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Title: Life in a tub; with a description of the Turkish bath
Author: Diogenes Laertius
Release date: March 24, 2024 [eBook #73251]
Language: English
Original publication: Ireland: William McGee & Co, 1858
Credits: Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE IN A TUB; WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE TURKISH BATH ***
LIFE IN A TUB;
WITH A DESCRIPTION OF
THE TURKISH BATH.
BY
ΔΙΟΓΕΝΗΣ.
“If men knew how to use water so as to elicit all the
remedial results which it is capable of producing, it
would be worth all other remedies put together.”
—Dr. Macartney’s Lectures at Trinity College, 1826.
“The Sixth Commandment is suspended by one Medical
Diploma, from the North of England to the South.”
—Sydney Smith.
THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED.
DUBLIN:
WILLIAM M’GEE & CO., 18, NASSAU-STREET.
CORK: BRADFORD & CO., 44, PATRICK-STREET,
AND AT ALL RAILWAY STATIONS.
1858.
DEDICATION.
“Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water.” Henry VIII. Act IV. Sc. 2.
TO RICHARD BARTER. ESQ., M.D.
Dear Sir,
To whom can I more fitly dedicate the following pages than to one, to
whom, under Divine Providence, I owe the inestimable blessings of
renewed health and of an invigorated constitution? Having derived
untold benefit from the use of the Turkish Bath, first introduced by
you into this country, and having witnessed the wonders effected by it
in the case of others, I have felt it my duty to propagate the
knowledge of its virtues in every direction: this I have endeavoured to
do in the following pages, in conjunction with some observations on the
Hydropathic and Allopathic systems.
Should the perusal of these pages lead to the currency of more correct
ideas on the subject of Hygiene, and a greater knowledge of the
principles of Hydropathy, than, at present prevail, my object in
writing will have been fully attained.
Wishing you a long continuance in your career of enlightened
usefulness,
I remain, Dear Sir,
Very sincerely yours,
ΔΙΟΓΕΝΗΣ.
Dublin, October, 1858.
LIFE IN A TUB. [1]
See the wretch that long has tost,
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again.—Gray.
Perhaps there is nothing more characteristic of the march of intellect
of the present day, or more indicative of a healthy tone of mind, than
the suspicion with which the public in general, and many physicians in
particular, are beginning to regard the use of drugs as curative
agents—that chiefest engine of the allopathic physician for the relief
of suffering humanity.
The freeing of the mind from old and preconceived ideas—from practices,
with which we have been familiarized from childhood—the looking with
distrust upon a system which since the times of Æsculapius and
Hippocrates has held undisputed sway, arrogating to itself the name of
Orthodox, and dubbing its opponents as quacks—such a change in public
opinion deserves respect or reprobation, according to the causes from
which it springs, whether from a calm investigation of the question
presented for examination, in which strong arguments, based on natural
laws—prescribing a treatment which produces the results aimed at—are
found to preponderate in favour of a new system, or from a
revolutionary love of novelty, indicative of versatility and want of
faith in established institutions, a love of change which would espouse
and propagate any doctrine irrespective of its merits, merely because
it was new.
That this change of opinion to which we refer, viz., the want of
confidence in drugs, is not altogether frivolous, would appear from the
following confession of Dr. Forbes, a distinguished allopathic
physician, who thus sums up the experience of a long professional
career:—
“Firstly, that in a large proportion of the cases treated by
allopathic physicians, the disease is cured by nature and not by
them. Secondly, that in a lesser, but still not a small proportion,
the disease is cured by nature in spite of them; in other words
their interference opposing instead of assisting the cure; and
Thirdly, that consequently in a considerable proportion of diseases
it would fare as well or better with patients, if all remedies,
especially drugs, were abandoned.”
Again one of the most eminent of living medical writers says:—
“When healthy properties are impaired, we know of no agent by which
they can be directly restored, when vital action is perverted or
deranged, we possess no means of immediately rectifying it, but we
must be satisfied with using those means under which it is most
likely to RECTIFY ITSELF.”
It is the knowledge of these facts that has produced discontent with
the usual mode of medicinal treatment, and has encouraged the belief,
that it does more harm than good in cases of disease. Dr. Gully
states:—
“By it (the drug system) the body is placed in the most unnatural
position, and its efforts at relief constantly thwarted. Disease,
which is quite as natural a process as health, is not allowed to go
on as nature would; the internal organs whose morbid action alone
can cause death, are made the arena for all sorts of conflicting
and inflicting medical stimulants; and between the action which
these excite, and that which originally existed, their vitality
fails, their efforts towards restoration flag, and their functions
are at last extinguished.”
