposes such  dangers; but this must  be almost in-
 active or absent during the rest which so  naturally succeeds heating
 exertion.  The qualities of the perspiratory  fluid are also protective;
 but excess must dilute them  as diuresis does those  of the urine.
 With those who use little motion, this objection of course does not
 exist.  But are not all advantages gained by those who use a combi. 
20
WATER VS.
justify the name of hydric  acid  suggested by Berze-
lius; but entirely otherwise  is the  fact of its taking
the place of regular bases, as in the  monobasic, biba-
sic, and  tribasic  phosphates,  arseniates, &c.   The
theory of acids recently proposed by Liebig, (Lancet,
July  20th,  1844,) in  which hydrogen is  made the
element   on  which  the  saturating,  or  salt-forming
nation of both these materials for under-garments ?   Neuralgias and
rheumatisms,—the former of which at least, and the cases partaking
of the nature of both, it seems to me probable are in some way de-
pendent, not only on the temperature but on the electrical state of the
atmosphere, and varying  conduction by watery vapour,  causing ac-
cumulations or deficiencies  of electrical excitement in  the body,—
would by this means be most effectually avoided.  A fabric somewhat
resembling  this combination is  found in nature, in the alpacha of
South America: which has a hair, according to  Dr. Hamilton of
London, " fitted for the production of textile fabrics differing from all
others; occupying a medium position between wool  and silk.  The
Indians of South American mountains manufacture nearly all their
clothing from it."  The fact is, that the actions of the imponderable
agents heat, light, electricity, galvanism, magnetism,  are  always
united and  blended together.  Electrical changes evolve heat, and
modifications of heat, even unequal distribution of it in the  same
body, produce currents of electricity or galvanism.  In attempting
therefore to ward off the  effects  of one, it is unphilosophical not to
regard the relations and laws of  all  the others of these agents.  At-
tention to  those of electricity is  now becoming more minute; and
without regard to this principle,  the use of silk next the skin is be-
ginning to be  somewhat common;  but a much greater  universality
in the employment of a combination of it with flannel in winter by
the healthy, and the whole year round by the feeble and  susceptible,
would be far better  than Marshall Hall's "alcoholic lotion," and
would amply compensate  for any little difference in expense. 
HYDROPATHY.                21
power depends, would give a new appearance to the
importance of a certain portion of water to the exis-
tence of many acids.
  It is somewhat curious  that the atomic or combi-
ning  number of water is smaller than  that of any
other chemical  compound known,  except dicarbu-
retted hydrogen.   Although the number for silicon is
less  than  8, yet it does  not  afford  an  exception, as
it  does not  form  any definite  compound  (as  yet
stated) with  hydrogen;  the  amount of the gas no-
ticed by Berzelius in silicon  before combustion, not
having  been  found  to  present  a fixed proportion.
How far this  atomic constitution may be  connected
with  the properties of water, it would  be  unphiloso-
phical to speculate.  But  that some such  connexion
exists has  been already  rendered probable, and will
we may hope, at some future day, be fixed above the
vacillations of theory, to which the whole subject as
yet remains exposed.
   Simple as the action  of water upon the human
system apparently is, few subjects with  such facility
and so  little advantage provoke  disputes among in-
vestigators.   Sedative, tonic, stimulant and twenty
other titles have been given it, not because of uncer-
tainty in the subject itself, but because  these names,
like all classifications in Materia Medica,  are to a de-
gree uncertain  and arbitrary;  and  because  in its
different  applications  and  under different circum-
stances they all do  properly belong to it.   May not 
22                  WATER VS.
its various actions.be best  thus  analyzed?   1.  Its
own proper  effect as a  substance, apart  from  its
power as a vehicle for other bodies, temperature, &c.
2. Its effects as a conducting medium, as in increasing
or decreasing  heat,  and in rendering  it  latent in
changing  from the  solid to the liquid,  or  from the
liquid to the gaseous form, as in evaporation.   Some
forms of the douche  add  also the shock  produced by
falling from a height.  To the  foregoing effects with
regard to  heat must  there not also be conjoined some
resulting from  the power of water to conduct elec-
tricity ?
  3. The action of  water impregnated  with various
substances.   This  classification of course is  only a
mental  one; practically  we  can make little separa-
tion except so far as relates to the last of these heads,
which may  be considered  apart  from  the  others.
With the former  two this essay  is principally con-
cerned. When pure, of the temperature  of  the body,
and applied without force, the sedative  action of
water,  internally  and   externally,  was  abundantly
proved  by the experiments  of Dr.  W.  F. Edwards,
as well  as by those of Nasse, Humboldt,  and Pierson,
mentioned in Dr. Edwards's book," Sur les agens phy-
siques."  There is  considerable interest in these expe-
riments,*  as well as in those of Dr. Davy  upon  the

  * Among others Dr. Edwards relates the trial of the different vivi-
fying powers of water and air, as exemplified in the batrachian rep-
tiles. "The heart and  bulb of the aorta were removed from 12 frogs 
HYDROPATHY.
23
various tissues after death.   A detailed account of the
results* obtained by the  latter is  given in his Physio-

(R. esculenta and R. temporaria), 6 of which were placed in water
deprived of air, and 6 in air.  Those in water lived two hours, and
those in the air three."  It was found by experiment that tempera-
ture had a powerful  influence; in frogs the duration of life being
inversely as the elevation of the heat.  The aeration or non-aeration of
the water was another important item;  6 frogs in boiled water lived
from 3 hours and 40 minutes to 5 hours and  50 minutes; 6 in aera-
ted water lived from 6 hours and 43 minutes to 10 hours and 40 mi-
nutes.   Experiments proved that it was not  through the lungs that
these animals received the influence of the air contained in the water.
   *  They are interesting, as aiding us somewhat in reflecting on the
probable effects of the same substance on the body and its parts dur-
ing life.  He found  muscular substance, as of the heart, to lose its
solidity rapidly, the ventricle  more so  than the auricle; in which
particular  the tongue and  most of the voluntary  muscles  resem-
bled the ventricle, while others the  auricle,—as the muscular coat of
the primae viae,  and especially of the rectum, and of the  urinary
bladder.  The brain, he states, rapidly became soft.  The liver and
kidney were soon reduced to  a soft mass. The substance of the lungs
softened pretty rapidly; where there were tubercles the alteration was
quickest, and commenced with the  tubercles.  The arteries under.
went change very slowly.  The vena cava gradually softened, wast-
ing irregularly into holes, and finally into shreds and patches.  The
thoracic duct slowly in a similar manner.  During the first eight or
nine days there was no distinct softening or change  in the stomach;
on the forty-fifth day it was in progress in  all its  tissues;  on the
seventy-second disintegration was nearly completed.  In the intes-
tines the same change took place still more slowly.  Gall-bladder
and biliary ducts were tardy in alteration.   Tendon and bone very
slow.  Synovial  membrane had principally  disappeared in four
months.  But no part of the body was found to change so little as
intervertebral substance; after  twelve months  in water it was very
little altered in appearance, and had lost little of its material. 
24
WATER VS.
logical  Researches vol.  ii.  p.  372.   Poiseuille and
Magendie* both remarked that water  weakens  the
contracting force of the heart; it was proved by the
experiment of injection in lower animals, with the aid
of the hsemadynamometer invented by Poiseuille.  It
probably exerts the same influence over  all the solids.
This is  alluded to by Boerhaavef under the head of
" emollients." As an instance of this class, he mentions
first, " pure  water, warm, just in the nature of  our
body;  it dilutes  and  attenuates in  respect  of  the
liquids;  but softens in respect of the  solids.   The
vapour (or steam)" he continues, "is very proficuous."
Another property, which, on experiment,  Magendie
ascribes to water, is that of promoting the coagulation
of the blood ; a tendency which he asserts it to pos-
sess, in common with tartar emetic, sulphate of mag-
nesia, and the ingredients of the Seltzer, Vichy, and
Seidlitz  mineral waters.
         * Magendie on the Blood.
        t " On the Virtue and Energy of Medicines." 
HYDROPATHY.                  25
                   CHAPTER II.

     Effects of temperature in Baths—Cold Bath—Reaction.

  The before-mentioned effects of  water simply as a
substance, are a small part of those which it is capa-
ble of producing; and we seldom have practically a
fair instance of their occurrence, unmingled with the
results of temperature, &c.  Abandoning  then the
line of mental distinction, we may adopt the usual
method of description, which classifies  these  effects,
as  those  of cold,  tepid, warm, and hot water, exter-
nally or internally applied.
   The importance of this subject should set aside all
thought of its triteness, especially as the whole matter
has been made the ground  of a new popular delu-
sion ;  but want of space,  as well as  the  frequency
with which the investigation  has been made, may
form excuse for not going into full exposition.*  We
  * In the works of Floyer, Buchan, Hancocke (Febrifugum mag-
num, 1723), Giannini,  Currie, Bell (on Baths and  Mineral Waters),
&c. &c, full detail is given, although the topic has fewer volumes in
proportion to its magnitude than most others.  The best division of
baths  is probably that of Dr. Forbes: Cold bath, 33° to 60° Falir.;
then cool, temperate, and tepid; warm, from 92° to 98°; and hot
bath 98° to 112°.  He very properly, however, considers such limi-
tatio'ns to be for convenience only, not for rule, persons and circum-
stances often requiring modification.
                           3 
26
WATER VS.
shall merely glance at those points which  I conceive
to be  wrongly explained  or not  sufficiently dwelt
upon by authors.
  The temperate or tepid condition allows, of course,
of scarcely  any effect with regard  to  temperature.
We have, therefore, in it to consider only the proper
sedative effect  of water itself, with, if externally ap-
plied, the pressure, and the action, if there be  such,
by virtue of the relations  of water with  electricity.
In baths the  pressure is an  element worthy of notice,
as in some  cases it increases the danger of bathing
to those for  whom local or general plethora renders
it improper.*  It, of course, drives with some  force
(greater in   sea than  in fresh water,  and in  some
waters  than in others)  from  the  external parts to-
wards  internal organs,  and  towards  the head  or
whatever part  is not immersed.  It will be alluded to
again, in speaking of the cold bath.  And the  other
consideration,  with regard  to electricity,  although I
do not remember to have ever seen it noticed, I can-
not but believe it of some  consequence.   Every one
is  aware of the  soothing, lulling,  tranquillizing in-
  * See Arnott's Elements of Physics, p. 242 and 475. " If a strong
glass bottle be firmly corked and then sunk in water, it is generally
crushed inwards by the pressure before it reaches the depth of ten
fathoms.  A man  thus let down in a cask of air, would soon be
drowned by the water bursting in upon him. A man who dives
deep suffers much  by the compression of his chest, from the elastic
air within yielding under the strong pressure.  This limits the depth
to which divers can safely go." 
HYDROPATHY.
27
fluence of the warm or tepid bath,* in many nervous
conditions, of  irritation  or  excitement, or, on  the
other hand, of  exhaustion and debility.  Its  powers
are really highly remedial.
   The effects of cool and cold water taken internally
depend so much upon the condition and circumstances
of the body, that all beyond  mere dilution and refri-
geration  will  come  more  readily before  us under
another head.
   In the  cold  bath, Dr. Bell (On Baths and Mineral
Waters), will not allow that, according to the preva-
lent belief, " the blood, arrested  in  its  free  course
through the skin and parts immediately subjacent, is
driven in increased amount into the internal organs."
He  acknowledges  that  there is an " emptying  and
collapse  of the  numerous cutaneous  vessels,"—and
then goes on to infer from the lowered temperature of
the breath, the  loss of dryness  in the  mouth, and of
redness in the tongue, and the disappearance of thirst,
that a similar or identical  condition,  the result  of
  * It is universally acknowledged that the warm bath promotes
sleep.  See  Bell on Baths and Mineral Waters, p. 237, where he
makes some remarks tending to confirm the above hypothesis, with.
out saying a word of electricity. See also Dr. J. Coffin on Bathing,
with regard to effect of tepid  baths, and pp. 39 and 43.  In such
reasoning we are not, of course, to forget that there is conjoined  the
sympathetic effect upon the whole system consequent upon the pecu-
liar relaxation of the skin, which it is one of the properties of water
" as a substance" to produce.  Vide, again, Marcard, " De la Nature
ct dc 1'Usage des Bains." 
28
WATER VS.
sympathy, takes place in internal organs.   To a cer-
tain  extent no doubt this  is true,  as  the  sympathy
between the skin and the viscera is strong; but, one
would ask, if the blood  be thus driven from both the
external and  internal parts, if all the capillaries be
thus  emptied, what becomes of the blood?   The heart
and  great vessels,  it  would seem,  must at least be
burdened.  Such is to a degree often the case;  and it
is perhaps the stimulus of this fulness and  distention,
or its action on the elasticity of those vessels and the
heart, that constitutes the reaction.  But another item
must be considered,  in order to maintain  the  possi-
bility of Bell's theory  being  correct.   Such  over-
loading of the heart and great vessels  by the  in-
gathering of the contents of all the great organs, and
of all the capillaries of the skin, would  be  dangerous
in every case, if the volume of the blood remained
the same.  Dr.  Bell  does not admit that even the
brain contains an unusual supply.   Indeed  he implies
that  the central parts of the circulatory system are
not repleted except at the first shock; " the heart beats
slower and feebler."  It is  plain then, that the blood
itself must contract with the contracting calibre of
the  capillaries, veins and  arteries.  An experiment
with blood  exposed  to  heat,  immediately after its
effusion, convinced me of the existence of this thermo-
metrical property.   But  it being admitted, the weight
of scientific  authority, as well  as of common  expe-
rience, or prejudice, is  still in favour of  the occur- 
HYDROPATHY.
29
rence of the repulsion of the fluid  from external to
internal parts in  the  cold  bath.   It  is a question of
some importance, as the  propriety and  safety  of
bathing in many cases depends  upon it.  Cannot the
fact that " the air which is expired  is no longer hot,
or even  near so warm as  common,"  and the  dimi-
nished dryness of the mouth, and thirst, be explained
by the diminution of heat, (which is actually abstracted,
and by no means driven in,) compatibly with increased
fulness of interior organs ?  The latter of course does
not produce its  usual effects of  excitement during the
abstraction of caloric, the only danger, except in the
very plethoric, being that  the fulness may remain in
some great organ when the bath is  removed, and the
common injurious influence of congestion may be ex-
erted.  The pressure is another element of which Dr.
Bell takes little notice.  We have already referred to
Dr. Arnott's estimate of this.   Personal  experiment
induces  me  to believe that  it is  important.*
   The general  character of the  influence of the cold
bath on  the economy, depends  much on the constitu-
tion and present condition of the individual, and on
the duration of the immersion.   With the robust and
 healthy, if this has not been long, on leaving the water
  * I have often observed that exertion in swimming, even when
moderate, produces a degree of cerebral congestion, (shown by head-
ache, vertigo, &c.,) in those who are liable to it, such as is brought
on by no common or even violent exercise out of the water.
                         3* 
30
WATER VS.
there follows what is called the " reaction."  As to
this, also, Dr. Bell appears to  go almost too far.   He
considers all that occurs to be precisely similar to the
gradual recovery of heat in spring,  by an  animal
which has been  torpid through the winter; that the
body on leaving the bath, is  merely restored by the
surrounding temperature, to  its previous heat, while
our  sensations, from contrast, represent it as being
increased with a feeling of warmth and glow.   He
supports this by a reference to Currie, who found
that the temperature  after emerging was not  raised,
indeed was actually lower than before the bath.  But
in Currie's  experiments, the  time of immersion was
in no case less than twelve  minutes, and in several,
was as  much  as thirty.  Here, and  in any  longer
time of exposure to the water, there is some analogy
to the re-calorification of the torpid animals, as well
as to the  slow warming  of  the boy  mentioned by
Edwards,  (Part IV. Chap, iii.) who  after immersion
in the water of  a frozen  river,  remained chilly for
three days.  The  assertion  is  correct  that  in  the
majority of cases, in  which the bather continues in
the  water for many minutes, what occurs on leaving
it, is merely the gradual recovery of former  tempe-
rature.  The error is, in  supposing  that cold  cannot
be applied for a short, and in  some  constitutions, for
a considerable interval, so as to be followed by what
more exactly answers to the name of reaction, a real
increment  of temperature at least  on the surface. 
HYDROPATHY.
31
May there not, again, even when this is not the case,
be a reaction as far as the distribution of the blood is
concerned ?   Can  it not happen that,  although  the
whole heat of the body is diminished, still the " collapse
of the cutaneous vessels," increasing as we believe
the flow towards internal parts, is followed by a re-
turning impulse, causing the amount of blood on the
surface to become greater?  The skin does often in
healthy subjects become  red  after cold immersion.
This every one must observe, as well as the frequent
actual increase of temperature after short  exposure.
Else why do some authors disapprove of the applica-
tion of cold to local  inflammations, of the eye, for
instance,  (M'Cormac,)  " because of the  reaction
which follows them ?"  Or how does long-continued
cold so often  produce  inflammation, on the restora-
tion of usual  heat?   Currie himself speaks of the
" sudden  and  powerful stimulus"  of cold  affusion.
Dr. Graves states that he has given up the use of  cold
lotions to  the  head, even when indicated, because in
the negligent  way they  are  usually  applied,  they
actually increase the heat of the part. Dr. Macartney
gives similar cautions against the mere sudden appli-
cation of cold in inflammation ;  which he says on
account  of the reaction, is by no means  sedative.
In two experiments which I instituted, however, the
result did not  accord entirely with my expectations.
A young  man in vigorous health, was immersed in a
bath at 55°  Fahrenheit, for two minutes.  The utmost 
32
WATER VS.
care being taken to insure a fair trial, the tempera-
ture under the axilla was then after drying, found but
a trifle, one degree, perhaps not to be counted, higher
than it had been before the bath.
  Common  opinion  certainly  is in  favour of  the
occurrence  of reaction after  the  cold  bath, in  the
healthy and vigorous, in a more positive  sense than
Dr. Bell allows.  Indeed, in Currie's  experiments, a
degree of such action  was  observed while in  the
water. In all his trials the thermometer placed under
the tongue on first entering the water,  sank  from
about 98°  to about 88°, and then rose again gradually
to about 95°.  In one instance where fear added to
the influence of the cold, after sinking to 83°, it rose
to 92°; the immersion was protracted to thirty-two
minutes,  when after  having  remained  at  92°  for
thirteen minutes, the power of reaction seemed over-
come, and it fell  rapidly, in  three  minutes reaching
85°.  This, it  may be remarked, points to the only
sure way of obtaining the locally sedative effects of
cold; to  apply it steadily to  sufficient  degree  and
time to overcome reaction. As far as  redness- is con-
cerned, I have  proved this by hundreds of trials on
a local inflammation; and to  my own satisfaction as
to temperature also, in  this way as well as by the
effects of  the cold douche applied  for a  shorter or
longer time,  in  temporary increase of the  heat of
the  cranium.   The  idea  of  reaction pervades  all 
HYDROPATHY*
33
our reasoning upon  the changes, morbid as well  as
healthy,  in the excitement  of the body;  although
the nature of that reaction is not explained.  Some
hold it  to  be altogether  a  sui generis vital action;
they are those who  consider that  chemistry and
mechanics are to be banished from almost the whole
domain  of physiology.   The opposite tendency  to
this has become a more common fault in this century,
some of the most prominent investigators,* as Liebig
(Beitrage  zur Physiologischen, &c, Berlin,  1844,)
being accused of it.  This is an extreme to be care-
fully avoided ;  and  we may not  therefore suppose,
what might  else seem plausible, that a part of the
phenomena of reaction may be produced  by a  kind
of actual rebounding by virtue of the elasticity of the
heart and  great vessels,  into which the  blood has
been propelled with some  force  by the application of
cold to  the surface.  It is more reasonable to  refer
all that takes place to the  inherent laws of our bodily
nature, adapting it to its circumstances, by providing
that diminution of heat by extrinsic means, should  be
met by increased vigour  in the intrinsic  sources of
supply: the working of which law has been observed
since Hippocrates. " AS xoiXiai p^£iu,wvos xai tyos Ss£u,o<rarai