Dr. Rush says:—
“We have multiplied diseases—we have done more, we have increased
their mortality.”
The celebrated Dr. Bailie, who enjoyed, it appears, a long and
lucrative practice, declared at the termination of his career, “that he
had no faith in physic;” and on his death-bed frequently exclaimed, “I
wish I could be sure that I have not killed more than I have cured.”
Abernethy observes sarcastically,
“There has been a great increase of medical men of late years, but
upon my life, diseases have increased in proportion.”
The British and Foreign Quarterly Journal—the leading advocate of drug
medication—thus writes:—
“This mode of treating disease (Hydropathy) is unquestionably far
from inert, and most opposed to the cure of diseases, by the
undisturbed processes of nature. It in fact perhaps affords the
very best evidence we possess of the curative power of art, and is
unquestionably when rationally regulated a most effective mode of
treatment in many diseases. Still it puts in a striking light, if
not exactly the curative powers of nature, at least the
possibility—nay, facility—with which all the ordinary instruments
of medical cure, drugs, may be dispensed with. If so many and such
various diseases get well entirely without drugs, under one special
mode of treatment, is it not more than probable, that a treatment
consisting almost exclusively of drugs may be often of
non-effect—sometimes of injurious effect?”
Dr. Headland, in his prize essay on the action of medicines on the
system, thus writes:—
“On no question perhaps have scientific men differed more than on
the theory of the action of medicines. Either facts, essentially
opposed and incompatible, have been adduced by the disagreeing
parties, or which is nearly as common, the same fact has received
two distinct and opposite interpretations.”
Such quotations as the above, which might be multiplied ad infinitum,
by any student of medical lore, show that enquiry is abroad amongst the
medical profession, and that some at least of its members are
dissatisfied with the truth of the system which would consider drug
medication as an essential instrument in the cure of disease.
The following remarks by Dr. Maclæoud, contained in a letter written by
him to Professor Simpson of Edinburgh, show at least, that if the lay
public place confidence in allopathic drugging, they place their faith
in a system which does not command the confidence of physicians
themselves.
“Formerly there were several wards in the Edinburgh Royal
Infirmary, of which three Fellows of the Royal College of
Physicians had the charge. One physician had the top ward, another
the middle ward, and a third the low ward. It happened that on the
same day, three young persons of nearly the same age, ill of typhus
fever, were admitted into the hospital. The disease was of equal
severity in each, and the stage of complaint the same in all. What
was the treatment pursued in those three cases, by the three
Fellows of the College? Of course, it should have been the same, at
least, if the system be correct; for the physicians in question
would choose the best. But, sir, it was not the same. He in the top
ward bled his patient with lancet and leeches. He in the middle
ward treated his patient with drastic purgatives. He in the low
ward, again, gave whiskey, wine, and opiates. What was the result
of such deplorable freaks? I refer you to the statistic book; I
have no doubt you will find it there!”
“In the University formerly, two professors used to lecture, on
alternate days, on clinical medicine. It happened once that each
had, at the same time, under his care an acute case of
pericarditis. The professor who lectured on his case on Monday
night, said in substance, as follows:—
“Gentlemen.—As to the treatment of this disease, it has been the
practice to give large doses of mercury, so as to bring the
constitution under its action, and to effect this as rapidly as
possible, small quantities of opium are usually combined with it.
The practice I, however, believe to be erroneous; for I have
observed the progress of the disease unchecked, even during profuse
salivation. The most efficient remedy—in fact our sheet-anchor—in
this disease is tartar emetic. You will have noticed the large
doses I have given of this remedy, and yet the patient seems not to
suffer from it. In fact, the constitution in this disease, as in
some others, has a remarkable tolerance for tartar emetic.”
“When the lecture was finished, I left the hall fancying I had
heard some great truth, and knew better than an hour before how to
save life. On Wednesday evening, during the same week, in the same
hall, and to the same students, the other professor lectured. The
lecture was devoted to the acute case of pericarditis under his
care in the hospital. After describing the case, and giving a
sketch of the character and progress of the disease, he spoke in
substance, as follows:—
“Gentlemen.—It is a remarkable thing that there should be any
difference in regard to the mode of treatment to be pursued in a
disease such as this, I believe it is the Italian and French
schools which advocate so very strongly the employment of tartar
emetic; but I would strongly urge you to put no confidence in this
remedy, for if you do so, you will lean on a broken reed. Our
sheet-anchor in this disease is mercury; under the action of which
you must bring the patient as soon and as freely as you possibly
can—even bleeding is of little importance in comparison with the
use of mercury. The two combined, i.e., mercury and blood-letting
is, of course, best; but at all events use mercury, and never trust
to tartar emetic.
“Thus doctors differ and the patient dies.”
As in the theatrical world a peep behind the scenes destroys the
illusion of the piece, so in the real world such revelations as the
foregoing, are well calculated to stagger thoughtful minds, and to
shake to the centre a blind and unreasoning faith in the allopathic
system.
Does not the reflection suggest itself on reading such a revelation as
the above—since it is impossible that the practice of both these
learned professors can be right, is it not possible that the practice
of both may be wrong?
That eminent physician, the late Sir Philip Crampton, was in the habit
of warning all his gouty and rheumatic patients to avoid the use of
colchicum, terming it a “desperate remedy,” and affirming that it was
better to bear any amount of pain than have recourse to it. This was
the deliberate opinion of one of the most able men in his profession,
who must have been fully impressed with a conviction of its injurious
effects; yet this remedy is continued to be prescribed to thousands,
with what result let those who have experienced it testify. Here then
again is a serious disagreement in practice between members of the
medical profession, in which one party must again be wrong. If those
who use colchicum are to be ranged amongst the latter, where our own
sufferings under it would place them, their victims may well be pitied.
If colchicum be not a poisonous drug, why did Sir Philip Crampton so
strongly inveigh against it? If it be, can that system be right which
prescribes it as a remedy? Such is the system termed orthodox, styling
all who presume to differ from it quacks.
Before we proceed to inquire whether any escape is open to us from this
unsatisfactory state of affairs—whether any system has been discovered
more intelligible in its principles and more certain in its action,
whose professors are found to agree in their practice, instead of
maintaining opinions directly opposed to each other—we would
respectfully address a few words to those whom we have often heard
exclaiming, “I cannot believe that a system which has existed so long
as the allopathic can be wrong; if it were, it would long since have
been exposed and its errors refuted. No; when I reflect how long it has
existed, I cannot but believe it is right.” To such we will merely say
that we charitably hope they do not call this exclamation an argument,
and that if they reflected for a moment they ought to remember
numberless instances where error has existed for centuries unrefuted,
and acquiesced in by all mankind; that on their principle error ought
to prevail in exact proportion to its greatness, since the oldest
errors are the earliest, and the earliest are, generally speaking, the
greatest, the infancy of every science being its most imperfect stage.
According to them, we should at present believe that the sun moves
round the earth, because this doctrine prevailed for upwards of 5,000
years, and “if it had been wrong it could not have existed so long.” If
such persons studied human nature better, they would acknowledge the
truth of Horace’s lines, especially when applied to the medical
profession, who, with some honourable exceptions, have on every
occasion opposed all innovation on their system with the most
uncompromising hostility—
“Vel quia nil rectum, nisi quod placuit sibi, ducunt,
Vel quia turpe putant parere minoribus et. quæ
Imberbes didicere, senes perdenda fateri;” [2]
an hostility which can only be ascribed to the effects of professional
habit and prejudice. In such a profession reform must be brought about
by the action of an enlightened public opinion, which, unwarped by
prejudice and unfettered by professional trammels, is free to perceive
truth, and hold to it when discovered. When the public take the lead,
the medical profession will “move on,” but not before. We are sorry to
be forced to make these observations, but we appeal to the history of
the medical profession past and present, and to the observation of our
readers, in confirmation of their truth.
Sir Bulwer Lytton has well observed:—
“A little reflection taught me that the members of a learned
profession are naturally the very persons least disposed to favour
innovation upon the practices which custom and prescription have
rendered sacred in their eyes. A lawyer is not the person to
consult upon bold reforms in jurisprudence. A physician can
scarcely be expected to own that hydropathy will cure diseases that
have resisted an armament of vials.”
On looking about us for some therapeutic system more satisfactory than
the allopathic, simpler in its principles and more consonant with the
laws of nature, we select for examination hydropathy, on account of the
great success which has attended its practice, the simplicity and
rationality of its processes, and the high recommendations it has
received from several eminent men, amongst which we extract the
following. Mr. Herbert Mayo, Senior Surgeon of the Middlesex Hospital,
speaking of hydropathy, thus expresses himself:—
“It (hydropathy) more than doubles our power of doing good. Of
course it will meet with much opposition, but none, come from
quarter it may, can possibly prevent its progress, and its taking
firm root. It is like Truth, not to be subverted.”