  The continued application of  cold,  as has  been

  * See also Magendie on the blood, for an instance of leaning to-
wards it. (p. 24.) 
34
WATER VS.
said, partly, or if very protracted and severe, entirely
overcomes the reaction.  Then—which is  the  state
of things most commonly desired and observed—the
action  of  the cold  bath is  purely  sedative.*  That
this, however, is different from some of the common
effects  of cold suddenly and temporarily applied, is
plain, as, for instance, when we  sprinkle  cold water
on the  face to revive a person from  syncope.  The
sudden impression here, like all sudden impressions,
is immediately stimulant to the nervous system.  It
is by striking a line, then, between the usual sedative
and occasional stimulant action of cold, that we may
see how the cold bath  has  been called, and properly
so, in some applications of  it,  a  tonic  (Forbes).  It
is  the  function  of  cold to  produce contraction, by
withdrawing caloric, the immediate opponent of co-
hesion.  Now, without attempting  to revive the old
hypothesis  of tone in organic tissue, we must believe
—for facts daily prove it—that there is a difference,
and one of importance to comfort  and  health, in the
degree of density, closeness, firmness, or, on  the other
hand, of looseness, flabbiness, relaxation of  the  skin,
of the muscles, and of other parts—shall we imagine
even of the nerves ?  Warmth and moisture, in many

  * Vide Magendie on the Blood, p. 46; and also  an article  by H.
L.  Hodge, M. D., in the North American  Medical and Surgical
Journal for July, 1828. 
HYDROPATHY.
35
circumstances, relax,  and moderate cold braces  up
—it is a common phrase and  a common sensation.
The termination of summer, and the first cold days,
are thus marked in those who in the warm weather
were weak  and languid.   Dr.  Bell would insist that
it is the abstraction of surplus  caloric that  acts thus
in all  cases;  but  is  it  those  only who abound in
bodily heat and general vigour who are thus braced
and innerved by cool air?  Not at all; the feeble
and nervous often  have the  same experience.  And
so with the cold bath ;  although a sedative, it is many
times a sedative tonic.  Or we  may prove its right
to the latter title indirectly in force of its certain effi-
cacy, by improving the condition of the skin, in giv-
ing the constitution the best opportunity to maintain
or regain its  due powers, and in consequence of  the
law already  mentioned,  that  abstraction of  heat, if
not excessive, calls forth more active exercise of those
organs interested in calorification.
   It were easy  to dilate on the warm bath; but it is
forbidden by the  already great  length of our essay.
Dr. Bell's remarks  upon it are  excellent.*   The same
may be said of the stimulant, diaphoretic, &c, powers
of  the hot bath, of  the vapour bath, douches, &c,
  * See also experiments on the warm bath, in an inaugural disser-
tation by Henry William  Lockette, of Virginia, 1801, in the first
number of the Maryland Medical Recorder. 
36
WATER VS.
which  may be again alluded to in speaking of some
of their applications.  It may be observed, in pass-
ing, that many persons  become  prejudiced against
the warm bath from having used it too hot.   The
warm bath should scarcely ever be above 98° Fahr.
The hot bath  is a decided stimulant; and of course
may be followed by sensations of debility, like other
stimulants,—or may produce headache, &c, when
an excitant was not called for. 
HYDROPATHY.
37
                  CHAPTER III.

Relations of Water to Hygiene—Death from drinking largely while
  heated, properly explained—Effects of substances in combination
  with water—Use of bathing.

   There is, at  present, in some circles, the voice of
fashion added to the many names of authority,  and
the many reasons a priori, in favour of  the use of
water as a universal drink.  In a periodical of 1831,
we find mentioned in its support the opinions of Pliny,
Boerhaave, Hoffmann, Haller, Zimmermann, Floyer,
Arbuthnot, Wallis, Leake, Cullen, Gregory, Cheyne,
Saunders, Faust, Parr, Pomme and Rostan  of France,
Cirillo and others  in Italy, &c. &c, as well as the
practice of Demosthenes and others among the an-
cients, and now of the  hardy Arabs of the desert,
and of millions in Asia, Africa, and the islands of the
Indian and Pacific  Oceans.   The  abundance  with
which the element is afforded in nature  would seem
to point to  its superior  adaptation  to our wants,—
although the fact that it is never, even in rain-water,
found entirely free from other ingredients, may tend
to  modify such a conclusion.    Those  ingredients,
however, can  give  no argument from nature for the,
                         4 
38
WATER VS.
propriety of the additions prompted by over-eager or
depraved taste;  and it does appear much most rea-
sonable to be satisfied with^he selection  made for us,
and to confine the use of other valuable substances to
times of disease and debility.  The u milk and water"
reo-imen is without doubt, as a general rule, that most
conducive to health and long life.
  Water exists  as  a part of many solid  articles of
our food, though in very various quantity; thus  the
fixed  oils or fats are nearly anhydrous, while turnips
and  cabbages  contain  more than 92  per cent, of
water.*  Wheat, according to  Boussingault, con-
tains  14-8 per cent.; fresh  meat, according to Beek-
man, 74-8  to 75 ; cows' milk,  87-02 ;  human milk,
87-98.  Count Rumford and others  have believed
that a part of its use is to  afford actual nutrition to
the solids.  Prout is of opinion that it decomposes
and gives its elements to the tissues only when com-
bined with other  principles, or when  in  a nascent
state.   Persons with weak stomachs,  it is said,
should not  use a great deal of  liquid food.  In cer-
tain conditions of  the system, again, the temperature
becomes a necessary consideration.   Says Beddoes,
 'Hygiene, vol. 2,)  " It is clear from one hundred in-
  ai»ces that  when  persons  are heated, the  sudden
 jse of cold water,  whether external or internal, to a
 certain  extent, will destroy life and  health."  He
* Pereira, 
HYDROPATHY.
39
goes on  to  caution ladies  against  " liberties  with
themselves"  in the use of cold water  " at certain
periods."  It is again  remarked, that " only  when
the chill of perspiration has come on, then  undoubt-
edly every medium capable of depriving the body of
warmth"  menaces danger.   And  I find  nowhere
better stated the philosophy of the matter than (vol.
2, pp. 43-5) in his words: " the effect of any  cool-
ing application should be considered as acting through
successive moments, or by successive quantities.   If
a person in a heated state, drink half a pint of cool
liquid, that may  not sensibly reduce him below the
natural healthy state.  But if he pour down a double
quantity at once,  the last  half pint  may be regarded
as operating  upon the system, reduced by the first,
and sinking it into a dangerous chilliness."  Christi-
son (on Poisons, p. 104)  asserts the most  common
form of death from this  cause to  be instantaneous,
from the impression on the stomach.  When com-
bined with exposure  to  a  burning sun, congestive
 apoplexy occurs along  with the gastric  irritation.
 An account by Dr. Watts is referred to, of instances
 in New York, in 1818.  The  symptoms were " very
 like  the  effects  of some narcotico-acrid  poisons."
 Sometimes they  were more nearly  allied to those of
 the pure irritants; as violent colic after drinking
 iced water.   Is  not  diarrhoea also occasionally  an
 accompaniment  of excess in  the use of ice-water in
 summer ?  Haller mentions a man who thus brought 
40
WATER VS.
 on symptoms of acute gastritis, of which  he died in
 fifteen  davs; the  stomach  was then found  p-anp-re-
 nous and  ulcerated at its fundus.   Cholera has also
 been referred  to the same cause.  A  case is given
 by Dr.  Duncan, of a man in  good health, who took
 a large draught of cold water on rising in the morn-
 ing ; soon went to  bed again with pain in the pit of
 the stomach, extreme anxiety, and incessant vomit-
 ing, and in twelve hours died.  No disease whatever
 could be detected  in the  dead body.  Poison  was
 out of the question.  Hoffman says he was acquainted
 with instances of fatal inflammatory fever induced
 by drinking too freely of cold  water, and a suspicion
 of poisoning in consequence excited.  But accidents
 of this  nature occur much most frequently in those
 whose stomachs and general forces have been  debi-
 litated by intemperance ;*  the  danger to a  healthy
person has been overrated.  And the fact, that en-
feebling habits increase the danger, joins with others
to  show, that it is not so much the heated as the
exhausted state,  in labourers and others, which is the
occasion of it.   It is what  Beddoes calls the " chill
of perspiration" and fatigue.  This is illustrated in-
directly  by Dr. Duncan's case.  The  condition of a
person just rising in  the morning, having  taken no
food or  drink, is much more analogous  to  a feeble
and exhausted  state than to that  characterized by
* See N. Am. Med. and Surg. Journal, October, 1830. 
HYDROPATHY.
41
 the  excitement  of excessive caloric.   Confirmation
 to this is  afforded by Dr. Davy, (Researches, vol. i.
 p. 201,) in concluding  an account  of some  experi-
 ments on the effect of violent exercise on the tempe-
 rature  of the body.  He observes, " there are,  on
 record, many instances of sudden death, from drink-
 ing  cold water, or from  plunging into cold water,
 after exhausting  fatigue, and when the body is com-
 monly said to be heated.  Probably in such cases, in
 conformity with the above  observations, the  tempe-
 rature of the body has been actually reduced below
 its  natural standard, taking the  tongue* as an index
 of the internal heat, and the  fatal effect may, in part,
 be  the consequence."   Dr.  Currie  (Reports, chap.
 xii.) took the same view.*
  In determining the effects of water  upon the sys-
 tem,  its quality is of consequence.—Cullen did  not
 believe much difference to  exist  between  common
 waters, nor that any were injurious whose  taste and
 smell were not striking.  Heberden, and  the large
 majority  of  others,  think   otherwise.  Heberden
 ascribes bronchocele to the waters where it prevails.
 Sharp (Letters  from Italy)  asserts that children are
 never born with bronchocele ; and the inhabitants of
  * The theory and  even practical directions of Dr. Rush upon this
subject, appear perhaps less philosophical than most other emana-
tions from his mind.  Yet they agree with the popular notion, and
are almost universally adopted.
                        4' 
42
WATER VS.
Steinseffeir in Schmiderberg, arc said by  Hoffman,
to have  freed  themselves  of it by  abstaining from
certain fountains.   The  plica  polonica of  the hair
in Poland and  Lithuania has  been in part ascribed
by Hoffman to impure water.   Dr. Mead  and  Van
Helmont mention  cases of colic brought on by cer-
tain waters.  Dr. Lister (Journey to Paris) observed
that  the  Parisians are peculiarly  subject to stone,
which Percival thought, although not altogether  to
be accounted  for  by the calcareous water, to  be  at
least  encouraged  by  it.   Says Sanctorius, " heavy
water and £ foggy air convert the matter of per-
spiration into an ichor, which, when retained  in  the
body, induces a cachexy."  The people,  and even
cattle, of Siberia,  near the  river Kirenga, which is
remarkable  for impurity,  Percival* affirms  to  be
almost universally scrofulous.  In Minorca, brackish
and hard water abounding, seems to produce a pre-
valence of enlargement  and induration of viscera,
and  disorders of  digestion ; and there also similar
affections are found  in  brutes.  The ancients,  ob-
serving this, examined the livers of cattle,  to test the
salubrity of a place where they proposed building  a
town.  They had  also other tests of water.  " Dam-
nantur,"  says Pliny,  " imprimis fontes quorum aquae

  * See Dr. Percival's essays (Warrington, 1788) for this and seve-
ral other facts and quotations. 
HYDROPATHY.
43
decoctac crassis obducunt vasa crustis."   Ovid  is
thus quoted, Metamorph., Lib. xv.:

       Cui non audita est obscenae salmacis undae,
       iEthiopesque lacus ? quos si quis faucibus hausit,
       Aut furit, aut patitur mirum gravitate soporem.

Celsus sums up thus: " Aqua levissima pluviatilis est;
deinde fontana, tum ex flumine, tum ex puteo;  post
haec ex nive,* aut glacie; gravior his  ex lacu;  gra-
vissima, ex palude."   Galen,  Avicenna,  and Lucre-
tius ascribed the elephantiasis  of the Egyptians to the
use of the waters of the Nile.   In this country, cases
frequently  occur of  persons   seriously affected by
drinking the water of limestone and other districts.
By changing from hard to soft water, Percival men-
tions two cases of cure of gravel.   Boiling  and filter-
ing, or distilling, he believed to be very useful in  such
cases.  Heberden and Lambe proposed  distilled water
as a substitute for common water generally, on ac-
count of the organic matter in the latter;  but distil-
lation does not remove all traces of this.  In calcu-
lous affections, as the oxalate of lime diathesis, this
process has been thought of use.   On  shipboard the
advantages of  distillation might be great;  they were
lon°- since suggested,—(mentioned by Jameson, 1788,
under the name of  Ogilby's process,—and  as treated
  * Celsus would thus seem to agree with Hippocrates in repudiating
the use of snow and ice-water; both probably from mere hypothesis. 
44
WATER VS.
of by Pouteau),—and recently (1841) urged by Cou-
lier.   The injury to  which water  is  liable  from its
mode of conveyance  is  an interesting subject.  Dr.
Percival, from an experiment with brick steeped four
days in distilled water, infers the impropriety of lining
wells with brick—from  the  combinations with alum
effected by the long exposure of the clay to the air,
" the  sulphureous exhalations of the pit-coal used in
burning it," &c. With others of the ancients, Galen,
and also Vitruvius, and later Neumann (on chemistry),
Falconer (on Bath waters), and Baron von Swieten are
referred to as condemning the transmission of water
through lead pipes.   Dr. Tronchin gave an account
of the colic prevailing in Amsterdam from the use of
water slightly impregnated with  lead.   In 1803, Dr.
Lambe published a treatise on " Spring Water," cau-
tioning against the  danger of lead pipes, and holding
up the idea that common water is not only a corro-
sive but a solvent of lead.  He includes spring water,
mentioning several instances.  Fourcroy asserts that
lead suffers no  alteration from pure water,  " yet the
sides of leaden  water-pipes are covered over with a
whitish crust, or a kind of ceruse, the production of
which," says he, " is owing no doubt to the various
matters contained  in the water."   Christison, on the
other hand, after careful investigation, lays  down the
rule  that water, to be safely carried through  leaden
pipes, should have  more than ^Vu of saline matter.
   Externally applied, the hygienic uses of water have 
HYDROPATHY.
45
an  importance not sufficiently  or  generally appre-
ciated.   It  has been  spleneticaliy  remarked,  that
physicians render a more certain and greater benefit
to the public by their study of the laws of health, than
by attempting the removal of diseases so often beyond
their control.   This is saying too  much;  but  it is
worth  considering how the  truth does  lie  as to  the
two spheres of usefulness.
   To justify the etymology  of his name, the " physi-
cian" should be, as " natural minister et interpres,"
bound  to promulgate all  those laws which concern
the maintenance as well as the restoration of health.
Were,  then, the subject of the hygienic uses of water
rarely  investigated, it would be worth while here to
study it in detail; but the ground has been already
so thoroughly trodden, especially in the work of  Dr.
Bell, (on  Baths and Mineral Waters,) that logical
completeness may  be sacrificed to an aversion to re-
petition and prolixity.   A mere  glance at some of
the leading points is all  that need be attempted.
   "Bathing,"  says Bichat,  "is  a  law  imposed by
nature upon all perspiring  creatures."   " I consider
bathing," remarks  Struve, speaking of  the  manage-
ment  of infants, "as  the  grand arcanum of  pre-
serving health."  From birth to  death, at any age, it
is almost a necessity,  not  only for the purpose of
cleanliness,  but to maintain the  healthy secretory
and excretory  functions of  the skin, and by sympa-
tic and connexion those of  the mucous  membranes, 
46
WATER VS.
glands,  &c.  " Les  anciens  rapportent  que Medee
employa.......les  bains chauds........Par leur
moyen elle rendoit la peau plus souple et les membres
plus agiles.  C'est pour ce la qu'elle pretendoit re-
jeunir les vieillards, et qu'elle  fut accusee de les faire
bouillir dans de grandes chaudieres."*
  To the bodies of infants, the  experiments of Ed-
wardsf  and  others  amply demonstrate the impro-
priety of applying frequent or  great  cold ;  it  being
shown that their amount of caloric  is less  than that
of adults, and that with each exposure to a low tem-
perature the power of evolving it is  diminished.  For
them the warm, tepid,  and cool baths are most ap-
propriate.   In adolescence the  cold  bath is  most
advantageous only where there is sufficient vigour to
produce  full reaction, and where it is not  forbidden
by  general or local plethora.    Too long-continued
immersion often lessens the benefit derived  from the
bath; and, observes  Beddoes,J " weakly people  every
day destroy themselves  by  going  into cold  water
when they are not sufficiently warm."  This author,
therefore, as well  as Jameson, A. T. Thomson, and
others, recommend gentle exercise,  short of perspira-
tion, before  immersion.   " For the  same  reason,"
Beddoes continues,  " I can see no sense in the  com-
mon notion that  it  is best to bathe with an empty
      * Cabanis, Du Degre de Certitude de  la Medecine.
      t Sur l'lnfluence dcs Agens Physiques sur la Vie.
      X Hygeia, by T. Beddoes, Bristol. 
HYDROPATHY.                  47
stomach.   I would  not recommend the cold bath to
a person full gorged ; but it is desirable that the sto-
mach  should  be in a state of gentle activity, as well
as the  external surface of the  body."  There  are
very many who have not vigour enough to bear with
advantage  a cold shower-bath before  breakfast; an
hour after it is usually a better time.
   Where  bathing frequently  is  not convenient, the
immense advantage of daily  cold sponging or ablu-
tion of the greater  part of the body, is as certain as
any thing in hygiene or medicine.   It  lessens exces-
sive sensibility of the skin, and thus  in fact of the
whole system, to slight impressions, keeps unclogged
the cutaneous follicles and ducts, and  thus  proves  a
most valuable prophylactic against catarrh, asthma,
and other  affections of the mucous membranes, as
well  as " nervousness," or what,  with Dr. Holland,
we would call "excess of nervous power,"—sensitive-
ness, and excitability.  Hundreds of instances might
be found where its  benefit was palpable;  and yet
how few are those  who  avail themselves of it, com-
pared  with those who are content with weekly or
even monthly ablution.*

   * Somewhat related to this subject, or at least to the habit of using
 only warm applications  to the feet, &c, are the following remarks of
 J. Hunter's.  " A habit  of uniformity in the application of heat and
 cold to an animal body renders it more sensible to the smallest varia-
 tion in either; while by the habit of variety, it will become in a pro-
 portionate  degree less susceptible  to all  such sensations.  This is 
48
WATER VS.
   From the frequent deficiency in the vigour necessary
 to insure perfect reaction after the cold bath, it would
 seem that, as a  general rule, the  tepid is the safest
 and best.   This is especially true of  the feeble  and
 aged;  although  instances  occur—I am  acquainted
 with one at least—of  men  at the  age  of eighty and
 upwards who use the  cold bath daily the whole year
 round.   According to the best authorities,  the warm
 bath should not be generally used simply as a luxury
 in time of health.  Hodgkin and others, however,
 think that its use is too much restricted to times of
 disease, and that it should  be a thing of every  day
 employment.  In case of great fatigue and  exhaus-
 tion, muscular or nervous,—as after a journey,  loss
 of a night's rest, exposure to cold, &c,—it  is very
 appropriate.   Indeed,  Bruce  avers, in his " Travels
 to Abyssinia," that " when overheated by violent ex-
 ercise,  a  warm bath  cooled him and renewed his
 strength much better  than  a cold one of the same
 duration."  The  hot bath, of  course, is never  proper
 in a state of health.  The Russians and Finlanders
 do, to be  sure, indulge in it or the hot vapour bath,
 qualified by a subsequent  immersion in snow or cold
 air;  but it is  very doubtful whether we should gain
 any  thing by  adopting their custom.   The  cautions

proved every day  by persons who are accustomed to clothe them-
selves warm. In these the  least exposure to cold air, though the
effect produced in the skin is not perhaps the hundredth part  of a
degree, immediately gives the sensation of cold, &.c." 
HYDROPATHY.                 49
necessary in the use of baths, general and local, and
their  impropriety  for  certain constitutions and cir-
cumstances, are well treated of in Dr. A. T. Thom-
son's  excellent book on the  " Domestic Management
of the Sick-room."
   Dr. Bell's*  ideas with regard to the advantage of
the cold bath in  visceral diseases  are peculiar,  in
conformity  with  his theory of the  blood  not  being
" driven  in,"  as usually supposed, by external cold.
Similar also is his light estimation  of the common
measure of always wetting  the  head  first on en-
tering a cold bath.   In sea-bathing this  can be, and
is, easily, done without the elevation  of  the heels  of
which he complains, by using " cold affusion" from a
bucket just  before  stepping into the surf.  Sea-bath-
ing has itself been a theme for volumes; but it can
find no room  in the present essay.   We are now  at
liberty to come at last  to what perhaps should be the
pith of our subject.
      * On Baths and Mineral Waters, p. 140-143, &c.
5 
50
WATER VS.
                 CHAPTER IV.