Sir Charles Scudamore, M.D., records his opinion as follows:—
“The principles of the water-cure treatment are founded in nature
and truth. We have in our power a new and most efficacious agent
for the alleviation and cure of disease in various forms, and in
proper hands as safe as it is effectual. I should be no friend to
humanity nor to medical science if I did not give my testimony in
its recommendation.”
Dr. James Johnson, Editor of the Medical Quarterly, thus writes of
hydropathy:—
“Its paramount virtue is that of preserving many a constitution
from pulmonary consumption.”
These are no small recommendations for any system to possess. Let us,
therefore, with the readers’ permission, proceed at once to examine the
principles and mode of action of this novel system, and see how far it
can prove the title it lays claim to, of being a true rational and
natural mode of curing disease.
The most eminent physiologists of the present day agree in regarding
disease in general, as an effort of nature to relieve the system of
matter injurious to its well-being. This being the case, the natural
and common sense mode of curing disease, would obviously consist in
assisting nature in its efforts to expel the morbid substance from the
system, and thus relieve it from the danger which threatened it. Now,
this is exactly the principle on which Hydropathy proceeds; it aids,
encourages, and strengthens the efforts of nature to heal herself,
instead of irritating, thwarting, and weakening those efforts, by the
pernicious administration of drugs.
To render the foregoing position intelligible to our readers, it is
necessary to premise, that the action of all active medicines depends
upon the principle (admitted by all physiologists), that nature ever
makes a continued effort to cure herself, never ceasing in her attempts
to relieve the body from whatever injurious matter may be present in
it. It is this effort of nature to expel the irritant matter from the
system, which makes the drug produce its effect. Thus when a
preparation of sulphur is administered as a medicine, nature, in her
effort to get rid of the sulphur, opens her pores to expel it. This is
proved by the resulting perspiration, and by the circumstance that
everything in contact with the patient is found, on analysis, to be
largely impregnated with the constituents of the medicine;—the
well-known fact of all articles of silver about the person, being
tarnished, being an illustration of this effect;—in addition to this
the stomach is weakened and irritated by the medicine which has been
poured into it; and further, if the dose is repeated, nature, getting
gradually accustomed to the intruder, ceases from her inhospitable
exertion to expel it, and, as a consequence, the medicine fails in
producing its intended effect. We have here referred to the successful
administration of a drug, but in many instances it entirely fails to
produce the desired result, acting injuriously upon other organs of the
system, quite contrary to the effect intended. We will now compare this
treatment with the hydropathic mode of producing the effects aimed at
by sudorifics. Instead of injuring the stomach by pouring deleterious
drugs into it, the Hydropathist applies himself; at once, to the great
organ he seeks to act on, viz., the skin; his usual appliances
consisting of the lamp and Turkish baths, and the result is this, that
by his method a most powerful effect is produced on the skin in the
course of about half an hour, after which the patient feels lightened,
strengthened, and invigorated, no deleterious substances are passed
into the stomach to irritate its membranes, producing nausea and other
disagreeable results, and the process may be repeated as often as may
be necessary with undiminished effect. Who ever saw a patient
recovering from the perspiratory process under the orthodox allopathic
mode of treatment, that was not weakened and dejected by it, whilst
buoyancy of spirits and invigoration of the system, are the usual
accompaniments of the hydropathic process. Take another example from
the process of wet-sheet packing, and examine its effects in subduing
inflammatory and febrile affections. By this simple process the pulse
is often reduced from 120 pulsations per minute to sixty-five, in the
short period of three-quarters of an hour, the circulation equalized
throughout the body, and a soothing effect produced on the patient,
which language fails to describe—a result which no drug or combination
of drugs, in the whole of the pharmacopeia, is capable of producing—in
this case, again, little lowering of strength is produced, and the
stomach is again saved from the injurious and irritating effects of
Tartar emetic and other drugs; instead of the fever raging for a period
of three weeks, it is generally subdued in as many days, when the
patient goes forth, but little reduced in strength, instead of weak,
miserable, and emaciated with the prospect of some six weeks elapsing
before he is restored to his wonted strength. Sir Bulwer Lytton thus
describes, from personal experience, the process of wet-sheet packing:—
“The sheet, after being well saturated, is well wrung out—the
patient quickly wrapped in it—several blankets bandaged round, a
down coverlet tucked over all; thus, especially where there is the
least fever, the first momentary chill is promptly succeeded by a
gradual and vivifying warmth perfectly free from the irritation of
dry heat—a delicious sense of ease is usually followed by a sleep
more agreeable than anodyne ever produced. It seems a positive
cruelty to be taken out of this magic girdle in which pain is
lulled and fever cooled, and watchfulness lapped in slumber.”