            Medical uses of Water—Diluents.

   The history of the use of water to some extent as
a  therapeutic agent  is without  date.   So  universal
and  abundant in its diffusion, so easy of access  and
of application, so obvious  in its  ministration* to the
wants and comforts not only of the healthy but of the
diseased among mankind, instinct and common sense
have led to its employment to some extent as a remedy
since the creation.  But the plain teaching of reason
in this as in other  cases has been often opposed and
frustrated by fanciful notions and prejudices; by the
idea that every thing connected with  disease is un-
natural, almost preternatural, and not to be acted on
by the same laws as those which  govern the body in
its ordinary states.  We occasionally meet even now
with persons,  not always ignorant, who would shrink
as from poison from the thought of giving a glass of

  * It must be again recollected here, that the design of this essay is
to oppose hydropathy, by a brief sketch of the real value of water  in
medicine, as put upon it by the profession, with the limitations de-
fined by the experience of ages. 
HYDROPATHY.
51
cold  water to  one in  the  heat of  a raging  fever.
Here instinct on the part of the patient often defends
him against such deprivation;  the nearest pitcher, or
as in a case I have heard narrated, the nearest horse-
bucket,  affording  the means of relief and cure, so
sternly denied by mistaken kindness.
   We  find that Hippocrates thought  the  subject of
drink and dilution one of importance; "£aov ir\rigov<f6at
#o<rou  ■>] citiou."   We may infer that he preferred warm
fluids generally in  disease, from some other expres-
sions about the effects of cold.  He  generally also
added to water some mild ingredient, as in his " barley
ptisan," or " eight parts of water to one of honey,
with  a little sweet wine and sometimes vinegar."
   And it may be incidentally here remarked, that it
would savour of quackery for any one to insist that in
all our use of so valuable an article as water we must
employ it, the simple monoxide* of  hydrogen, free
from  all other substances.   Nature  teaches the con-
trary ;  no such water is found,  such  can  with  diffi-
culty be manufactured.  We always find  added to it
portions of various matters; in springs, in rivers, and
even in rain.f   And this  addition  we should often
still further extend, for various  purposes,  as  for  in-

  * Vide Professor Hare, for this improved appellation.
  t Rain water has been found to contain carbonate of ammonia,
carbonate of lime, sulphate of magnesia, and other salts, though in
less quantity than other waters, besides chloride of sodium, chloride
of potassium, &c., oxide of iron and organic matter. 
52
WATER VS.
 stance, to humour and support the stomach: but this
 does not in the least detract  from the position that
 in  many, almost all these instances, it is  the water,
 acting mainly by virtue  of its dilution, to  which the
 great advantages are to  be ascribed.   This is true to
 a great  degree even  in  the  case of mineral waters.
 Says Hoffman, " The major  part of their  efficacy is,
 beyond all dispute owing to  the quantity of pure ele-
 mentary water  which they  contain."   Also Cullen,
 quoted by Jameson, (on  diluents,) " almost all kinds
 of  mineral waters,  whether  chalybeate, sulphureous,
 or  saline, have been  employed for  the cure of scro-
 fula, and seemingly with equal success and reputa-
 tion ; a  circumstance which leads me to  think, that
 if they are ever successful, it  is the elementary water,
 that is the chief part of the remedy."  Such was also
 the opinion of Dr. Holland, (Med. Notes and Reflec-
 tions.)*
  Asclepiades,  Celsus, and Galen, held rather arbi-
 trary, almost contradictory,  opinions on the subject
 of diluents.  They all denied drink  in  the  first days
 of fever,  relaxing  such  discipline when its violence
 had abated.  Celsus,  indeed, advises  most copious

  * Besides these, among others  Dr. Saunders, supported by the
testimony of writers with regard to the sameness of the action of the
waters of Malvern, Bristol, Lauch-Stadt, and the hot Caroline  baths
of Germany.  Says Dr. Bell, "In fine we are constrained to admit,
that there is hardly a disease cured  by mineral water that has not
been cured  or greatly mitigated by free potations of common water." 
HYDROPATHY.
53
use of cold water in the " greatest increase" of the
disease, " non ante diem quartam."
   Still later, Van Helmont allowed his patients entire
license in drinking.   Boerhaave writes in high praise
of the attenuating and diluting power of " pure water,
warm, just in the nature of the body," considering it
when taken in large  quantities, " the greatest  diluter
of thick blood;"  and Hoffman  recommends diluents,
" post sanguinis missionem," as the principal remedies
in fever.  Others, as Cardanus, T. Jameson of Eng-
land, Smith,  Hancock,  Currie,  &c, have  written
upon the subject, although it has  never  yet received
all the attention  it deserves.   It  is  said that even so
late as in the practice of our Rush, Kuhn and Physick,
it was, at least till toward the close of their career,
the common custom to deny cold water to the parched
lips  of their fever patients, and to  force upon them
warm herb  teas as  substitutes.  The advantage of
these in  some conditions is of  course  not denied.
Some excellent  remarks with regard to  the internal
use of water, will be found in  a  short  essay by Dr.
Holland.
   Of the external application  of water in  disease,
there is mention  in the works of the  Sage of Cos.  In
-spite  of the  denouncement* of cold already alluded
to, in the  very next  aphorism  we  find him, or the

  * Aphor. 17, to <f~i-J<v%£ov o-7ra.o-fx.0v;, Ttrnyovi, fjitk!to-fAov{,)czi ftya.
iri/gsTaJW.   And again, 20, Ekkhti to fAtv 4u^tfi0'' eTotxvoiJ's?, J'sgua
7ri£IO-KhHgUVSl, &C.
                        5* 
54
WATER VS.
work ascribed to him, recommending the affusion of
large quantities of cold water as a remedy for certain
cases of tetanus, and of cold  for hemorrhages, in-
flammations, &c, although he  reiterates what,  as  a
general rule, is  still recognised, that " <ra -^XP01' 0,ov
X'wv, xpuoVaXXof, <ru ov*]0£» croXe/xia." Galen decidedly ap-
proved of the use of cold externally in diseases.  The
Persian physicians, who are said to be followers of
Galen, Sir John  Chardin relates to be partial to cold
bathing in fevers.   Chardin himself  while in Persia,
afforded a remarkable instance of the success of the
practice. About the earliest modern work on the sub-
ject now extant,  we find to be an anonymous treatise,
" De balneis apud Graecos," 1533; between that date
and Floyer's, several were published, by Fumanellus,
Clivoli, Guintherus, &c.   Sir John Floyer* did much
toward the introduction of cold  bathing into  England,
as a remedy for various chronic diseases.   Cirillo of
Naples, De Hahn on the epidemic of Breslau, 1737,
Von  Hyde  on  the  surprising effects of cold water,
and  Samoilowitz, on the  plague at  Moscow,  1771,
are spoken of  as advocates of the  use of  water in
febrile affections. In 1791 Dr. Jackson, of the British
army, published an account of his success with this
treatment; Drs. Wright and Brandreth had experi-
mented still earlier, as had also Dr. Willis/j- and in

  * Vide Macartney on Inflammation, p. 184, &c, and Dr. Bell.
  t Dr. Reid, Practice of Med. p. 87. 
HYDROPATHY.
55
1797 came out Dr. Currie's " Reports," perhaps the
most important work on the  subject, and which is
properly spoken of, as " a sort of classical work in
medicine."  Dr. Thaer also performed some success-
ful  experiments with cold ablution, in Prussia, about
the year 1825.
  In speaking of the particular medical applications
of water,  the  most convenient arrangement will be
to abandon the division on the ground of tempera-
ture,  and,—after  a few remarks on dilution gene-
rally,—that also of external or internal application.
With regard to the warm bath, for instance, it would
be in vain to attempt to specify all the various cases
in which  it is employed: in children, especially, there
are few  complaints in some  part of the course of
which  it  is not a cornmon and a very proper  mea-
sure of auxiliary treatment,  if not  itself worthy of
being called remedial.
   On the subject of diluents, I have  found no better
reflections than those of Dr. Holland ; confirmed by
the earlier observations of T. Jameson (A. D. 1788).
The  latter  speaks of water as the basis of all dilu-
ents, and  proceeds to recommend them as indicated
in every  order of febrile affections, in inflammatory
diseases,  eruptive fevers, hemorrhages,—in fluxes
 and serous discharges, to supply  waste of fluids, and
wash off irritating substances; in nervous diseases,
 from their tendency  to  diminish excessive  " vital
 power;"  and, in some of the " diseases arising from 
56
WATER VS.
depraved habit,"  as  morbid  corpulency,  scrofula,
&c, ascribing  the reputation  of mineral waters in
the latter to the effects of the dilution principally.
  Dr. Holland calls water " the only diluent which
really concerns the animal  economy," and properly
questions whether its  use  as such  is sufficiently re-
garded  in  disease.  He considers  it often  advanta-
geous by the act of merely washing out  the alimen-
tary canal; an advantage  by no means " to be dis-
dained  from any notion  of its  vulgar  simplicity."
He believes that  in  many states of the  alimentary
canal, the free  use of water at stated times  produces
good, not to be attained by other and stronger reme-
dies.  The  maintenance of the healthy action of the
bowels is given as an  instance, and  still  more espe-
cially where the secretions or products of  digestion
become  vitiated.  In  some instances,  where often
and largely used, even so far as actually to alter the
state of  the secretory surfaces, by direct  application
to them.  These circumstances are mentioned upon
actual experience, as  in cases  of dyspepsia,* where
it is especially an object to avoid needless  irritation
to the system.
   In recommending in cases of acidity, the addition

  * In the attacks of pain, flatulence, &c, to which dyspeptics are
liable, as well as in some other cases of colic, sipping hot or boiling
water is often a good domestic remedy.  And still more frequently
will nausea and vomiting be relieved by chewing and swallowing
little pieces of ice. 
HYDROPATHY.
57
of carbonate of soda, he observes, " It is often more
beneficial  in  this way than  given in a smaller pro-
portion of liquid, a point connected with the action
of mineral waters, which  clearly influence  by quan-
tity and dilution the medicinal operation due to water
alone."  He  reminds us, in  reference to the forego-
ing uses of diluents, that the lining of the alimentary
canal is to all intents a surface, as well as  the  skin,
and capable  of being acted on in a somewhat simi-
lar manner.   And this remark is applied  not only to
the mechanical effects of the remedy, but also to the
conveyance   of cold to internal  parts,  which,  he
thinks, the simplicity of the  means,  or  false alarm
besetting  it, has caused to be too  much neglected.
As to temperature,  he  thinks we may  consult the
feelings and desire of the  patient.   The  second con-
dition under which diluents may be viewed, as alter-
ing certain  morbid  states of the  blood, Dr. Holland
considers one of more difficulty, and connected with
questions  in  physiology and pathology,  still under
active research.  The singular facts observed in the
Asiatic cholera* are alluded to, as showing the ex-
  * The following  are some of the results given by Andral (Ana-
tomie Pathologique, vol. i. p. 107):—"Sur un individu sain, le serum
du sang contient, sur 1000 parties, 906 parties d'eau; chez les cho-
leriques, on n'en  trouve plus que  854. D'un autre c6td, on a con-
state que, sur 100 parties, le sang des choleriques contient 66*8 de
caillot, pour 33-2 de serum, tandis que, dans le sang ordinaire, on
n'a pour la meme proportion de serum que 27'8 de caillot, cc qui fait 
58                  WATER VS.

tent  to which change may take place in the blood
under the influence of disease.   But, from considera-
tions with  regard to the rapidity of  absorption  and
the almost constant relation of excretion to imbibi-
tion, he  infers that we  have  little justification for
giving diluents with direct intent to alter the qualities
or proportions of the blood, independently of actual
experience.   Yet  that, on the  other  hand, we  have
reason from  the  same considerations to believe that
liquids may freely and without fear  be  given wher-
ever there is demand for them from the sensations of
the patient.  And this  conclusion, that we  may al-
ways safely make these natural feelings our  rule, be-
cause even if they are vitiated, nature provides the
remedy for any  excess,  he considers one  of great
practical importance.  But it appears to  me, that, in
some cases, we may even transcend this rule; that
cases must arise, where diluents, water at least, may,
like  other remedies, be given in greater amount than
inclination would suggest,  in  view of the  eftect, of
sedation,  refrigeration,  &c, to  be  produced.  The
objection to this may be the interruption to digestion,
caused by too great a mixture  of  water with the
food, lessening the  action of the gastric secretion;
but  this  can  obviously apply  only where it is given
at, soon  before or soon after a meal.  Let a time be
une difference de plus de moitie.  Le sang des choleriques contient
done moins d'eau que le sang ordinaire." &c. 
HYDROPATHY.                   59
chosen, as far as possible distant from that  of taking
any considerable amount of  food, and I  have  no
doubt a great deal  might be done where  refrigera-
tion, dilution, &c, are  needed, without any risk of
injury to the digestive  function or organs.  It is il-
lustrated by what occurs in conditions not amount-
ing  to  actual disease.   In such  conditions, I have
observed it  over  and over again.  And long before
the-days of  Friar Tuck, as well as  so far into the
age of temperance as  to be  within  the memory of
some of the present rising  generation, the plan of
that worthy to clear for action a head rather turbid
from free potations of wine, has  probably often been
adopted.   Large  draughts from  other wells besides
that of his favourite  saint, have similar effects.*
   To  return to Dr. Holland.   To the rule before
mentioned, he makes no  exception, even in the case
of diabetes,f and much  less still in malignant cho-

  * Speaking of the treatment of the insane, Dr. Conolly remarks,
" it should never be  forgotten in a lunatic asylum, when a patient is
noisy at night, that a copious draught of cold water is often a better
sedative than any medicine." (Reports of Asylum at Hanwell.)
  t The propriety of allowing entire license in drink in dropsy also,
is an interesting subject.   The majority of intelligent physicians is
now, I believe, in favour of very little restriction beyond the inclina-
tion of the patient; believing that a due  degree of dilution rather
promotes than  antagonizes secretion.  This was part  of the treat.
ment of Bacher in dropsy, for the secret of which he once obtained
from the French king a large sum of money.  Sir George Baker is
stated to have published some  cases in the London Medical Trans- 
60
WATER VS.
lera, and continues with some excellent remarks on
the effects  of diluents on the secretory and excretory
functions.  We dwell upon his essay, because of its
value, and because it  affords an admirable instance
to refute  those who would assert that the uses of
water are  neglected by professional men, and who
would ask preference on that account for a system
based upon  some of  these  uses alone.  As an  in-
stance of the  action  of this class of  remedies, he
mentions that  in  the  kidneys the proportion of the
lithates or other saline ingredients, removed through
these organs,  may  be augmented by a  large  and
rapid passage  of water through them, and the skin,
he asserts, may be  very similarly affected.  " It is
probably  in  this  indirect  way  that  diluents  have
greatest influence upon the blood ;  and here we find
the best explanation of their utility  in certain ca-
chectic  cases."  Something too, he thinks, is gained
by mechanical effect on secreting tissues;  removing,
by copious passage of fluid, a condition which some-
times occurs of less  permeability  than exists  in  a
state  of health.   The  alterative effects of mineral
waters in large quantities  are again  referred to as
illustrations.

actions, " where the patients were recovered from a most dangerous
state by a quantity of diluting drink."  Also, twenty  experiments,
confirming the same practice, were described by Dr. Home, of Edin-
burgh. Dr. Milman asserts that "those medicines are fruitless with-
out drink, which, with its assistance, often succeed very happily." 
HYDROPATHY.
61
  Excellent  rules for the  administration of water,
cold at least, will be  found in Dr.  Currie's reports.
(vol. i. p. 77.)  However questionable  his theory of
the " stricture of the capillaries," and his application
to affusion of the term  " stimulus" may appear, his
practical precepts, with  regard to both the internal
and external use of cold water, are  as sound and
safe as any that could be given.
6 
62
WATER VS.
                 CHAPTER  V.

Use of water  internally in fever—Cold  affusion—Douche—Hot
    applications for headache, influenza, &c, by Dr. Graves.