In the effects of wet-sheet packing in cases of congestion of the liver
and other internal viscera, we fear an unfavourable comparison must
again be drawn between the effects of the allopathic and hydropathic
modes of treatment. In these cases the object to be effected is to
relieve the oppressed and congested organs from the superabundance of
blood with which they are gorged; and it appears to us that this effect
is produced more certainly, more quickly, and more permanently, without
subsequent injurious effects, by the wet-sheet packing and other
hydropathic appliances, sitz baths amongst the rest, than could
possibly be effected by all the drugs in the Apothecary’s Hall. In
fact, hydropathy appears to possess greater power in controlling the
circulation and regulating the currents of the blood than any other
system of therapeutics yet revealed to us; it can stimulate the
circulation when low, reduce it when excited and disordered, determine
it from the head in cases of apoplexy and cold feet, and drive it to
the surface of the body in cases of visceral congestion. An engine
capable of producing these effects without weakening the constitution,
and possessing, in addition, the power of bracing and stimulating the
nervous system when weakened, and of soothing and allaying irritation
wherever it may exist, more effectually than any opiate; such a system
we say, must ever occupy a high, if not the foremost place amongst all
existing systems of Hygiene. The physiological effects of wet-sheet
packing are thus described by Dr. Wilson:—
“It fulfils many indications according to the various phases of
disease; if you revert to what I have said of the specific actions
and effects of the packing process, you will see sufficient ground
for our using the invaluable aid of the wet sheet in chronic
disease. We often want heat to be abstracted in these diseases, we
want the nerves soothed, the circulation equalized, muscles rested,
fatigue removed, a movement of the fluids to be determined to the
surface, interior congestions to be disgorged, the equilibrium of
the fluids established, secretions and exhalations to be promoted,
ill-conditioned solids to be broken up and eliminated, the tissues
of the skin to be soaked, its capillaries to be emptied and
cleansed, its sentient extremities to be soothed, and through them
the brain to be quieted on the one hand, and the ganglionic [3]
system to be roused on the other.”
How many lives have been sacrificed by the practice of bleeding in
feverish and inflammatory cases, from the non-adoption of wet-sheet
packing, which causes no loss of strength, and leaves behind none of
the debility and consequent long convalesence, which bleeding and
strong medicines necessarily occasion. It is to us, indeed,
inexplicable how so insane a process as bleeding can still be resorted
to in this enlightened 19th century, a process which deprives nature of
her vital fluid, and lets flow the stream on which our very existence
depends. [4] How can this tapping of the springs of life be defended
when an expedient for lowering inflammation without reducing the
strength, presents itself for adoption by the physician, one which by
its action purifies the blood, reducing fever by the abstraction of
heat, and by the removal of the serum or watery constituent of the
blood, which contains all its impurities. Will the public, then, place
confidence in the physician who, when invited to cure them, would
weaken them by bleeding, and assist the operations of nature by
depriving her of that vital fluid, on the existence of which her powers
of self-restoration depend? Will they prefer a system which ensures a
long convalesence to the patient, to that in which he recovers from his
disease without any sensible diminution of his strength, or injury to
his constitution? In short, the operation of wet-sheet packing is so
extraordinary and satisfactory in its results, that he who refuses to
make use of it must lag behind, whilst success will attend the efforts
of him who judiciously applies it in the cases to which it is suited.
The compress and hot stupe, next demand our attention; both are usually
applied to the stomach; the latter consisting of a vulcanized
India-rubber bag filled with hot water, which is laid over a towel, the
under folds of which are moistened and placed next the body, a most
efficient and convenient form of fomentation; these remedies are
applied in the treatment of nearly all chronic diseases, where there is
morbid action of the stomach, liver, or kidneys; this form of stupe,
Dr. Wilson calls the
“Ne plus ultra of poulticing, soothing and derivation being by it
most perfectly obtained, and in the greatest degree. Each operation
has on deep seated chronic irritation, as one of its qualities, the
advantageous effect of a mild blister or mustard plaister, without
any of its drawbacks, and in acute inflammations, in all nervous or
neuralgic pains, in the sufferings of colic, biliousness, or
sickness of the stomach, or other digestive derangements from
dietetic errors, and in the malaise ushering in fevers and
inflammations, in sore throat, &c., or affections of the lungs and
air tubes, it is then found to be the most agreeable and potent
anodyne and equalizer of the circulation.”
It, in effect, accomplishes the most salutary operations of opiates,
without any risk of congesting the liver, or producing that sickness
and atony of the stomach, and all but paralysis of the lower bowels
which result from the use of narcotic drugs.
“No nervous irritations,” says Dr. Wilson, “no visceral
congestions, especially if of recent formation, but are soon
relieved by this powerful revulsive rubefacient and anodyne. With
the dissipation of those interior congestions comes the solution of
pains and spasms, or flatulence which may have risen to a severe
state of suffering, the release of bilious and nervous headaches,
neuralgic pains, asthmatic fits, &c. These have all their origin
near or remote in visceral obstructions, congestions, &c. In most
cases where for a longer or a shorter time any organic action has
been embarrassed, sleep banished or disquieted, and the patient
irritated and exhausted to the last degree; by aid of the
fomentations, in a brief time organic calm takes the place of
organic tumult, ease succeeds to agitation, and the whole apparatus
feels to work normally and with renewed alacrity. What I have just
described, you may frequently hear repeated and descanted upon in
the same strain by my patients.”
The effect of the hot-stupe in the removal of irritation from the
viscera, the immediate cause of dysentery, &c., is very remarkable, and
from our knowledge of its effects, we have often regretted that so
simple and rational an expedient was not resorted to, in the treatment
of those diseases by which our noble army was more than decimated in
the late Crimean Campaign. On this subject Dr. Wilson remarks—
“So strong was my conviction, that I wrote to my good friend Lord
Rokeby, requesting him to offer my service through Mr. Sidney
Herbert. I offered to go and remain there (at Scutari) entirely at
my own expense, not as a ‘water doctor,’ but as an ordinary medical
practitioner, willing to lend a hand, and make himself generally
useful. I stated that I had almost lived in hospitals for seven
years, had afterwards witnessed the practice of nearly every great
hospital in Europe, and could undertake simple operations, and any
amputations with little preparation: had been twenty-five years in
practice. After some weeks I received a polite letter thanking me,
but fearing it could not be done, not being quite the custom. About
this time there was an outcry for medical men, those at the
hospitals were too few for the work, they were worn out with
fatigue.”
Further on he adds—
“I have had a great many patients suffering under Chronic diseases
from climate, exposure, and want of care, &c., patients from India,
Ceylon, and the Antipodes, with long continued diarrhœa, dysentery,
and intractable fever of an intermittent character. From the
success of this simple treatment in those cases, I have not ceased
to regret that I did not go to Scutari on my own account without
permit or introduction. I might have introduced the practice
gradually, being sure that it only required a trial to have been
adopted by the medical staff with great satisfaction.”
We join Dr. Wilson heartily in this regret, as it would have led to the
introduction of this remedy if proved efficient, and silenced its
advocates if it proved a failure. Nowhere could the two systems have
been more severely and satisfactorily tested, and we should all have
benefited by the result; the relative merits of the two systems would
have been decided, and the public no longer left to hang in doubt
between them.
The sitz bath and foot bath come next in point of importance. The
former acts with marked effect in cases of congestion of the liver and
other internal organs; by abstracting heat from the surface of the body
submitted to its influence, it causes a transference of fluids from the
centre to the exterior, and the congested organs are relieved from
their excess of blood by its being thus determined to the surface; this
effect, at first temporary, becomes permanent when the use of the bath
has been persevered in for some time. Let us now compare the effects of
this bath, in the cases of congestion of the liver, with the treatment
usually pursued by the orthodox physicians. Their remedies consist in
dosing with Calomel, or Taraxacum, or in the application of leeches to
the affected region. The two former stimulate the action of the liver,
in spite of the congested blood which oppresses it, but they do not
attempt to deal with the causes of this congestion, the result of which
is that the liver being weakened by its unnatural exertions consequent
on the unnatural stimulants which have been administered to it,
sinks—after the effect of the unnatural stimulus has worn away—into a
more enfeebled and exhausted state, and the original cause of the
congestion remaining unremoved, matters become worse than at first. In
the case of leeching, the topical bleeding relieves the affection for a
time, but this is a remedy which cannot be REPEATED in consequence of
the weakness which it engenders, and when the bleeding is given up, how
do matters stand? The disease remains in statu quo; not so, however,
the constitution, for this has been weakened by the bleeding, and
nature being consequently less able to cure herself, chronic disease of
the liver results. On the other hand, the hydropathic treatment
necessary to determine the blood from the congested organ to the
surface, and so remove the disease, can be repeated as often as
desirable, with constantly increasing effect, until permanent relief is
afforded by a perseverance in the treatment, and the patient improves
in general health, pari passu, with the cure of his particular disease.
The effects of the sitz bath, are, it appears, either tonic or relaxing
according to the length of time during which it is administered; if a
tonic effect is desired, a period varying from ten to fifteen minutes
is prescribed—if a relaxing or derivative effect is to be produced, the
period is extended to half-an-hour or forty-five minutes.