   So abundant is the evidence of the value set upon
water as a remedy, that were I simply to  copy the
notes I have  made  upon  the subject from  practical
writers, it would  overpa'ss  the  limits  which  should
properly belong to  this essay.  For this  reason, and
from want of time to make the best arrangement,
we shall first attend to some of its more important
and interesting applications, and  then, in general, be
restricted to no definite order of enumeration.  The
great object is to  show to how  many purposes water
may be  applied, and has  been, and is, applied  by the
profession.
   Of the warm bath, it has been already said, that
it were  useless  to  attempt to detail all the cases  in
which it is useful.   Taking up a recent work on the
diseases of children, I found scarcely  an exception
to the rule, that in every affection, at some  stage  or
other, it was recommended.  Some cases, however, 
HYDROPATHY.
63
where it is especially serviceable, may be mentioned
incidentally  as we proceed.
  It is  in fevers,  inflammations, hemorrhages, and
nervous affections, that, as a general  rule, we find
the aid of water in its various  modes  of use, most
frequently of importance.   Currie remarks, that even
before  his time, Smith  had proposed it  as an almost
universal  remedy,  and  Hancock  had written his
" Febrifugum  Magnum ; or, Water the  best cure for
Fevers, and probably for the Plague !"  In  it, " the
internal use  of cold water in scarlet fever, small-pox,
and measles,  and instances of  the  efficacy of this
simple  means to restore repelled eruption, and bring
on  sweat,"  were pointed out.   The first of the dis-
eases thus  mentioned,  is that  which,  in  connexion
with this remedy, has perhaps attracted the  most at-
tention.  Yet in other forms of fever, especially since
the time of  Dr. Currie, it has been extensively used.
The first trial which this  practitioner made with it,
after encouragement from the success of Drs. Wright
and Brandreth, was in a " contagious fever,"  which
broke out in 1787, in the Liverpool Infirmary.  Seven
patients, on whom  cold affusion was employed, all
recovered.  He was cautious  not to  venture on it
where the strength was greatly  exhausted.   In 1792,
it was tried in a  " typhus or jail fever," in  the 30th
regiment, stationed near,  or in Liverpool.  Of 58
cases, in 26 the attack seemed to be cut short by the
cold affusion.  Here again it was only  resorted to in 
64
WATER VS.
 those " whose heat was steadily above the tempera-
 ture of  health," and  whose strength was not ex-
 tremely reduced.  Seven other cases of fever, in the
 years  1790, '91, '92,  are next mentioned, where  it
 proved completely successful.  He also mentions the
 "tepid"  affusion (87° to 97°), as  used  in those  fe-
 verish  affections  where  the  morbid  actions  are
 weakly  associated,  &c,  believing  that  the tepid
 lowers the  temperature of the  body  as  speedily as
 the cold water, because of the  greater evaporation,
 and because the tepid affusion is little, if at all stimu-
 lating, and does not, like the cold  affusion, rouse the
 system  to those actions  by which  heat  is evolved,
 and the effects of external cold are resisted.  Yet he
 prefers it principally in children.   For  the manner
 in which  he employed the remedy, at both tempera-
 tures, and rules concerning its propriety in different
 cases, stages, &c, we refer to the  4th  chapter of his
 1st volume.   There  could be little  danger of harm
 resulting  from the  practice, and much good would
 be attained by it, if these rules were always carefully
 adhered to.   His great principle is, that the time for
 the external application of cold water is, " when there
is no sense of chilliness present, when the heat of the
surface  is steadily above  what is natural, and when
there  is  no  general or profuse  perspiration."   The
same rule he applies, by the way, to its internal use.
In his  second volume, published six years  later, far-
ther cases  of  typhus,  besides  other diseases, are 
HVDROPATHY.
65
given, with some in which the practice was less suc-
cessful.   He  had then received accounts of its suc-
cess in  different  parts of Britain, on shipboard, and
in warmer climates; and of its  failure in the yellow
fever in Philadelphia, in 1793; there,  however, on
different and less correct principles, in the practice
of Dr. Stevens and Dr. Rush.
   Of other authors, in retrospect, the abundant inter-
nal administration of cold water at a certain stage in
fever, by Celsus, has been already mentioned, and will
be again, under another  head.
   Boerhaave  has also  been  spoken  of as thinking
highly of diluents,  esteeming water  as  the greatest,
but preferring them warm, " because," in his strange
theoretical language,  " cold water heateth more, be-
cause it rather fastens  the stimulation;  contrary to
hot  water."   He recommends "diluters" in  fevers,
among  other complaints.   He also speaks  of  the
use of the " steam bath"  in fevers.
   From the nature of the  sthenic theory of Brown,
we  might infer,  that in many fevers he  could  not
approve of cold, and perhaps hardly of diluents at
all, certainly in " fevers of the torrid zone, where in-
direct  debility exists;" and of course in  low fevers
every where, he disapproved of affusion, and proba-
bly  of  free  ablution.   Of sthenic or inflammatory
diseases, fevers included, he avers of cold, that " it is
sufficient to cure them all."
   In the work of Jameson already quoted, authorities
                        6* 
66
WATER VS.
are referred to on the use of diluents in fevers, &c.;
among them Dr. Huxham, who  says, that in  the
" nervous fever" the patient should drink frequently ;
" though  such quantities  may not be necessary as in
the ardent  or even  the putrid malignant fevers, yet
they should  be  sufficient  to carry on the work of di-
lution."   A curious  case is related by Beddoes (Hy-
giene, vol. ii., p. 48), illustrating the action of cold
affusion in some cases.   " On  a journey  into  the
Highlands, in 1787, the author happened to pass two
nights at a small inn by the river Tummel.  A low
fever raged throughout the country, and among seve-
ral persons ill in the house, a maid-servant was dis-
tinguished by the violence of her symptoms.   It was
the sixth day of her disease.  The author, after ex-
amining her situation in  the  morning, ascended the
Schehallien, and on  his return was surprised at hear-
ing that this girl was nearly well, all but weakness.
In her delirium she had  uttered a desire for water,
which being withheld, she  had crawled, during  the
absence of attendants, to  the brink of the river, from
which she  immediately  perceived a herd of cattle,
with the drovers? at some distance, on their way to
cross the bridge.  The sight induced her to make for
the water, in hopes  of  concealing her  nakedness.
She waded up to her middle, and leaned against  a
fragment of rock.  Nor was it till one of the drovers
turned his horse towards  the inn, that she was disco-
vered in this position; and it was believed that  she 
HYDROPATHY.
67
had occupied it not less than  five minutes.   Her de-
lirium  was  gone, and  the symptoms of fever had
quitted  her."   Dr. Baynard, he continues,  among
other equally singular  and apparently authentic ex-
amples, relates that of  a young man ill of the  small-
pox, who escaped into  a pond,  and had his  attack
thus broken off.
  In Abyssinia,  according to Bruce, cold water, in-
ternally  and externally, is commonly used in their
violent  fevers.   In Egypt, they  are said to use the
cold bath towards the decline of the fever;  which, in
debilitating  attacks, we could not suppose often safe,
unless, as Dr. Bell remarks, we reflect that  probably,
in that climate, the water  seldom falls, as a general
rule, below  an almost tepid condition.  The Italians,
at one time, made very free use of water,  even  cooled
with ice, in fevers.
   But  early in point of time, as well as of  interest
and importance,—according to Currie,  the first  in-
troduction to notice of cold ablution in Europe,—was
its use in an epidemic  fever  at Breslau,  in 1737, de-
scribed  by De  Hahn.   This  author was  himself
attacked with the disease, and ascribes his recovery
chiefly to this treatment.  With other patients, also,
he  had  considerable  success,  although, as  Currie
remarks, his use of the remedy was not governed by
as safe rules as that of  the latter.   He continued the
application  of cold for  a longer time, and  employed
it, as in his  own  case, so late as the fifteenth day of 
68
WATER VS.
the fever, and  when  the  body was shivering and
covered with cold sweat.
  Of later date Dr. Reid, writing of fever, avers that
" there is no method, so far as our observations have
gone, which seems to exert so decided an effect in con-
trolling the succession  of morbid phenomena in the
body as the action of  cold  water;  and it is only to
be regretted that popular prejudices are so  strongly
marked against it as to prevent its employment more
universally."  He never used it externally after the
sixth day of fever, confining himself in the advanced
stage to tepid sponging.   Dr. Southwood Smith (on
Fever, p. 411), in relating a case, where the cerebral
affection was marked, and  the general heat  high,
after large  general and local bleeding, uses  the lan-
guage : " Recourse was  had to a  measure  the effi-
cacy of which is  but little known and less appre-
ciated;  a remedy, the  power of  which is second
only, if under some  circumstances it  be  not  even
superior, to that of the lancet; a remedy which can
never supersede the lancet, nor dispense with it, but
which, when added to it, forms by  the combination a
treatment so powerful  and  efficacious, that  it might
render death, from the acutest cerebral inflammation,
as rare as  recovery is at  present.   This remedy is
known by the name of the cold dash.  It consists of
pouring a column of cold water upon the head  in a
continued stream, from a height of from six to ten
feet."  He adds: " After the patient has been wiped 
HYDROPATHY.
69
dry, which  he should  be  as soon as possible, and
placed in bed, the symptoms may soon return  in all
their violence.  The same process will again remove
them, and  as often as the former recur, the  latter
must  be repeated.   Three  or four repetitions will
commonly  suffice to subdue the most intense  cere-
bral affection."
   In fever of violent excitement, in warm or tem-
perate climates, and when decided local complication
is absent, McCormac  (Methodus Medendi) approves
of  cold affusion.  But in the more ordinary cases,
he  prefers  cold or tepid aspersion.   Jackson, he
says, directs water to be taken fresh from the spring
or open sea, and poured over the head and shoulders:
but Frank  the son has  seen  the  surpervention of
pneumonia from the careless employment of asper-
sion.  Warm baths, again he remarks, are  advised
by some, but  Frank and Omodei both discountenance
them as productive of needless exhaustion and agita-
tion.  McCormac  would resort  to them after con-
valescence as a means of cleanliness.   On ordinary
occasions  Roupell  (on Typhus),  considers cold affu-
sion unadvisable, but advantageous at certain periods
of the year,  and in warm climates.  As a modifi-
cation of the plan,  he  prefers  sponging, adhering to
Currie's rule with regard  to the temperature of the
patient, and avoiding the  general application of cold
altogether where pneumonia is present, or the  mucous
membranes are inflamed.   Yet its local employment, 
70
WATER VS.
he observes, may be allowable  in  certain instances,
as when the serous  membranes are inflamed, or the
meninges  excited.  For the headache  which is  a
very early symptom in typhus, he considers the local
use of cold  decidedly beneficial.   Cold internally in
the way  of drink,  is  ardently desired, and  may be
freely allowed.   " There can be no objection even to
iced liquids  in the early stages."  " Nothing is more
agreeable  than  cold water, or toast water, which is
the usual beverage of my patients."  Mackintosh, in
continued fever, directs fomentations of the abdomen,
and if the body be  hot, sponging with  cold  or tepid
water, as may be most agreeable to the patient.   In
inflammatory fever, he believes the prohibition of cold
drinks to be  injudicious, and that they may in general
be allowed to gratify themselves in this respect.  In
a work on typhus, by J. T. Hernandez,  who espouses
the Brunonian theory, we find the following:  " Les
bains chauds comptent parmi les  meilleurs  moyens
de  traitement du typhus nerveux.   Leur  action est
prompte et  gene'rale; mais  il ne  faut  les employer
qu'en temps opportun, &c."  " Us sont principalement
tres utiles quand une grande excitation spasmodique
est repandue sur les systemes lymphatique et dermo'ide,
dans la. complication lymphatique de ce typhus, lors
qu'on doit  favoriser l'eruption  d'exanthemes  aigus
ou  la rappeler, lorsque l'on  veut amener des sueurs
favorables et critiques.   Leur utilite dans ces cas, est
tres  grande, leurs  bons  effets sont  tres  multiplies. 
HYDROPATHY.                 71
Us  seroient nuisibles lorsqu'il  y a  des  obstructions
anciennes dans les visceres  abdominaux, des disposi-
tions a. des hemorrhagies uterines ou d'autres parties,
des  derangemens  gastriqucs  marques."  (p.  430.)
Marshall  Hall, treating of " typhus fever," advises
that the skin should be occasionally sponged with
water  or spirit, which  should be  used cold  to the
head, and warm to the  extremities.   He  prefers
giving drinks in small quantities, and repeating them
frequently, to  allowing large draughts " which op-
presses the patient without removing the thirst, ac-
cording to his experience."  Says  Dr. Christison on
the treatment of continued fever:  "Cold is an ap-
proved means of subduing excitement  in the early
stages; and  it may be  employed advantageously in
many shapes; such as  cooling  drinks,  cool air, and
ventilation,  cold  affusion,  cold  sponging, the  cold
douche,  and  other  modes  of applying cold  to  the
head."   In continued fevers of every type, however,
cold drink is longed for by the patient, and is pro-
perly allowed, but under two restrictions ;  first, that it
shall be given in moderation at each draught, to pre-
vent disorder of the stomach being  induced;* and
secondly, that when  diaphoretic crisis  seems to ap-
proach or has commenced, cold shall be exchanged
for warm drink.   "Patients," he  observes, "in the

  * Were all practitioners equally cautious with tartar emetic, as a
febrifuge, more harm would be obviated than can arise from disregard
of the above rule in the case of water. 
72
WATER VS.
early stage of fever, are extremely capricious in their
choice of drinks, and the physician should be prepared
to indulge them with variety.   But when the first
week is over, or even earlier, all medicated  drinks
are commonly loathed, and  spring water  and soda
water alone relished."  Similar to this  is the expe-
rience of Dr. Chapman, who  except when needed for
diaphoresis, &c, particularly, discards the herb teas,
formerly so constantly given, believing  that,  " Cold
water is the best drink in fever."
  Doubting the general applicability of cold affusion,
either for mitigating  or cutting  short reaction, Dr.
Christison remarks, that cold sponging has with great
advantage been substituted for it.  By this, faithfully
persevered in, he thinks there  are few fevers in which
the patient's comfort is not essentially improved.   In
case of deficiency or irregular distribution of heat  or
great nervous exhaustion,  tepid sponging only is  to
be employed.  He also speaks favourably of the cold
douche of the head, wet evaporating cloths, and the
ice bag.   Dr. Graves  (Clin. Lect. p. 320, &c.,) has
some very sensible remarks  on  this  subject.  He
believes that the cold affusion  in fever, as  recom-
mended by Dr. Smith, and practised" in the Charite*
Krankenhaus  at Berlin, is a most certain and ex-
cellent, and energetic  remedy, and regrets the want
of apparatus for applying it:  but, infers from the
prejudice against it, caused by its  abuse at the time
when indiscriminately used in scarlatina, and from 
HYDROPATHY.
73
the proper apparatus*  being seldom at the command
of the physician, that  its utility must be at least for
some time, limited to  public institutions;  indeed, in
most cases, he thinks we may do very well  without it.
   On the whole, this is perhaps the most correct con-
clusion, as far as regards the cold affusion, although
this in some cases must be a very  useful remedy,
cautiously and discreetly employed; but by no means
could  such an  inference  rightly be extended to cold
and tepid sponging, or the  local application of the
douche (to the head, &c).
   Dr. Graves  goes on to  dilate on the  difficulties
attending the success of the application, even of cold
lotions.  These, he says, act as powerful refrigerants
if constantly repeated, so as to keep the part below
the  standard temperature of the body.  But  instead
of this, " the nurse applies the lotion and then perhaps
drops asleep, &c, &c," and in this way he thinks the
heat of the part is actually increased by the reaction,
rather  than  diminished.   He consequently  prefers
fomentations, frequently repeated, of vinegar  and hot
water, to the temples.
   The latter  suggestion is  interesting and  useful,

   » Very little ingenuity is needed to prevent inconvenience from
want of apparatus.  With a bath tub and hydrant provided, an old
piece of tin pipe, a few square inches of India rubber, and an aneuris-
mal  needle, threaded with twine, to join the latter two together, a
douching apparatus was obtained, to which the writer has been at
times indebted, perhaps as much as to any thing else, for the enjoy-
ment of perfect health. 
74
WATER VS.
though  not at all, we  should  suppose, as a general
substitute for cold.  He observes that physicians em-
ploy warm  applications  for the relief of headache
and cerebral symptoms,  much less frequently than
they ought.   In  some cases of determination to the
head in fever, with intense headache,  delirium, and
restlessness, he affirms that cold applications will give
ease; in others, most relief is obtained  by fomenting
the head with water, as hot as it can be borne.  The
idea of this was  first communicated to him in 1833,
by  Mr.  Swift,  who noticed  its value accidentally,
while washing his face with warm water, at a mo-
ment when  labouring under severe headache.  He
was induced to try it in  the headache of influenza,
with the most satisfactory results.  In the influenza of
1833, in which one of the most remarkable symptoms
was intense  headache, accompanied by debility, and
not  amenable to ordinary modes of depletion, he
found that  hot water to  the forehead,  temples, and
back of the head, gave great and almost instantaneous
relief.   Dr. Oppenheim of Hamburg had  also dis-
covered the  same thing.   Dr.  Graves seems to con-
sider this an entirely new practice ; and I do not know
that it was  ever  common, but  I have found  at least
one  instance where  similar means had  been used
before.*   It  occurs in a work on blood-letting  in
fever, 1816, with  cases, by Dr. Mills of Dublin, one

    * Vide, however, aphorisms of Hippocrates, for the first. 
HYDROPATHY.                 75
of the physicians to  St. George's Hospital.   In the
third  case of his supplement, (p. 225,) the following
prescription occurs; there had been restlessness and
low delirium, &c. " Abradatur capillitium et foveatur
caput aqud tepida et aceto."  The  patient expressed
himself relieved  by it.  It is  singular how long the
simplest remedial means may remain neglected, when
if once revived, every one is ready  to  see  its ad-
vantages.
   Dr.  Stokes approved  of cold  applications  to the
head  in  fever;  with  regard to drinks, he observes
that there is sometimes  a desire  for cold, and at
others for warm drinks. " You may allow the patient
to drink cold water ad libitum.  Many persons are
afraid of doing this; but it never does  any harm, and
is a  source of  great refreshment to the  patient."
When there is  great thirst and vomiting they fre-
quently give  ice in the Meath Hospital.  " The re-
medy in fever," says Dr.  S., " with gastric irritation,
is of great value."  Elliotson  considers cold affusion
proper when the temperature is steadily above 98°
&c, but not finding these conditions in his patients,
he only uses cold, and in some cases tepid ablution,
with  cold to the head, &c.   Watson (Practice, p.
857)  believes,  that the  cold affusion is not  more
effectual in cutting fever short than emetics ;  while it
fatigues and alarms the  patient, and where the vital
powers are  feeble may have injurious consequences.
But the  cold or tepid sponging of the  surface, he 
76
WATER VS.
thinks, may be often of great use in abating the morbid
heat, and soothing the uneasy feelings of the patients;
the  propriety of it being determined by the feelings
of the patient, and it being best adapted to the most
inflammatory, and least to the more typhoid types of
the malady.*  In Dr. E. Bartlett's late work on typhus
and typhoid fever,  (p.  309,)  speaking of typhus,
he  says: " The agreement of opinion  and  practice,
in regard  to the external use of  water at different
temperatures, according to circumstances,  is  hardly
less  general than it is in  relation to the necessity of
purgatives.   Dr. Percival used the cold affusion es-
pecially in  the treatment of children; pouring several
gallons of cold water from a bucket  over  the head
and body,  *****  perhaps the process of ablution
or  sponging has  generally been  preferred."f   " Dr.
Gerhard says,  that  by frequent  sponging  he  found
that he  could  regulate the heat of the  surface with
  • The name of Hufeland  of Germany, is  among the important
omissions  in the above.  Vide, " Enchiridion Medicum."  " Abun-
dance of aqueous drink," is one  of his essentials in fever.   Dr. A.
Billing, (First Principles of Medicine,) is another who approved of its
external application, especially to the head, as of great consequence,
in typhus.  But to attempt to supply all would be a useless expendi-
ture of time.   Distinguished instances will be sufficient for our pur-
pose.
  t In an  article on typhus, extracted  in Bell's Bulletin, (December,
1844,) J. Burgess, surgeon, London, considers the  cold affusion to
have  " a specific agency in stimulating and strengthening the capil-
lary and exhalent vessels, and the vascular and nervous system, thus
giving tone to the  functions of the heart, &c, «&c, and restoring
transpiration." 
HYDROPATHY.
77
great ease, and in some degree, also could moderate
the  cerebral  symptoms."   After  mentioning  Dr.
Graves's preference of hot water fomentation, to  re-
lieve the  pain in the head, and  other symptoms of
over-excitement in the brain, he remarks that it is in
accordance with the extensive  experience  of  his
friend and colleague Dr. Dudley, in the similar treat.
ment of many local affections of a painful or  inflam-
matory nature.   This practice, by  the way, is sup-
ported by the analogy of many facts.  In toothache,
for  instance, I am told that hot water to the face
sometimes gives  relief, like other counter-irritants, by
determining the  blood  and excitement from the  in-
flamed part to the skin.*
   In connexion  with the above  may be mentioned
the  advantage derived in the practice of Dr. Stew-
ardson, in the Pennsylvania Hospital, from wrapping
the  limbs, in typhoid cases, (when cold and prostrate
especially, or deficient in perspiration,)  in  flannels
wet with hot or  warm water; and also Dr. Pepper's
preference for sponging  in typhoid or typhus, of the
addition  of solution of  chloride of  soda  to simple
water.  Chomel used  the same means, besides the
internal use of the chloride.
   We are told by Dr. Bartlett (p. 156), that in typhoid
 fever the  most effectual  refrigerant, in  the  hands of