We should have thought it superfluous to make any observations on the
evil effects of mercury, which we thought were acknowledged by
everybody, were it not that we recently heard it designated by a much
respected physician as “a most wholesome substance,” the chief
objection to it being “that persons got too fat upon it.” This opinion
astonished us not a little, and we felt that when habit [5] and
prejudice could so pervert the mind of a physician as to make him look
upon a poisonous substance as a positive good, we could easily account
for the difficulty which has been always experienced in converting a
medical man—for the unsatisfactory state of the medical art, and its
having so long pertinaciously followed the routine practice of our
ancestors. When a mind cannot perceive the difference between black and
white, it is in vain to place less obvious differences before it. We
now quote the opinion of Dietrich as to the effects of this “wholesome”
ingredient, mercury, for the benefit of the physician in question, and
such of our readers as may hitherto have agreed with him. He tells us
that—
“Soon after salivation has been established, the blood exhibits an
inflammatory crust; at a later period its colour deepens, and its
coagulability is diminished; the proportion of clot, and,
therefore, of fibrin, to serum (or watery part) becomes smaller;
the formation of albumen and mucus sinks to that of serum; the
whole organic formation of the patient is less consistent and
cohesive.”
Which opinion is right, let the public judge. We will not prejudice
their verdict by any further observations of ours, but will merely ask
them, if mercury be proved unnecessary, how can its continued use be
defended?
Dr. Farre writes sportively as follows:—
“A full, plethoric woman, of a purple-red complexion, consulted me
* * * I gave her mercury, and in six weeks blanched her as white as
a lily.”
If this be what the Allopathist boasts of, and one of the effects he
aims at producing, we congratulate him on the melancholy success which
usually attends his efforts.
As regards the use of the foot bath, we may observe that the theory of
its administration subverts all our preconceived notions respecting the
proper mode of treating those affections for which it is usually
prescribed. For instance, the old mode of proceeding in affections of
blood to the head, or in cases of cold feet, was to apply cold to the
head and warmth to the feet, in the shape of hot flannels, hot bricks,
and hot stupes. Now the Hydropathic mode of treatment is the very
reverse of this, viz., to bathe the head in tepid, and place the feet
in cold water to about the depth of three inches, up to the
ankles—friction of the feet accompanying their immersion; the whole
being continued for about ten minutes. Let any person suffering from
cold feet try this remedy, and he will satisfy himself of the truth of
the principles which enjoin it. Its rationale is as follows:—The
application of warm water to the head, of the same temperature as the
body, does not increase the flow of blood to it, whilst the subsequent
evaporation from the moist and warm surface of the head cools it
gradually, and so diminishes the flow of blood to it, whilst the cold
application to the feet, has, “for a secondary result, the attraction
and retention in those parts of great quantity of blood, and
consequently of increased temperature there. In fact,” continues Dr.
Gully, “a cold foot bath of twelve or fifteen minutes, followed by a
walk of half-an-hour, is the most certain way to warm the feet that can
be devised; just as, per contra, the most certain way to insure cold
feet, is to soak them in hot water. The same applies to the hands. When
the patient is in a condition to take it, a walk is necessary to obtain
the circulating reaction alluded to:” he adds, “the warmth remains for
several hours. Very frequently I have heard persons say that they have
not known cold feet since they began to take cold foot baths.”
With respect to bathing generally, very erroneous opinions appear to
prevail, two of which only we will notice:—First, that for delicate
constitutions bathing is dangerous, because no reaction takes place in
the system;—secondly, that it is dangerous to bathe in cold water when
the body is heated. To the first we answer, that no matter how delicate
the constitution may be, reaction can always be obtained, if water of a
proper temperature be used; this temperature will vary with the
vitality of the individual—the more delicate the individual the warmer
the water must be. A delicate person will often receive the same shock
and benefit to his system from water at a temperature of 80°, as a
strong man may, perhaps, receive from water at a temperature of 42°. To
the second we reply, that a more erroneous opinion could not by
possibility prevail, and that the idea in question is exactly the
opposite of the truth; the fact being, that the body cannot be too warm
for cold bathing, always provided, that such warmth has not been
produced at the cost of bodily languor and fatigue, as in such cases
the system will be too much weakened to react after the bath with
effect; but with this exception, the warmer the body the greater will
be the reaction and benefit received, and the longer may the bather
continue with impunity to luxuriate in the bath. The body is never so
well calculated to withstand the effects of cold as when it is heated;
and the only danger to be apprehended from cold bathing is that arising
from entering the water in a chilled condition, when, from the low
vitality of the body, the subsequent reaction becomes imperfect. Let
these maxims be remembered:—that without subsequent reaction, no bath
is beneficial—therefore, water should be always used of a proper
temperature to secure reaction, and exercise to warmth, taken
immediately before and after a cold bath, when practicable; that the
colder the bath (provided reaction follows) the greater its benefit,
the reaction being always a mean proportional between the temperature
of the bather and the water in which he bathes. Whenever bathing is
found to disagree with any person, it will be always found that some of
the preceding conditions have been neglected, a very common fault being
that of entering the water in a chilled state, and remaining there for
twenty minutes, when five would have proved, perhaps, more than
sufficient; then headache, languor, and chilliness succeed, and we are
told that bathing disagrees. With such bathing, the wonder would be
that it did not.