   *  In some gastric diseases, also, practitioners have found fomenting
 the  epigastrium with water as hot as could be borne, the best of
 measures.  And see again Graves's Clin. Lect. p, 405.
                         7# 
78
WATER VS.
 Dr. Nathan Smith, consisted in the free use of water
 externally.   He  is very warm  and decided  in  his
-commendation of this remedial  measure.  He says
 that there is nothing  else so powerful  in  allaying
 morbid heat of the surface, in diminishing thirst, and
 in quieting restlessness and agitation.  He directs the
 body of the patient to be uncovered, and then to be
 sprinkled, or dashed, repeatedly, with pure cold water.
 He allows cold water for drink, as freely as the patient
 may desire, during the whole course of the disease.
 In the opinion of Chomel, simple and benign cases of
 typhoid fever may be safely  trusted, says Dr. B., to
 refreshing drinks, such as lemonade, currant-water,
 orange-water, or pure water,  taken at short intervals,
 and in such quantities as the patient may desire; and
 besides  other similar means, sponging the body with
 vinegar and water or cold affusions, if the skin  is hot;
 cold applications to the head, when this is the  seat of
 the  pain, &c.    Again  (p.  164):   To control  the
 hemorrhage from the bowels, Chomel recommends
 iced water for drink,  in injections, and applied upon
 the abdomen, &c, &c.   With regard to the chloride
 of soda, externally and internally, he finally confessed,
 in the Lancette Francaise, that his hope of it had not
 been realized.  Louis, in the same disease (B. p. 168),
 aided bloodletting by suitable drinks, emollient  ene-
 mata, &c.  Gum  and Seltzer water " should be given
 in large quantities, as freely as the patient  may de-
 sire."  When the delirium is violent, he sees no  ad- 
HYDROPATHY.
79
vantage in the application of ice to the  head.   No
mention is made of his having tried the cold douche,
which Dr. S. Smith preferred to ice.  It certainly has
advantages over it;  its effect is more easily regu-
lated ; and, according  to  the  experience of Dr. Jo-
seph  Hartshorne,  too long continued  application of
ice may produce positively injurious consequences in
the brain.
   The practice of  Drs. Physick and Parrish  was
governed  by the same moderate rules  as the best of
those above quoted.   Perhaps, unless at a later period
of his life, Dr. Physick  was the more cautious in the
use of external cold; but Dr. Parrish  approved en-
tirely of the principle, with the restrictions of Currie.
And last,  though very far from least, in the long cata-
logue, we may speak of the  opinions and experience
of Professor Chapman.   His preference, as a general
rule,  for  cold  water as a drink  in fever, has  been
mentioned.  Besides  the  measures advised  by  so
many authors, he insists, with  more stress than any
other I have met with,  on  the  frequent value of cold
enemata.   Dr. Currie used and advised these.  They
were used I think  by  Dr.  Hahn,  at  Breslau.  Dr.
Rush (Inquiries, vol. ii., p.  155)  employed them in
yellow fever.  But comparatively few* treat of them

  * Chomel  has been mentioned before as  recommending ice-water
injections for the  hemorrhage from the  bowels  in typhoid fevers.
Dr. Williams, of St. Thomas's Hospital, Watson affirms to have at
one time relied much on  warm  water enemata.   Dr. E. Miller, of 
80
WATER VS.
at all.  Even Dr. Holland, with all  his appreciation
of diluents, says nothing of their introduction by the
rectum.   They are, perhaps, less frequently applica-
ble in continued than in the  hot stage of intermittent
and  remittent  fevejs;* and there  is always great
caution  needed,  that  they be never  tried except
where there is  present considerable vigour, heat, &c.
   Another point of treatment  which  Dr. Chapman
approves, and  which  is  not very frequently spoken
of, is the application, when locally indicated, of cold,
even  ice, to  the epigastrium.   Dr.  Bell,  indeed,
(Stokes's  and  Bell's  lectures,)  and  some other au-
thors,  recommend it,  and Dr.  Graves  does not see
why cold should be so  much more applied to the cra-
nium than to the other great cavities of the body: he
however approves most commonly of warmth to all.
In a case of "  vascular and nervous irritation  of the
stomach with convulsion,"  narrated by Dr. S. Jack-
son,  in a journal of 1826, besides, after or with bleed-
ing,  cold affusion and  cold drinks, which " called
forth, from the patient, the most extravagant expres-
sions of the relief they  afforded  him,"  there  were
also  cloths  dipped in cold water applied  to the epi-

New York, (North American Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. v.,
p. 145,) disapproving of active sudorifics, substituted water at various
temperatures, and,  among other modes, by injections into the bowels.
  * Perhaps all these remedies are most demanded in the very hot
fever which so often presents, even in common intermittent.  Gian-
nini was warm in commending this application of the cold affusion. 
HYDROPATHY.
81
gastrium.   He was convalescent in two  or three
days under this and a little other  treatment.  I have
no doubt, from the obvious utility of it, that the ap-
plication in question, of cold to  the epigastrium, is
much  more common in fevers than would  appear
from  the  books I  have consulted.  Warm  and  hot
water, in the form of fomentation, &c, to  the same
part or the abdomen, is a means which probably the
great majority  of writers would approve, when par-
ticularly indicated by the symptoms.   The foregoing
are but a  very few, selected almost at random, from
the host who have written favourably of the various
uses of water in " fever" only.   Would there be any
advantage in running through even a similar course
with  regard  to other diseases 1  None at  all: it
would merely spin out to unnecessary tedium, a dis-
cussion whose object has already been fairly gained.
The following  notices of authorities may, therefore,
be still more brief. 
82
WATER VS.
                 CHAPTER  VI.

Ablution in the plague—Yellow fever—Scarlet fever—Ice, &c, in
               cholera—Intermittent fever.

  In the  plague, which some consider only a modifi-
cation of a  high grade of fever, we need only men-
tion in addition the practice of cold  ablution, by Sa-
moilowitz, (History of the Plague in  Moscow, 1771,)
and its recommendation  by Drs. Falconer and Reid,
among others, besides the earlier work of Dr. Han-
cock  (Febrif. Magn., 1723)/
  In  yellow fever,  there  is a variety  of  opinion.
Currie, in his first volume, wonders that cold water,
externally and internally, had not been resorted to in
the fever of the West  Indies, and  remarks on  the
propriety, if it were, of using it in the early period
of the attack.   Before  his second volume had been
published, however, he heard of its  being tried, and
failing in Philadelphia, in the hands  first of Dr. Ste-
vens, and afterwards of Dr. Rush:  he explains this
by the incorrectness of the principles on which they
acted.  Dr. E. Stevens, of St.  Croix, had proposed,
in the fever of 1793, the cold bath every morning— 
HYDROPATHY.
83
even in a state of languor and lassitude,—in combi-
nation with " the tonic plan in its fullest extent"—
bark, Madeira, &c.  In a printed letter to the public,
the celebrated Hamilton, then  Secretary of the Trea-
sury, recommended this treatment highly, from expe-
rience in  his own case.  We  may well question,
however,  the certainty of his practice,  who, while
warning against " debilitating applications, or  pro-
fuse evacuations in any period," speaks of the  cold
bath  as of the same  class of remedies as bark and
wine.
   Dr. Rush,  (Inquiries, vol. ii. p. 126,) the  day after
his interview with Dr.  Stevens,  adopted  his whole
treatment, and with this result: " Three out of four
of my patients died, to whom the cold bath was ad-
ministered, in connexion with the tonic remedies be-
fore mentioned." He concluded, therefore, that these
means were not more effectual than others previously
used,  and  abandoned them.   Yet (p.  130),  in the
treatment  which  he  afterwards  adopted, and by
which he endeavoured to  remove the fears  of his
fellow-citizens, " assuring them that the disease was
no longer incurable;"  although in place of tonics, he
had substituted  blood-letting, purging, and  low  diet,
the only other  essentials were cool air, cold drinks,
and applications of cold water to  the  body.   And
again (p.  155), he speaks of cold water, by means of
napkins to the head, and clysters to  the bowels, as a
most agreeable  remedy in this disease.   It was, says 
84
WATER VS.
he, by suffering the body to lie for some time in a
bed of cold water, that the inhabitants of the island
of Massuah (Bruce's Travels) cured the most violent
bilious fevers.   The  vapour  bath also,  Professor
Chapman  informs us, was found of service in  the
yellow fever in this city.  In a late epidemic at  Gi-
braltar, cold lotions were  used when  the  skin  was
hot.   Of those who  approve of  cold  affusion or
sponging in  yellow fever,  there  need further  be
named  only   Larrey,  Marshall Hall, Mackintosh,
Shapter.  Louis  inquires whether " some disturbing
means might  not  be  employed in the first period,
when the heat is considerable, such as cold  baths or
cold affusions; and if, in the second period, when
the temperature  is diminished, and becomes below
the natural heat, a hot water or vapour bath might
not be advantageously used."   It should have been
mentioned before, that in the cold condition of " con-
gestive fever," the vapour bath is among the means
recommended.
   In scarlatina, according to the rule of temperature,
whether of Currie or of Froelich, we might expect
greater immediate effects from the cold affusion than
in almost any other disease.  But  here a point  pre-
sents  itself  which causes  a division among practi-
tioners : we mean  the eruption.
  Currie had no doubt of the  safety and efficacy of
the practice, having cured two of his own  children,
and a number of others, by pouring buckets of cold 
HYDROPATHY.                 85
water over them, repeated as often as the heat of the
skin returned.   With  his  caution  and  skill there
might be  little to fear  from it.  But as one instance
of the  effects of its abuse,  I  was informed by Dr.
Ashmead,  that when  in  Paris,  he  attended, with
Louis,  a nephew of Dr. Currie, in this disease.  He
insisted on  the  cold affusion at a time when they
considered his  condition  unfit for it: it was tried,
and the fever left him, but  he was attacked with an
affection of the chest, of which he died.  They both
believed him the victim of the ill-timed remedy.
   There is no doubt that, as Dr. Graves remarks, its
indiscriminate use, soon after its introduction, pro-
duced consequences from which arose a  strong and
very natural prejudice  against it.  Yet many authors
recommend at least cold or tepid ablution, some even
the extent of Currie's plan.
   Blackburne (1803) believes that cold affusion and
emetics give relief  " in the same  or an  analogous
manner."   Marshall Hall, however, thinks the expe-
rience  of  the profession has not sustained the expec-
tations  formed of  its  effects. Of others,  we may
remark, that those already quoted,  as  authorizing it
or  ablution in  continued  fever, are  still  more em-
phatic  and bold with it in  scarlatina; and in addi-
tion, Stiebel, Reuss,  Barry (Esculap. Monitor), Bate-
man, Barthez  and Rilliet (Maladies  des   Enfans),
and, mentioned  by the latter, Nasse, Petz, Gregory,
Kolbang,  Kressig,  Harder, Martius, Albers, Thaer,
                        8 
86
WATER VS.
Henke, Caron  d'Annecy,  &c, &c.   " Le docteur
Horn," say  Barthez and  Rilliet, "  present les affu-
sions froides sur la tete tandis que  le  malade  est
dans  un bain  tiede."  Although, with Henke, they
reserve such energetic means  as  the general cold
affusion for  epidemic cases, and where there is in-
tense heat, dryness, &c,—yet they state that " les
affusions  froides  sont  bien mieux  indiquees que  la
saignee chez les enfans."
   Might not diluents* be  particularly useful in this
affection ?   It was thus that Hancocke employed the
element, giving instances in his book of the efficacy
of cold water internally to " restore repelled eruption,
or to bring on  sweat;" and his idea appears to me
a  valuable  one.   Taking it in  connexion with  Dr.
Holland's  remark,  of  the  alimentary  canal being
to all intents a surface, as well as  the  skin, why
should we not as  much  anticipate  that cold would
" drive" eruption from  one as  from the other ?  And
when, from  any cause, it has been transferred to the
internal surface, why should we not apply this means
to " repel"  it to the outer ?f   Without reference  to
  * In a paper in one of the journals, a few years ago, Dr. Jackson,
of Northumberland, recommended higlily the internal use of ice in
scarlet fever.
  t Hildenbrand advised drinking warm fluids in typhus, " with a
view of throwing out the eruption."  This mode of action is contra-
dictory to the above, and suggests the reflection, that in such a train 
HYDROPATHY.
87
such a  rationale, Dr. Holland believes  that a  freer
employment of diluents  than is  commonly adopted
might be beneficial in exanthematous diseases.
   In measles, among the most interesting were  the
experiments of Dr. Thaer with cold affusion, in  the
neighbourhood  of Berlin, in  1825.   Whether any
thing beyond cold or tepid ablution, in this and simi-
lar affections,  can ever  be universally adopted, is
very doubtful.  The catarrhal symptoms in measles,
for instance, form an  item for consideration and hesi-
tation.   In small-pox, Boerhaave recommends " dilu-
ters," " to repulse the spiculum of stimulation," as in
other " inflaming distempers."  Baron Dimsdale ad-
vised his patients to drink cold, water " after inocula-
tion with the vaccine virus, till the  eruption is com-
pleted."  Although, in this disease (variola), some, as
Currie, are in  favour of free  affusion (he, however,
also giving cases of its  failure), and others, as Reid,
of its cautious  use, yet perhaps the majority avoid it,
at any low degree of temperature.   In  their account
of the epidemic in  Philadelphia, in  1823 and 1824,
Drs. Mitchell and Bell report that on trial, in no case
had they reason to be satisfied with it.  The state of
of reasoning we are very apt to err, by forgetting the close sympathy
which exists between the inner and outer surface.  It must depend
upon circumstances whether coaction or metastasis takes place be-
tween them.
  To bring back repelled eruption is, by the way, one of the most
valuable applications of the icarm bath. 
88
WATER VS.
 the  skin, they say, during the vesicular and pustular
 stages, is such as  to  prevent  its transmitting the
 usual  impressions.   They  infer that, if at  all useful,
 it must  be in the forming stage.  The same objec-
 tions do  not  hold, however, in their opinion, against
 the internal use of cool or cold liquids.*  The expe-
 rience of Dr. J. Hartshorne, also, amongst others, is
 against the use of cold affusion, or any thing beyond
 tepid sponging, in this disease, as well as  in  scarla-
 tina; the danger of  injury to the brain or lung being
 thereby increased.
   A very interesting question, is with  regard to the
 use  of cold  and hot water, ice, &c, in cholera.
 Hoffmann mentions  a very  severe case, which was
 cured, after  other  treatment  had  failed,  by  large
 draughts  of cold water.  Before this,  Sydenham, in
 the epidemic of 1669, and Morton also, used large
 quantities of warm chicken-water, by the mouth and
 rectum.   In  the  attacks  of this century,  in India,
 especially the hot bath, was by many found service-
 able ; while in Russia, except at Moscow, neither the
 internal nor external  use of water attracted much fa-
vourable  attention.   In Germany,f France, and this
  * Says Tooke (View of the Russian  Empire), " all eruptive dis-
eases are abated by bathing, consequently, then, the small-pox; and
if this dreadful disorder be actually less fatal in Russia than in other
countries, this  phenomenon  need not to be attributed to any other
cause than the vapour baths."
  t With Hufeland, calomel and cold water were the remedies after
venesection and an emetic.         *. 
HYDROPATHY.
89
country, ice and cold water were much given, and,
says Dr. Brigham, "frequently with most happy ef-
fects, snatching the patient as it were from the grave."
In  Dantzic,  however,  in  1831,  according to Dr.
Harnett, draughts of cold water,  in insatiable thirst,
were allowed by one physician only;  and a  fatal
case  is  mentioned, where they  appeared injurious.
Like many other means,  ice became  the  boasted
specific with some, and, with other specifics for cho-
lera, when alone depended on, failed. But the French
made very free use of iced drinks.  J. F. V. Brous-
sais,  in  his two lectures  on  cholera,  speaks  thus:
" You will  ask  me, perhaps,  how the  want of ice
may be made up 1  I answer, that nothing is so good
as ice; nevertheless,  I think that small draughts  of
cold water may be of use;" artificially or naturally
produced, " ice must be procured, if possible."   Simi-
lar means were used in this city.   " Drink," remarks
Dr. Chapman, in his letter to Dr. Tyler (on the Cho-
lera, 1832), " is sometimes vehemently solicited, par-
ticularly in the height of the attack; and the instinc-
tive  desire for cold water, or even for ice,  may be
gratified in moderation."  Pieces of ice held in the
mouth, or swallowed, were often  found to give the
greatest  relief.*   And still more curious, as we are
  « " Also water as hot as can be borne," says the report of Drs.
Jackson, Meigs, and Harlan, " has been extolled in cholera."
                      8* 
90                   WATER VS.

informed by the same authority, frictions of ice exter-
nally were  sometimes  found decidedly useful.  He
has  seen them almost without pulse, with perspira-
tion all over, and the largest barley-water-like dis-
charges, while intolerant of every thing heating or
stimulating, yet reacting on  being rubbed along the
spine with large cakes of ice.
  Certainly,  in legitimate connexion with our sub-
ject, is the topic of injection into the veins in cholera.
However essential the  saline constituents, the  resto-
ration to the  blood of its exhausted fluid, would, if at-
tained, be of still more vital importance. Considering
the now prevalent veto against the practice, we can-
not  but  be  surprised, as well as  interested, by the
results obtained in the Drummond Street Hospital by
Dr.  Mackintosh.  Saving " of the really collapsed or
blue  cases," 1  in 0-26T,  as  he believed, by injection,
while without it,  only  1 in 12 or 20  recovered, he
concludes, that " should I ever have  charge of cho-
lera patients again, I shall, profiting by the experience
I now possess, use  the  saline solution at an  earlier
period of the stage of collapse, nay, at its commence-
ment."  He details, however, many precautions ne-
cessary in the attempt, having found some of the first
trials fatal, by the introduction of solid saline parti-
cles, or even of threads of the straining linen. In
this city, the practice utterly failed.
   In 1799, Drs. Chapman and Lee instituted a series
of  experiments on  animals, in which they could dis- 
HYDROPATHY.
91
cern no difference in the effect of several articles in-
jected into the circulation, all seeming to act  merely
as extraneous matter, producing great distress, &c.
   Drs.  Lawrence, Coates, and Harlan, also experi-
mented, apparently with different results. Such were
also obtained by Hunter, Sir E. Home, Orfila, and
Magendie.  Lanzoni (1689), having cured a mangy
dog by injection, speaks of the operation as " diffi-
cilem quidem ac fere periculosam," but  " non fugien-
dam."
   A part of the means above-mentioned in cholera,
reminds us of what has been similarly done in inter-
mittent fever.  In  the  cold stage, it is not  uncom-
mon in  Persia to  use  friction with ice.   In India,
the surgeons  of  the British  army  have tried cold
affusion with  " reputed  advantage."   Besides  the
opinion  of Giannini, and  others,  in favour of this
measure in the hot  stage, and the  common practice
in Egypt  and  other places, we have occasionally on
record signal instances of its use.*  Thus in Aubrey's
Lives  and Letters  from  the  Bodleian  Library,  the
following:  " Dr. Butler,  lyeing  at the  Savoy,  in
 London, next the water-side, where a balcony looked
into the Thames, a patient came to him, that was
grievously tormented  with an ague.   The Doctor
orders a boat to  be  in readinesse under  his windowe,

  * When the disease has become chronic, some practitioners have
found cold bathing, " even the intensely cold  water of the Yellow
Springs of this state," to break it off*. Sea-bathing is also excellent. 
92
WATER VS.
and discoursed with the patient (a gentleman) in the
balcony, when, on a signal given, two or three lusty
fellowes came behind the gentleman, and threw him
a matter of twenty feet into the Thames.  This sur-
prise absolutely cured him." 
HYDROPATHY.                   93
                    CHAPTER VII.

 Inflammations—Hemorrhages—Tetanus—Mania—Warm bath in
   spasmodic  complaints—Asphyxia—Cynanche—Chorea—Use of
   moist air—Hemorrhoids—Use of mineral waters, by  M. Dupas-
   quier.


   We need  not spend many words  on  the uses of
 water in inflammations and inflammatory  affections.
 Cold  or warm,  internally or  externally applied, in
 meningitis, gastritis, enteritis,* ophthalmia, in short, in
 all of this class,f they are universally acknowledged
 and felt.   As instances, perhaps under this head, we
 may name the frequent advantage  of hot bathsj and

  * E.  g. cold enemata in dysentery.
  t See North American Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. vi., No.
 12, for a severe case of " puerperal peritonitis  cured  by ice."  As
 regards ophthalmia, the writer is a  daily instance; having been for
 several  years almost literally unable to read for two  hours consecu-
 tively, without every fow minutes applying a cup of cold water to his
 eyes, which are in a state of chronic inflammation, or " weakness ;"
 while with the constant refreshment of such means, he is able to con-
 tinue moderate study.
  1 I have  seen several remarkable  instances of the success of the
hot bath in chronic  rheumatism in  the practice of Dr.  G. B. Wood,
in the Pennsylvania Hospital. 
94
WATER VS.
local  hot  douches in chronic  rheumatism; the hot
pediluvium to bring back displaced gout, &c.
  And a similar statement may be made with regard
to hemorrhages.   No one  doubts  the value of ice
and cold water in many of  these.   In haemoptysis, it
is a question whether we may safely apply ice to the
chest, or  even  place the feet, as  some do, in  very
cold water;  but still, pieces of ice held in the mouth,
and dissolved slowly, prove very beneficial.*
  Of affections of the nervous system, tetanus is the
one  on which, in connexion with this subject, the
most interesting  discussion has  prevailed.  When
idiopathic, "in the middle of summer, and in a robust
young  man," in the opinion  of  Hippocrates, the
aspersion of large quantities of cold water  may be
salutary.   Avicenna, Schenkius, and Jason, are also
stated to have approved of it, before the time of Dr.
Lind, of Haslar, Dr. Wright, Dr. Cochrane,  and Dr.
Currie, to whom its revival is  due.  The latter met
with remarkable success with the cold bath  in idio-
pathic tetanus;   in  the traumatic, less satisfactory.
Dr.  Rush (Inquiries, vol. i.) thinks it probable that
intense cold might cure tetanus,  having known  of
such effect being produced in a horse.  Baron Lar-
rey  records a case in which it caused exacerbation
of the spasms, ending  fatally: and others have  oc-

  * Martin Ghisi, says Prof. Chapman, has checked the most profuse
haemoptysis by a repetition of a cup of iced  water every fifteen mi-
nutes; and similar has been Prof. Chapman's experience. 
HYDROPATHY.
95
curred, as one in St. Thomas's Hospital, related  by
Mr. Morgan, where  the prostration was immediate,
and not followed by reaction.   Sir J. McGregor, in
the Peninsular war, thought it " worse than useless ;"
but  gives a case where exposure to rain  and  snow,
&c, was followed  by recovery.  Sir B.  Brodie is
said to have cured seven in twelve by cold affusion.
Curling asserts that, on the whole, in traumatic teta-
nus, it appears to be of little avail;  while in the idio-
pathic, no other remedy except opium would appear
so well  adapted  to  control the  spasms.   Abernethy,
having  seen the  effect of snow on a  tetanic  horse,
avers that he would wish it tried if himself attacked.*
The warm and vapour bathf have been  also  recom-
mended, especially in the more chronic form.
   Cases of convulsions^ of various kinds have been
  * In the Nouvelle Bibliotheque for March, 1828, three  cases of
traumatic tetanus were given, cured  by cold affusion.  With others,
quoted as sanctioning the practice, are the names of Cullen, Fournier
Pascay (Die. des Sciences Medic.), Dr. Harris of Pennsylvania
(New Med. Repos., vol. iii.), &c. &c.; also, Hunter, Stultz, Darlyng,
Heurteloup.  In the Pennsylvania Hospital, many years ago, Dr. J.
Hartshorne saw it tried; the conclusion there being that no positive
advantage was derived from it.
  t Vide  a paper by Dr. H. Marsh, in the Dublin Hospital Reports,
 vol. iv., p. 567.
  X In hydrocephalus, " even when  coma or convulsions have  come
on," M. Hall names as recommending  highly the cold douche, For-
me'y, Darwall, Abercrombie, and Schmidt.  My excuse for such a
 lengthy agglomeration of names is,  the object in view; which  is, as
 already repeated, to display how false must be the assertion that the
 uses of water have been neglected by medical men. 
96
WATER VS.
narrated, in which  the  external application of cold
water or ice was beneficial.  We meet with  one
quoted from Hoffman, where its internal use had the
same effect.  It was that of  a  boy, in whose treat-
ment " data, tarn  ex ilforum  scientia anthelmentica,
quam  ex horum  praescripto antepileptica, adhibitis
simul balneis,  fuerunt prorsus frustranea.  Malum
potius perstitit idem, quin subinde  factum  acerbius.
Tandem miser aquam fontanam frigidam, ad  unam
vel dimidiam mensuram,  quotidie  per vices bibere
jussus est.  Quo intra 14  dies  motus isti convulsivi
paullatim compositi, nee in hoc usque tempus iterum
infestarunt."  In the course of the last  year some-
thing similar occurred in this city, in a lady with an
acute disease, the mitigation of whose violent ner-
vous symptoms was principally ascribed to frequent
and free  draughts  of cold water.*   In the restlessness
of fever,  experienced physicians have seen great relief
from allowing the arms  (or an arm) to lie in a basin
of it.f
  The cold  bath more seldom, the warm bath often,
have  been noticed as useful  in mania.  In this  the
cold douche to the head  is sometimes the most valu-
  * See also Coffin on Bathing, p. 39, where two cases of morbid
wakefulness are given (reported by Dr. Gibney), relieved by tepid
bathing (82°, the Buxton Bath).
  t The uses of the hot pediluvium are among those whose familia-
rity, with our want of space, cause their being here entirely over-
looked. 
HYDROPATHY.
97
able remedy to be obtained.   And in most cases of
cerebral excitement and hyperemia  it is so powerful
that it is a matter of surprise not to find provision for
it in every public institution, for the  treatment of the
diseased and injured.*
  To  relax spasm, the warm  bath is frequently of
service.  And  by the relaxation which  it  tends to
produce, and its general  soothing  properties,  it is
among the most essential of  the means possessed in
painful affections of the urinary organs,f and also in
the  passage of gall-stones, &c.   But,the uses of the
warm  bath, as  has been observed,  it would be vain
to attempt to enumerate.    Of the  other  modesj of
applying water, indeed, the uses above given are but
a few  of the most important;  with some additions
they will be, however, sufficient for our purpose.
  In the intervals of asthma the  cold bath has  been
highly recommended.   Particular  applications^ in

  * On the value of the douche and shower bath, &c, vide McCor-
mac, Pinel, Esquirol, &c.  A recent work, however, by Pinel, and a
report by Dr. Conolly, of Hanwell, tend  rather to lessen the received
idea of the importance of the douche in treating insanity.  See Me-
dico-Chirurgical Review, January, 1845. Conolly prefers the shower
bath, and rates its utility highly.
  t In the Western Journal of Medicine and Physical Sciences for
July, 1828, is a case of ischuria, successfully treated by cold affusion.
Currie relates a similar one.
  X Of the vapour bath a very  small  proportion is noticed; the
detail would be entirely superfluous.
  § The use of the hot foot-bath in this  and analogous affections, in
hypertrophy of the heart, &c, is familiar.
                           9 
98
WATER VS.
the paroxysm cannot now detain us.   Dr. Graves, in
the influenza,  preferred  fomenting the trachea  and
chest with very hot water, as more serviceable than
blisters.  This, he  says, proves extremely valuable
in this  as well  as other affections of the air-passages;
" and on referring  to the late American journals, I
find  that the plan of treating croup in its  onset, by
means  of very hot water applied with a  sponge to
the throat,—a  plan which I recommended  some time
ago in  the Dublin Medical Journal,—has been exten-
sively employed in America, and with the most happy
results."  On the other hand we have this, taken not
long since  from the Journal of Health by a weekly
paper,  as precipe.  " If a child is  taken with croup,
instantly apply cold water, ice-water if possible,  sud-
denly and freely, to the neck  and chest, with a sponge.
The breathing will almost instantly be relieved.   So
soon as possible, let the sufferer drink as much  as it
can; then wipe it dry, cover it up  warm, and soon a
quiet slumber will relieve," &c, &c.  Surely a most
dangerous  " recipe" for general distribution or gene-
ral application, however, in  some few cases, it might
be beneficial.   Never, in view of such medical  pre-
cepts,  let the  Hydropaths boast of  novelty in their
measures.
   How best to treat  the " asphyxia of  new-born"
infants, has been the theme  of considerable inquiry.
Without pursuing  it, we  will  merely incidentally
quote  a recent paper,  by Dr. R. Doherty (Braith- 
HYDROPATHY.
99
  waite's Retrospect, No.  ix., 1844).  From his own
  experience of its good effects, he gives full assent to
  the plan of M. Hall.  This is to alternate the dashing
  of cold water with the warm bath.  In advocating
  this  he observes, that he differs from Edwards of
  Paris and Scholler of Berlin.                      \
  i^t)r. Macartney has met with " remarkable success"
'  in the treatment of  cynanche tonsillaris by the fre-
  quent  use of a gargle of iced water.  (He has  also
  found ice to be effectual  in " stopping  obstinate  hic-
  cup, when all other remedies had failed.") The same
  means  appeared successful, a few years ago, in the
  case of a young man  named  Babcock, of  Rhode
  Island, with  " putrid sore throat."   It had recurred
  at intervals for many years, in each case going on to
  suppuration,  in  spite of a variety  of medical treat-
  ment,  and, among other  things,  having his tonsils ex-
  tirpated.   At last, Dr. Jackson, of Boston,  advised
  him to bathe his neck, throat, and chest every morn-
  ing with  cold water, and use it also as a gargle fre-
  quently.  He recovered  entirely.  .; '
     Crampton, Stiebel, Dupuytren, and  Rufz,  accord-
   ing to M. Hall,  record cases in  which the  cold bath,
   especially in the  form of douche,  was evidently of
,  decided advantage in chorea.
I <   In pleuropneumonia,  bronchitis, whooping-cough,
   and "crowing  respiration," M. Hall (Lancet, 1844),
   thinks highly of the utility of a regulated warm  and
   moist atmosphere.   The moisture  he  maintains by 
100
WATER VS.
pans of hot  water (180°) at the foot of the  bed,
within the bed-curtains.   He  mentions several cases
illustrating the benefit  derived  from  such  means.
" The aqueous vapour constantly rising into  the air
from the  sea  is another  favourable circumstance,"
says Guastalla of Trieste (Lond. and  Ed. Journ.
Med. Science, May,  1844), " rendering it fit for re-
spiration in a number of diseases, which we know
are aggravated by breathing  a  drier  air."   He re-
marks, that " it has  been proved  by Berzelius, that
the air of the  sea-side  contains  no acid or salt in
combination with itself, and that  the vapours rising
into it are purely aqueous."  All other ingredients he
supposes to fill the air merely by the agitation of the
waves, &c.
  As to local applications in  erysipelas, we have not
time to enumerate opinions.   Hippocrates advised
cold for "  erysipelas without ulceration," considering
it injurious where the latter existed.  Of the moderns,
some prefer warm, others cold, and others again, as
Reid, believe tepid water the  best  local palliative.—
A very just  caution  of Dr.  Bell's here happens to
come to mind,—that it is an error to suppose that in
all diseases of the skin, the warm bath may be  pro-
miscuously used;  although there are very  few in
which, early or late, it has  not  been  advised by
authors.
  Although hemorrhoids  should  perhaps more  pro-
perly come under another head, we  may here  men- 
HYDROPATHY.                101
 tion Lisfranc's mode of treatment.  Opposed to ope-
 rating for this  affection, in most  instances,  if diet,
 exercise, and venesection fail, he has recourse to a
 shower-bath on the parts affected, of Bareges water,
 or pure water, at the  temperature of 68° Fahr., and
 an injection into the interior of the rectum.   By this
 means, says he, " if I do not succeed in obtaining a
 radical  cure, at  least I soothe the patient's suffer-
 ings."
    In the posthumous works of M. Pouteau, of Lyons,
  the drinking of "frozen"  or cold water is recom-
  mended as  a cure for  scirrhous  and  cancerous tu-
  mours,  no other aliment or medicine being  allowed
  for some  weeks; a case  being also related, where
  Madame  Girard obtained a  cure of a scirrhous
  uterus particularly by  this  means, after all  other
  resources had  failed.  He advises the extirpation of
  any external cancer, although attended with a can-
" cerous  disposition of the viscera, believing  that the
  internal malady will  yield to this treatment.  This,
  of course, is extravagant.
     Analogous to the above, in view of the opinion of
  high  authorities already quoted with  regard to the
  action of mineral waters,  we may consider a report
  by M. Dupasquier, in the  Clinique des Hopitaux de
  Lyon (vol. ii.,  p. 451), of the effects of " bains et
  douches d'eaux minerales  artificielles  et  naturelles."
  Certainly, in external application, the amount of other
  ingredients cannot modify much the  action of the 
102
WATER VS.
water  itself.   Amongst  the  affections  in which he
says they have proved beneficial, within his  know-
ledge, are " plaies fistuleuses," " engorgements  arti-
culaires  tres  rebelles,"  "tumeurs blanches  et les
luxations spontanees;" which he thinks is " surtout
remarkable;"  " les fausses ankyloses,  les engorge-
ments des membres survenus a la suites de chutes, et
les retractions musculaires;" " les affections rhuma-
tismales chroniques, la paralysie rhumatique de Sau-
vages,  les difl&rentes  neuralgies,  et particulierement
la sciatique;"  " les hemiplegies et les paralysies" de-
pendent on "une inflammation chronique de la moelle
epiniere, ou a un affoiblissement nerveux ;" " les ma-
ladies scrofuleuses" " presque toujours  ameliorees;"
also  "rachitis," "les deviations commencantes de la
colonne vertebrale,"  " maladies  v^neriennes,"  " les
dartres, et les autres  maladies de la  peau;"  and,
again,  in  chronic affections of  the  mucous mem-
branes, abdominal engorgements not febrile, chlo-
rosis, leucorrhea,  and " 1'affoiblissement  produit par
l'onanisme  ou les pollutions involontaires."   Even,
also, to promote the absorption of tubercles, and, pre-
ceded  by other treatment, in uterine  affections, as
chronic inflammation of  the  neck of the uterus, and
scirrhus. 
HYDROPATHY.
103
                  CHAPTER  VIII.

Intestinal obstructions—Application of water to obstetrics—Exten.
                     sive cupping.

   We may now turn to  an instance where the me-
chanical action of water is useful.  In his  Elements
of Physics (p. 506),  Dr. N. Arnott* observes that "It
is now  ascertained  that fluid may be safely injected,
even until it reach the stomach.  Perhaps few, if any,
cases of obstruction could resist the  gentle force of
penetrating water, and  if so, a mechanical remedy of
certain effect  may in many cases be  substituted for
the drastic  purgatives and pernicious bleedings  now
used, and often used in vain."  For introsusception
of the  bowels, he says, " a  copious enema, such  as
we have described above, is almost a certain cure.
The liquid  advances until it reaches  the part where
  * The value of this gentleman's " water-bed," to avoid pressure on
tender or excoriated parts, is familiar to many.  In the case men-
tioned", however, without pressure from without upon the ilio-csecal
valve, to open it, it is doubtful whether liquid could be made to pass
through it from below. 
104                WATER VS.
the portion  of gut  has  been swallowed  by the gut
below;  and as it cannot pass without pushing the in-
trosuscepted  portion back  to liberty,  it effects the
cure."   On  this  the American editor,  Dr. I. Hays,
remarks, that  " this can  only possibly  succeed very
soon after the introsusception has taken place.  After
a  time, inflammation occurs, and  adhesion,"  &c,
must oppose it.
   In a number of the Lond. Med. and Phys. Journal,
a  case  is narrated, as occurring in  the practice of
Dr. Alexander, of Genoa, which, presenting  all the
symptoms of strangulated hernia, and on the  twelfth
day not having yielded to any of the usual remedies,
was  rescued from  death by injecting  more  than a
pint of  warm water through a long  hollow urethra-
bougie into the bowels.  It was at once followed by
a large feculent  fluid evacuation, attended with in-
stant and complete  relief of all his  symptoms.   Dr.
Epps, in the Lond. Med. and Surg. Journal,  gave
also the case of a gentleman who had  taken,  for ob-
stinate  constipation,  calomel to  salivation, saline
draughts, manna and rhubarb mixtures, and  castor-
oil, but all to no purpose.  After  sixteen repetitions
of common  barley-water injection, the bowels were
opened, and  he  recovered.   And Dr. F. Bache re-
cords a remarkable case of obstruction of the bowels,
happening in the Philadelphia Prison, in which .con-
vulsions and stercoraceous  vomiting were present,
the latter pretty regularly  for weeks together,  and 
HYDROPATHY.
105
 yet  finally  recovering: in his review  of the treat-
 ment, he mentions " injections of warm  water, to act
 by its  quantity," as having  been  prominent among
 the advantageous measures.  Other instances of this
 may be easily found, as  in the N. Am. Med. and
 Surg. Journ., vol. ix. p. 208.
   One of the valuable services rendered by water, is
 the  aid it lends  in  combating the effects of  some
 poisons.  And in this we do not have reference only
 to its  diluting power, and  its action in washing out
 the alimentary canal.  As a vehicle for temperature,
 as affording a shock, &c, it is almost equally impor-
 tant.  It has long been known, that dogs which have
 been stupefied by the exhalations of certain grottoes,
 are  immediately  restored  by the application of ice.
 In a similar manner, we are told, it acts on the tor-
 por  produced  by inhaling irrespirable gases.  After
 taking  cyanohydric  acid, eight experiments  upon
 dogs with cold  affusion proved perfectly  successful
 in the hands of Dr. Herbst.   " The certainty of suc-
 cess,"  in  his opinion great,  he remarks to depend
 " greatly upon the early employment of the remedy,"
 although even late, it  sometimes proved successful.
 Orfila confirms his results, adducing additional expe-
 riments,  where the  animals  had  taken enough  Jto
cause death if  let alone.  And at.-a meeting of Eng-
lish chemists, held  at Sunderland, Dr. Robinson per-
formed  some  very remarkable  trials  of  a similar
kind.  Rabbits, which  had dropped down as if dead 
I 06                 WATER VS.

on the application to their tongues of four drops each
of prussic acid, on  cold  water, in which was salt-
petre  and salt, being  poured on  their  heads and
backs, were instantly resuscitated, and soon as lively
as usual.  This was repeated with the  same result
by M. Lonzet, Professor  of Chemistry,  at  Brussels.
Their consequent expectations have been  since real-
ized, as I have understood, in the human subject.   In
the Med. Examiner, for Aug. 15th, 1840, an account
is  given of  the treatment of Dr. Miroff, of Russia,
for bites of mad  animals, in which the  Russian va-
pour-bath is an important part, and which terminated
favourably  in a number of  instances.   Many  ex-
amples are on record of the success of cold affusion
after poisoning by  opium: e. g. one by Dr. J.  F.
Brown,  of  Tennessee, (N.  Am.  Med.  and Surg.
Journal,) and one by---- Barlow, of Oxford (Bul-
letin of Med. Science).   The latter considers this an
instance of the " excellent  effects of  cold water,
when applied to the  skin, in stimulating  the incident
nerves." When dashed  on a narcotized patient, he
says, " the nerves of the skin are made to play that
part, which, under ordinary  circumstances, the vagi
nerves  perform, (through  the stimulus  of carbonic
acid,)  and so life was continued."  It  occasionally
happens, Dr. Bell observes, that a sudden alternation
from cold  to  hot applications, and from hot to cold,
will be more beneficial than a continuance of either
 alone;  exemplifying Dr. M. Hall's remark, " that it 
HYDROPATHY.
107
is  not the mere application  of cold, but the sudden
application  of cold  to a warm  surface, which is the
effectual  means  of exciting respiration.  It is the
sudden alternation." Dr. Currie details the recovery
of a  person from  the  effects of opium  by hot affu-
sion.*
   Even in obstetrics a little time would suffice to
gather proofs of the appreciation by practitioners of
the subject of our  study.   But we cannot dwell long
upon  them, however familiar  and valuable  some of
them may be.  It was  proposed  by  M. Mojon, to in-
ject the vessels of the placenta  with fluids to promote
its expulsion when retained.  A successful trial of
 this by a Dr. Hoffmann, is  quoted from Rust's Maga-
zine.   The  practice exciting attention,  " a long es-
 say, including the  detail of  cases, was presented to
 the Medical Society of Paris, at its  meeting in Janu-
 ary,  1828, and was reported on very favourably by
 MM. Duchateau,  Chailly, and  Gendrin.   The re-
 porters observe that the author, M. Legras, " has en-
 deavoured to restrict  himself to actual  experience,
 and  he appears to us to have  demonstrated by facts
 the safety in all cases of injections into the vessels of
 the cord after the  birth of the infant, their efficiency
 in causing a separation of the placenta,  in  arresting

   * The dashing of buckets of cold water over the body has also
 been repeatedly found successful  in restoring those who have been
 struck down by lightning; as well  as in the reduction of strangu-
 lated hernia. 
108
WATER VS.
hemorrhage from a partial detachment of this  body,
and finally in stimulating the uterus in cases  of iner-
tia of this organ."  " If a  few ounces (say 3vi.) of
fresh  water be  adequate for the separation of the
placenta in ordinary cases, it would be imprudent to
trust to this quantity in dangerous hemorrhages from
partial detachment of the placenta with absolute in-
ertia of the uterus.   In such cases, we should rapidly
fill and distend the placental vessels, so that  the cold
and styptic fluid should be driven even to the uterine
surface by forcing it to exude (?) from the placenta."
   An account is given in Bell's Bulletin, for Septem-
ber, 1844 (extracting from  the Medical Gazette), of
a  measure used by  an  eminent  " veterinary profes-
sor,"  named Dick, in  the  vicinity of Edinburgh, to
facilitate difficult parturition in a cow.  At  his sug-
gestion there were thrown into the uterus six or eight
quarts of tepid water, the  hind-quarters  being ele-
vated ;   and,  although having   before suffered for
twenty-six  hours  in vain,  the  animal  was   then
speedily and safely delivered.  This  fact being com-
municated to a neighbouring surgeon-accoucheur in
large  practice, he  resolved to  try  the plan  upon
proper  human  patients, and  accordingly   did  so,
" with complete success" in one case, in which " no-
thing  else but the long forceps  could have  effected
the delivery;"  and  in  another,  where turning and
delivery by the feet would have been indispensable to
save the patient's life.  About a quart of tepid water 
HYDROPATHY.
109
was injected in each case.  As one of the numberless
appliances, on the same principle as the general warm
bath, though without its inconvenience, we may men-
tion the practice recommended by some good obstetri-
cians,—I think Lee among the  number,—of holding
cloths wet with hot or warm water to a rigid peri-
neum in parturition.   On  puerperal peritonitis, we
refer to the  general assertion made  with regard to
diseases  attended with inflammatory action.   Arm-
strong, says Hey, remarks on the use of cold affusion
here by Hippocrates, and believes  that if at  all ad-
missible, it can only be in the first stage.  He prefers
fomentation with  water as hot as can be borne. Lee
considers the  practice of injecting warm water into
the vagina, highly recommended by Recolin,  Dance,
and Tonelle\ serviceable, not only  by washing away
putrid matters, but by relieving irritation and inflam-
mation, and to have not yet received all the attention
which it merits.
   Before concluding this sketch of medical applica-
tions, we may notice, by  the way, an interesting little
apparatus.   A book was published  in 1803, by Ralph
Blegborough,  giving an account  of an "air-pump
vapour bath," intended to combine the effects of cup-
ping with those  of the contact of vapour, either of
water or of other substances; with  cases of gout,
rheumatism, palsy, cutaneous  disease, &c,  &c, in
which it had afforded  relief. The plan  is an inge-
nious one, and might be developed into something
                       10 
110                 WATER VS.

useful.  Partly analogous  was  the  substitute  pro-
posed by Dr. N. Arnott  for bleeding; viz. extensive
dry-cupping,  by means  of an apparatus which he
suggests.  Although thus known  before, we find that
this same idea of  extensive dry-cupping recently ob-
tained in France the Monthyon prize for its  so-called
"discoverer,"  M. Tunod (Braithwaite's  Retrospect,
1844).  This,  however,  is  a digression.—We may
now say a very few words on the uses of water in
Surgery. 
HYDROPATHY.
Ill
                   CHAPTER IX.

Uses of Water in Surgery—Wounds—Fractures—Water-dressing—
                   Dislocations—Hernia.

   Very early, as we may suppose, was water applied
in the treatment of  injuries.*  We even find Homer
quoted;  thus (Iliad, book xi.  line  845) of  Patroclus
and the  wounded  Eurypylus :
          'Of i ffsXos wepiircviees dn'avrov S' ai/ta X&&W
          N<£' v&an \taipta. bn Sc /5j£ai/ /?a\e iriKpqv,
          X«pff« diarpiipa; divvfj-QdTOv, % ol airaaas
          Eo%' dSvva;' to p\tv c\kos trcpacro, navoaro d'alpa.

Yet, however to be accounted for, the  use of such
means appears to have died away, and to have com-
menced  again, in  modern  times,  in France.  M. A.
Blondi wrote on  it  as a new treatment for gunshot
wounds, in 1542; but the superstition of the times,
and love of the marvellous, caused the rejection of so
easy  and  natural an application.  Soon after, Am-

  * Hippocrates is said to have discerned, by the inscriptions in the
temple  of Esculapius, that his priests had used water, mixed with
secret ingredients, to humour the superstition of the people.  Vide
again Macartney and Bell for historical facts. 
112                 WATER VS.
brose Pare became convinced  " that water is a good
remedy in wounds and injuries ;"  but was justly in-
dignant at  the  mysterious mummery  with which
others accompanied its use.   Fallopius, of  Venice,
and  Felix  Palazzo, of Trebia, with  Jaubert  and
Martel, of  France, exerted themselves in its  favour,
with partial and temporary success.*   In the warm
climate of Italy  nature prompted  its  continuance.
The cure,  by the free use of water, of a wound in
the hand,  which occurred to  the Duke  of Orleans,
attracted the attention of Europe, about the same time
that Lamorier wrote his essay " on the use of common
water in Surgery."  In spite of these, however, as well
as Bonneker, Lancassani  Caldani,  and others, it fell
into neglect for several years.   In  1780, Danter  re-
newed the  subject,  in  an  essay which Dr. Bell pro-
nounces valuable, and mentions to have been aided
by fortuitous incidents occurring in June, 1785.   At
that time Pichegru  and several other soldiers, vari-
ously wounded,  were  placed  under the care of a
miller of Alsace, at his urgent  request and assurance
of cure.  His treatment was with ablution, linen, lint,
and  certain magical-muttered  words.   The  French
surgeons adopted the former, and, aided by proper pos-
ture and splints, found  it a very successful practice.
Percy made liberal use of it in different campaigns
  * The latter obtained the formal sanction of the University of
Montpelier. 
HYDROPATHY.
113
of the French Revolution.*  Larrey did the same
with  the  waters of the Nile  in  Egypt.  Professor
Kein, of Austria, is also spoken of as claiming with-
out reason the merit of having originated the treat-
ment.   Macartney acknowledges that he did carry
out the principle farther than those who  preceded
him.   The  latter  (Macartney)  affirms, and appa-
rently with  correctness, that he himself was the
means of introducing it into Britain (on Inflam., p.
188).   Breschet, Josse,  and  Berard, within a few
years, revived the practice of irrigation, in France.
I am told that Lisfranc is also  partial  to it, as well
as Chaumet, of Bordeaux, and some others; but it is
by no means common in continental hospitals, to the
extent  which  these surgeons recommend.  In  the
Pennsylvania Hospital, of this city, the water-dress-
ing  is  not unfrequently employed,  and is believed
useful in  many cases.
   Were not our space already so  largely pre-occu-
pied, we  might profitably cover  many pages with an
account of the  contributions of water to this branch
of the healing art.   But has  not enough been  said 1
We may simply refer to Macartney's treatise  on in-
flammation, if not to almost all  surgical works, for
the details, for arguments, for cases, of which many
have been given, of fractures, wounds,  dislocations,!
  * For Percy's own estimate of this treatment, see Dictionnaire des
Sciences Medicates, article Eau.
   t E. g. the warm bath before reducing dislocations.  In treating
                        10* 
114
WATER VS.
 &c, where the  advantage of this  means variously
 applied, has been undoubted.   Besides the cold water
 dressing and  a  variety  of ingenious apparatus for
 irrigation of  different parts,  Dr. Macartney thinks
 highly of the application  of steam at different tempe-
 ratures, to many ulcers, wounds, &c.   His favourite
 theory is, that open  wounds  may be made to  heal
 without inflammation, and without coagulable lymph
 or  granulations.   There is much plausibility in his
 ideas with regard to  poultices.  A poultice, says he,
 "imbibes  the  pus it  serves to  create,  and  thereby
 becomes more irritating.  A  poultice,*  before  it is
 many hours on, is  a  mixture  of sour  farinaceous
 substance, rancid oil,  and pus,  oppressing the part by
 its weight, and beginning to adhere round its edges
 to the skin, creating the sense of  constriction."   He
 contrasts this  with the state of feeling which arises
 after the poultice is taken off, and the wound or ulcer
 bathed for some  time in  tepid water, and with the
 effect of the water dressing in preventing or diminish-
 ing the secretion of pus.  A long  list of  its applica-
 tions is detailed; great lacerations, punctured wounds,
 fractures, Dupuytren, Amesburg, &c., caution against too long con-
 tinuance with cold applications, after  the indication for  them has
ceased, as tending to prevent complete union and consolidation of
the bone. The occasional efficacy of dashing cold water  to reduce
 strangulated hernia, has been already noted.
  * A similar opinion is expressed by Dr. A. Billing in his " First
 Principles of Medicine;" at  least so  far as to prefer the  water
 dressing. 
HYDROPATHY.
115
some frightful injuries being instanced; contusions,
sprains of joints, gun-shot wounds, &c.; after division
of varicose veins, very successfully;  boils, thus com-
pletely under  our control; inflamed and protruded
piles  cured so as never to return.  Even accounts
have been transmitted to him of gonorrhoea being
cured by the external application of water to the
penis.  This may be considered doubtful; although
Sir  A. Cooper recommends that the penis should be
allowed to hang for  some time in warm water, as a
local bath.  In dry and scaly affections of the skin,
corns, &c, ganglia in the sheaths of tendons, cartila-
ginous formations in similar situations, he thinks may
be removed by this means. He has never seen tetanus
come on when  wounds, however  severe, and other-
wise likely to  produce it, were healed  under water
dressing.  Baron Percy  remarks, " that if  it were
possible on the receipt of a gun-shot or other serious
wound of the elbow, knee, foot, &c, to keep  the part
for the first ten or fifteen hours plunged in water, we
should have fewer amputations to  perform, and we
should save the lives of a greater number of wounded."*
Also a single case may be quoted: " A lady fractured
her  tibia  close  to  the  ankle joint;  great  tension,
swelling and pain immediately followed. At  her own
suggestion the limb was placed in a bucket of warm
 water, which had the effect of removing the pain,

  * The water dressing has also the approbation, although with less
enthusiasm, of Hennen (Military Surgery, p. 66-67.) 
116
WATER VS.
and  almost  all the tumefaction, before  I visited her,
for the purpose of adjusting the fracture."  Dr. Bell
calls attention to a paper by Dr. Tillet, of Lancaster,
in vol. ix. of the N. Am. Med. and Surg. Journal, as
containing  interesting information on  this  subject.
This  elicited  many others, in  the same and  other
journals.  For practical instances of the trial of some
of the above-named applications, it  will  suffice to
refer to a series of reports in the Med. Examiner, of
accidents treated  in the Pennsylvania Hospital, es-
pecially  in  the year  1838, (e. g. Aug.  1), also Oc-
tober 19th, 1839, &c.
  It  is curious what a  diversity of opinion there is
as to the treatment of burns.   Dupuytren, it appears,
has thought  that it was of great consequence to  pre-
vent  the  developement of inflammation ; and Cooper,
(Sir A. C.'s  Lect.  on Surgery, vol. iii. p. 655), asserts
this doctrine to be the  one generally adopted at the
present  day, but that it does not  agree with  one
adopted half a century ago, by B. Bell; who remarked
that there was less pain when vesicles appeared,  than
when they were hindered from rising by cold or other
applications.  Sir James Earl is said to have been a
strenuous advocate  for  the  use of cold water, or
rather ice;  but the remedy is an old one.  Rhazes,
Cooper  observes, directs that in recent burns,  cold
water should be applied as soon as possible to the
part, and renewed from time to time.  And Avicenna
says that the formation of blisters is thus often  pre- 
HYDROPATHY.                117
vented.   Cooper approves of the practice in a great
number of instances, but with caution, as, where the
burn or scald is extensive, shivering is apt to come
on, and would be increased by such means. Watson
relates  a  case where only an  arm was scalded, and
immediately plunged into cold water ;  it was obliged
to be taken out, as severe rigors were brought on.
   In the Pennsylvania  Hospital a  number of years
ago, Dr. J. Hartshorne treated two similar burns* by
the two opposite  modes;  one with cold  water, the
other with basilicon ointment, &c.: the recovery of
the former was considerably the  more rapid.  But,
perhaps, on the whole, there is almost  as  much evi-
dence in favour of the efficacy of  cotton,  as of cold
water, in relieving the  pain, and preventing  inflam-
mation.f   They may be combined, as by applying
bladders of ice or water over cotton on the part.
   A word or two more, before concluding this part
of the subject, may be said of some experiments by
Dr.  J.  Davy (Physiol.,  &c, Researches, vol.  i., p.
348)  on the action of water  in  controlling hemor-
rhage.  Having his attention drawn to the "aqua
Binelli," a  quack  preparation, said to  be a powerful
styptic, and suspecting  it to be nothing more than
common water, with  a little  naphtha  or  something

  * They occurred in the two feet (one in each) of the same person.
  t The  experience of Dr. J. Hartshorne, is decidedly in favour of
cold water as the first application often sufficient without any thing
else, but in many cases to be followed of course by other means. 
118
WATER VS.
similar, he resolved to test this supposition.  He di-
vided partially, transversely, the carotid  arteries of
three dogs, at different times, and then applied com-
presses  dipped in common water and secured by
bandages.  These were left on for some time undis-
turbed.   Two got well without  any injury, but  one
died, perhaps from the effects of profuse hemorrhage
before  the compress was applied.  In  one of those
which  recovered, the  bandage was at first applied
too tight, and  did not suppress the bleeding until it
was removed, and reapplied not tight.  " The  gene-
ral result of these experiments," says he, " (if I may
be allowed to speak so of so small a number) are  not
without interest in application to surgery."  He lays
stress on the application of pressure,—moderate pres-
sure,—" not too tight,"  as he found best in these cases,
" believing that the virtue of the means consists in the
pressure, of course, not in the water, excepting so far
as  it renders the compresses better fitted for adapta-
tion to the wound, to produce the degree of resistance
requisite to counteract the heart's impulse on  the
vessel, and also better fitted to exclude atmospheric
air."  This  explanation is doubtless  correct;  but
these latter effects are nevertheless  of importance.
It is this adaptability to  our  ends, by fulfilling com-
mon indications, apart from  any  " virtue," or  any
" specific action," that renders water so universally
and decidedly a useful agent.
   We may now bring to a close this brief and  cur- 
HYDROPATHY.
119
sory, though tedious, resume" of its applications; and
once more must we reiterate our design as apology
for the profusion and length of quotations, and for the
display of names, which  might else  have  the air of
pedantry.   We would prove, by instance  and cita-
tion, for which no very laborious degree of research
is necessary, how largely the profession have made
use of that remedial element, the asserted new em-
ployment of which, in one mode only of its Protean
applications, is the  boast and support of a set of
medical pretenders.  Has not  enough been adduced
to sustain  the assumption with which  we began,—
that as no element is  more essential  in  health, so
none  can be (and we now add, has been)  applied to
so many therapeutic uses as water.   We might con-
clude the summary in the words  of one, certainly
not least in authority among the orthodox worship-
pers in the temple  of medicine, we  mean Hoffman.
He avers of water,  that " in omnibus individuis, om-
nibus morbosis affectionibus, tarn internis  quam  ex-
ternis, acutis et chronicis, tarn incomparabilem affe-
rat opem ut nulla  alia  medicina huic  aequi-parari
possit." 
120
WATER vs.
                 CHAPTER  X.

Termination of the subject, with Remarks on the German " Water-
                      cure."

  Leaving then the main  part of our premises, we
approach  more  nearly to  the  conclusion, with the
assertion that Hydropathy is a delusion.   In view of
the whole tendency of what has  been  already said,
we need not now add any elaborate  argument upon
this.   A very few considerations will suffice to com-
plete the proof of the entire  absurdity and injurious
nature of  the system. If these are principally of an
a priori nature, it is to be answered  that  such must
also  be any that could be opposed to them in its
defence; for the time of its duration could not yet be
sufficient, in any case,  to establish  it  on the firm
basis of experience.
  And first let us indulge in some general  retrospec-
tive reflections.   Universal as the  employment of
water has been shown to be, I can find  in the history
of medicine nothing which could be said to resemble,
in its extent, the theory and practice  of this sect.  If
we except the sources of certain mineral waters in
occasional very high repute,  no " hydropathic esta- 
                   HYDROPATHY.                121

blishment" was ever sustained before that  of the
peasant Preissnitz at Graefenberg.  Celsus, indeed,
might have given him the hint, were it not that he
(Preissnitz) is versed in none  of the wisdom  of the
schools.   A part,  at least,  of his  course  of treat-
ment he  might find precedent for in  that author's
works.   "When the  fever  has reached its highest
increment," he, Celsus,  says,  " preceded  by great
thirst, cold water must be given  copiously, that he
may drink even beyond  satiety;"  " and when his
stomach is replete beyond measure, and sufficiently
cooled,  he ought to vomit  (vomere debet).   Some
physicians do not insist upon vomiting, but prescribe
cold water only, and that given to satiety by way of
medicine.  When either the one or the  other of these
has  been done, he must  be covered with  plenty of
clothes  and laid in a favourable  position for sleep,"
" by means of which a general diaphoresis is effused,
and  that is  accompanied  with  immediate  relief."
And again, his treatment of  hydrophobia, perhaps
still more striking, hydropathic through and through.
For  this, he observes, " there is one remedy; that is
to throw the patient unexpectedly into  a pond, and,
should he not have the knowledge of swimming, to
permit him to sink occasionally, in order that he may
be compelled to drink;  sometimes to elevate him; if,
however, he can swim,  to  press  him down  some-
times, that though unwilling  he may be satiated with
water,"  Truly no small  resemblance must exist be-
                       U 
122
WATER VS.
tween  this and the condition of  the  victims  of the
blanket,  in which they are wrapped " precisely like
a mummy," and entirely too close to turn, much less
escape, while gallon after gallon of  the  cold fluid  is
poured down their  throats.  A  work of 1788, re-
marks, that  at that  time,  " all over the continent  of
Europe dilution  is a  very fashionable practice; but
the Spanish  and Italian physicians carry it  farther
than those  of any  other  country.   Their  Diaeta
Aquea consists  in  avoiding every  kind of diet  or
drink but simple water, which,  after diseases have
continued a week or longer, it is to be administered to
the amount of eight or ten pounds,  for several days
successively, in small quantities at a time.  This they
frequently prescribe to be taken warm, but more gene-
rally cold, and, in hot weather, sometimes to be  cooled
with ice."  This, however, is moderation itself com-
pared with what is now done.*
   The one sole weapon of the system  of Preissnitz is
the alterative  action  of cold water  in immense satu-
rating quantities, conjoined at times with external
means of compelling perspiration.    That there  is
alterative power in  such  a course, no one can deny.
Any disturbing agency, any thing that without vital
injury produces a strong impression on  the frame, is
alterative in its tendencies; that is, by the new action

  * Another precedent might be  found in  the world-renowned prac-
tice of Dr. Sangrado, in Gil Bias.  He, however, had  the discretion
to add bleeding, though his warm water would hardly " go down" so
well as cold. 
HYDROPATHY.
123
introduced it tends to produce a change, to subvert
such trains  of  association as had existence  in  the
body before.  But then, the great questions are, how
far is this power available in our hands, how far can
it be kept under our control, and, is it of such a nature
as to be alone sufficient  in our treatment of disease;
a  substitute  for all  pharmacy, and all  surgery,  a
whole Materia  Medica in itself?  If the latter query
alone be answered in the negative, our point is gained;
for what right has any mode of treatment to give rise
to a sect, if it is only one among a thousand means
employed 1   And how can any other than a negative
answer be imagined 1   Is it possible, we would ask,
that  the established system, which embraces within
itself all that is known, all that is good of all systems,
all that has been gathered in all countries, and in all
centuries, from Hippocrates, down, is to be out-valued
by a mere theory—or worse, a mere empiricism, and
that of  to-day,  flying in the  face of the accumulated
wisdom of a  whole scientific world, observing, acting,
recording, and acquiring ?   The herbs which  have
been conned, and whose propertiesjiave been taught
with so much  care, the  roots which have been the
strongholds  of  so many practitioners,  the minerals
which   have  formed  the  rock of their support, are
they all, with the lancet, to be washed away by this
torrent  from  the German mountains, to form one uni-
versal  maelstrom of wrecked science ?
        " What dreadful noise of water in mine ears !
          What sights of ugly death within mine eyes ! 
 124                 WATER VS.

          -----A thousand fearful wrecks,
          A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon.''
   That Scudamore, and other men of real ability and
 medical acquirements, should perceive the existence
 of a degree of alterative energy in the hydropathic
 treatment, and even  should suppose it applicable to
 some  cases, is not strange; but what is difficult to
 conceive, and shall we say difficult to excuse is, that
 any should give themselves up  to such a practice, on
 the ground of its  supreme or sole efficiency.
   For a clear statement and at least sufficiently high
 an estimate of the real capacity of the course of treat-
 ment in question, we  may refer to a late number of
 the Lancet, (Feb. 17, 1844.) In a series of dyspeptic
 and nervous disorders, occasioned  by town life, and
 in " engorgements of  the fibrous tissues of the joints"
 occurring  as  sequelae of gout and rheumatism, this
 writer believes  that, aided by diet,  exercise, early
 rising,  it  is  "calculated to be  beneficial."   Yet,
 during an acute attack of gout or rheumatic fever it
 must be according to the experience of ages, " very
far from  harmless."   And  in  the cases where  it is
thought otherwise,  much  is justly ascribed  to  the
strict hygienic regulations which, with the dictator-
ship always given to quacks rather than  to regular
physicians, Preissnitz or his  imitators can enjoin, and
to the influence of healthy situation and retreat from
business, anxiety and excitement.   Yet, something
also for good  and for  evil is allowed to the medica- 
                   HYDROPATHY.                125

tion itself.  He even admits the " innocuity in some
diseases"  of the cold bath, as used by hydropathists,
immediately after profuse  sweating, brought on by
wrapping closely for an  hour in  a blanket.  This
concession is  at least  of questionable  propriety.
There are, it  is true, some  facts  and arguments
which might be thought in some degree to  favour it.
The mode of action of different circumstances in in-
fluencing the effects of external heat and cold on the
body, is most difficult to understand; every now  and
then anomalies present which appear to throw all our
previous suppositions from their basis.  For instance
such cases as  the following, from a work which has
been already repeatedly quoted.  A boy " with a con-
siderable cough and  febrile heat,"  played the truant
one  evening  in  February, 1797,  and passed  the
whole night walking or sitting in  the streets.   The
night was the coldest of that season; the thermome-
ter at seven o'clock  the next morning stood  at  10°
below the freezing  point.   The  boy's complaint,
says Dr. Hamilton, " was  somewhat alarming,  and
I felt considerable uneasiness lest it should  increase,
from his being  first heated, as I presumed, by play,
and  then  suddenly cooled by the frost.  The  next
morning, on his return, I  watched him narrowly, as
I apprehended  a  fever might  be the  consequence
of his midnight ramble; but here I was  agreeably
disappointed;  for, in place of fever, his catarrh was
cured: his cough ceased, and never afterwards re-
                       11* 
126
WATER VS.
turned."   But can  such cases, even though fifty of
them had occurred, be taken for any thing  but mere
anomalies 1
  With regard to the treatment itself at Graefenberg,
we have the statement, amongst others, of M. Gross,
who visited the spot as a patient.  He speaks of some
actually pleasurable effects, and explains the safety
of the  sudden passage from heat to cold, which he
says,  "experto crede," by the  distinction between
active and passive sweating.  The former, produced
by violent exercise, he asserts, cannot without danger
be  checked by the  cold bath, while the  latter may.
Now common experience  and testimony, it appears
to me,  would lean considerably towards the contrary
conclusion.  The time when we should expect safety
in the action of cold, is when the calorific movement is
so high and especially active as to resist its effect, and
almost, in some cases to maintain the perspiratory pro-
cess in spite of it.  This is instanced by the results of
the cold  affusion, only safe when the  action is very
high, as in scarlatina; though to be sure the more
cautious never try it while perspiration is great, under
violent exercise.  Currie gives two examples of young
men who, in the midst of a journey on foot, although
perspiring, took, with  entire immunity, a bath  in a
river;  while  the  next day, after hours of rest, the
same attempt was followed by injurious, almost fatal
consequences.  Having never experienced the action
of cold immersion after the Graefenberg preparatory 
HYDROPATHY.                127
process, we cannot say how far the " action" pro-
duced by sweating one or two  hours in a blanket is
calculated to resist the depressing influence of the
bath; but we can  only believe  the experiment most
hazardous, and cry, " Procul, oh! procul este!" to its
approach.
   Another characteristic of this system, is  the aver-
red necessity and  expediency of what is called the
crisis in diseases, produced by the water-cure.  Phy-
sicians often hail as favourable omens the appearance
of certain sores, as about the mouth,  or sometimes of
eruptions, &c,  over the whole body;  but who among
them, in these,  if in any days, would set himself de-
liberately  to work  to create a boil, an abscess,—" all*
the symptoms of fever,"—so often, when spontaneous,
the triumphant  enemies of his skill ?
   The medical world,  it is true, is now veering back
from its extreme solidism to something more like the
golden medium, embracing  some of the  features of
the humoral pathology; but never, we trust, will its
reasoning portion  melt down into  such  an intense
perversion of   it as  is seen in the  views of these
natural-born practitioners.   Let us  illustrate by  an
example;  it is taken from a  report of the water-cure
by Dr. Graham, of which we have been able to see
only  a review (in Johnson's  Med. Chirurg.  Review).
" Miss S. S-------, aged 18, fair and most  beautiful,
in excellent health, and rather plump, accompanied
her parents to  Graefenberg, * on  a trip of  pleasure.' 
128
WATER VS.
Having caught some of the enthusiasm of the place,
she determined to make well better, and took to the
water-cure,  gently at  first.   For a time, the  cold
bathing, the  mountain  air, and  other auxiliaries, ap-
peared very pleasant to the neophyte,"  and she went
through the  whole course.   Her parents left her at
Graefenberg to get  rid of the "bad stuff"  in  her
blood.   In the course of a month feverish excitement
set in, the glands of the neck swelled, and boils made
their appearance.   These symptoms  were hailed as
the harbinger of the  crisis, and the expulsion of the
"bad stuff."   The sweating process was  therefore
put in practice.  After various details, among which
is, that  " while in the  bath as well as  in the moist
sheets," she complained of pain in her stomach;  and
even  after which Preissnitz declared, that  in  six
weeks  she  would  be perfectly well,  the  case  be-
comes still more threatening.  " Having been seized
with a violent  shivering and cramp  in her stomach
while under friction in the half-bath, she insisted on
being taken out; at which Preissnitz, when informed
of it, became very angry, and the next day sent  one
of his own  women, with strict orders to prosecute
this operation until she became warm."   Finally the
end approached.  " The moist sheet and the half-bath
were persevered in twice a day until within two days
of her decease.  During the last three days she vo-
mited blood.  No other remedies were employed to
relieve the patient, and none to sustain  life.  On the 
HYDROPATHY.
129
night of the second  day after the discontinuance of
this  treatment, this hapless young lady expired in the
arms of her attendant, whilst being raised in bed, the
blood at the same time gushing from her mouth and
nostrils."   On dissection the whole alimentary canal
was found to be " in a high state »f  congestion."
" Something gave way in her inside," was the phrase
by which  this modern Galen explained her death!
Five other fatal cases are related, and these by one
who professes himself a friend  to the system, with
modifications.  Well might its founder acknowledge
that "it requires  a  great deal  of  strength  to go
through with  it."  Two  more remarks,  by way of
summary,  may complete our view of its absurdity.
1. Preissnitz  and  his followers  confine themselves
almost  entirely to the use of  cold water.  The folly
of thus  discarding many of the most useful modes of
applying  their own  panacea (as the  warm  bath,
vapour, &c.)  is  gross  and palpable.  2.  Much  of
their treatment is universal, without regard to diag-
nosis or pathology.  Be  the disease what it may, he
who goes  to Graefenberg  must do as Graefenberg
does.  One instance of this will suffice.  " Tous les
malades a  Graefenberg font usage de la fomentation
stimulante* appliquee sur la region du ventre.  Elle
consiste en une piece de  linge, &c, &c, d'accroitre
  * The stimulating  quality residing in  the linen itself, with the
water which  moistens it, acting by confinement of transpiration,
&c, " d'accroitre la chaleur du ventre." 
130
WATER VS.
la chaleur du ventre et de favoriser la digestion, d'ou
resulte la formation de meilleurs sacs.  Elle remeMie
aux, &c, &c, &c." (Bigel, Man. de  Hydropathie, p.
111.)  It is  useless  to enlarge farther  upon these
points.  They force the conclusion, that  the  hydro-
pathists, however some  of them may plead want of
learning as proving the  contrary, are mere theorists,
— men with one  idea,  in  common phrase, their
hobby; and, this being the case, whatever their doc-
trine, it and  its  professors  are by no  means to be
trusted.
  Yet their cause is spreading;  it is already an
enemy worth combating.  Threatening in Germany
to supersede  homoeopathy,  it has crossed the water
into that  land which  may perhaps  be considered in
the  van of nations.   We have seen the advertise-
ment of a  "Hydropathic Establishment, Stanstead
Bury House, Hertfordshire,  by Dr. Johnson,  author
of Life, Health, and Disease,  &c."  On our own
borders,  too, the  flood  is  commencing, by slow
creeping, to encroach.  Let the dykes of the pro-
fession then be raised to meet it; every where let
there be reiterated  such  protests as  that  of  the
French Academy.   We  may quote  their  words.
On  mature consideration, at the request  of the  go-
vernment, they concluded, "  1st, That hydropathy is
a dangerous  therapeutical method, which does  not
rely on facts; 2d, That its theory is chimerical;  3d,
That it is in disaccord with our chemical and  pa- 
HYDROPATHY.               131
thological doctrines; 4th, That the Academy cannot
in any way approve of it;  5th, That the use of cold
water has been long in the domain of medicine, and
submitted to rules."
  If there be any thing good or new in this system,—
if it be found that they have  added force and boldness
with safety to  a remedy already  employed by the
profession, in the name of science  let it be received;
but let all else, and all if this be not the case, be
urged by all honest means toward the region of obli-
vion.  The true method of defence against new sys-
tems of quackery must be, not to  deprive ourselves
of any useful means, (however trifling,  or however
injurious when made  panaceal,) simply because em-
ployed by those who delude, or are deluded; but to
show the world, if possible,  that all that is  good of
what they boast is  but a mere atom, yet does exist as
a part of the vast store of our  known  resources.
Every few years some new bubble thus arises, ephe-
meral, or if surviving the year of its  birth,  living
only on the credulity of the weakest victims; and at
last  giving way to another with a similar Phoenix
life.   That such will  be the fate of the one which
has  been under discussion,  there can be  no doubt,
although at  present it seems hardly to have  reached
the meridian of its career.
THE  END. 
 
WATEE
VERSUS
HYDROPATHY;
OR,
AN ESSAY ON  WATER,
ITS TRUE RELATIONS TO MEDICINE.

                  BY
        HENRY HARTSHORNE, M. D.


              'H ii rexyfi nanpfj.
         PHILADELPHIA:
LLOYD P. SMITH, 19 ST. JAMES STREET.
              1847. 

^     7V---........  ~".....""""    S 
 
NOW PUBLISHING,
       BY  LLOYD  P.  SMITH,

         No. 19 St. James's Street, Philadelphia,

  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  MEDICAL  BOTANY.

                     CONSISTING OF

       COLOURED FIGURES OF THE PLANTS,
         AFFORDING ALL THE IMPORTANT ARTICLES OF
                                                    \
             THE MATERIA MEDICA,

                WITH A DESCRIPTIVE TEXT.
           BY  JOSEPH CARSON, M.D.,
      PROFESSOR OF MATERIA MEDICA IN THE PHILADELPHIA
                  COLLEGE OF PHARMACY.

  This magnificent work will consist of about  one  hundred
folio platiJs, drawn and coloured in the highest style of art,
with accompanying descriptions, and published in five  numbers,
of twenty plates  each; the whole embracing a complete series
of medical plants.  The price of each number to subscribers is
five dollars, payable on delivery.
  No similar work embracing as  this does not only the impor-
tant medical plants of the continent of America, but those of
the  whole world, being now to be purchased, it is believed that
this work will supply a want long felt by the  profession in  the
United States. 
 
<(£j&<i-:
CCC(
O CCC
t± -.<  cr c
CCtc
^;ac
 v  C<   CC
*& ^  c c
 S.C  c»   G'C
 ,'CCC   CccC
 cc <r   cc<c.
  £T cc  (?c
 j[<cv   dec
 v_a_  ^jl CC

 <? c  O cc
ccc  5Tcc
cc s   ^ cc
<< c   Ccc
3C   dec
5CC^   «d c
 c s;<r
-:   c
 :   cr
 ._ s,C
ill:   JSTJ
*~ V- c	c
EI <s c-	<-
^5 < v	<
_T< *C	€
c«.C	
_. * c	
^.e c	C"
. c C	
c C	
-C^S^	&
c c..	«-
c C *	C"
~C5 c ;	*
c c *	c
c c*	■ «"
c c	c
c c	c
c c	
c   c
c  S C*
              • cc  e c <
            ;   fe  c c
           __   Cc  C C<

       *<3tr  cc c c
 >. ^ . cc   ccccx
ko ^  cc   cr cc c «

<£■*£-  CC   Cc C C

c S~  55^ oc c  c <
£ V  ^c cc ct c  c
*^ CL  CC cc cc C ^
      ,  CC cc C  C
      r cc o  c   c
        CC Cc C  C
      .  cc c* c   c
  .  ._. CC  Cc  < , C
  - :S^ *c cc c c c
  : t.C cc.ee   CO"
  -  C cc c<  ct
      =, CC  <c   C C
      ±~%  CC   CC C   «.
    >CT: <K  C C   C  C
      C_-.cs  cc  .*c c C
        _. CU c <   c  c ^
        e; « (c   cc c
        _ cCc.c   C  ( -
        v 'CCC  c  c
        _.<.c   C-  .
         .cccc  c  e.c  "