We would next make some observations on the different modes of treating
pulmonary consumption, that fatal and mysterious disease, which has so
long baffled the curative efforts of the most eminent physicians of
their day, and it is gratifying to find that a great step towards a
rational and successful mode of treatment, based on sound physiological
principles, has lately obtained in its case, which mode we hope soon to
see generally adopted by the medical profession. [6] The unsuccessful
treatment of this disease has hitherto cast a slur on medical science,
and it is not to be wondered at that little success should have
attended on the orthodox mode of treatment, since recent observation,
and matured experience have shown, on physiological principles, that no
worse mode could have been devised for curing, nor a surer one adopted
for aggravating the disease. This new view of the matter is very ably
set forth in Dr. Lane’s work, which we heartily recommend to the
perusal of our readers, as a sensible and modest statement of the
benefits resulting from Hydropathic treatment in cases of that nature.
Dr. Lane looks upon consumption as essentially a blood disease, in
which opinion he is confirmed by the first physiologists of the day,
and by those physicians who have had most experience in the treatment
of that particular disease, Sir James Clarke, Professor Bennet, Dr.
Balbyrnie, and others. These physicians concur in confirming the
observation of others, to the effect that indigestion or derangement of
the stomach and digestive organs, is a universal forerunner of
pulmonary consumption, and that without such derangement consumption
cannot exist. Consequent on this diseased state of the digestive
organs, imperfect blood is assimilated, deficient in its oleaginous
elements, and containing an undue amount of albuminous materials; that
in consequence of this deficiency of oleaginous elements, the blood is
incapable of being converted into true cellular tissue to replace the
effete material of the lungs, and the superabundant quantity of albumen
has a tendency to exude upon the lungs on their exposure to cold in the
form of tubercles, which process is unaccompanied by inflammatory
action. These facts are based on long observation and direct chemical
analysis of the substance composing the tubercles, which consist of
almost pure albumen; and on this theory the wonderful effects of cod
liver oil in consumptive cases, and the great emaciation of body which
results from the disease are satisfactorily explained. In the one case,
the cod liver oil supplies, in a light and digestible form, the
oleaginous element in which the blood is deficient; in the other, the
system has recourse to the fatty or adipose matter of the body to
supply the oleaginous principle. But now the question arises, supposing
that indigestion is the universal precursor of consumption, from what
does this indigestion and consequent imperfect assimilation of the
blood proceed? This question Dr. Lane does not touch upon, but we
believe that Dr. Barter, the well-known Hydropathic physician of
Blarney, considers that it arises from defective vitality [7] in the
blood, caused by deficiency of oxygen in the system, more immediately
proceeding from defective capacity of the lungs, and imperfect action
of the skin. The skin and lungs, it must be remembered, are
supplementary organs; stop the action of either, and death inevitably
ensues, and on their perfect or imperfect action, perfect or imperfect
health depends. This view of the disease is illustrated by the history
of the monkey: in its wild state, the best authorities state, it never
gets consumption, but domesticate the animal, so inducing bad action of
the lungs, from want of sufficient exercise and wholesome air, and
imperfect action of the skin, arising from the same cause, and it
usually dies of this disease. These observations equally apply to all
cases of scrofulous degeneration, which physicians estimate as carrying
off prematurely one-sixth of the whole human family. [8] Of this
terrible disease, the scourge of the human race, it is sufficient to
observe, that consumption is merely a form of it, and that it is,
moreover, hereditary, a fact which would corroborate the opinion of its
being a true blood disease.
Having referred to the fact of the lungs and skin being supplementary
organs—the principal duty of both being to aerate the blood—it may be
interesting to lay before our readers the following extracts from the
results of Monsieur Fourcault’s experiments bearing on the subject.
These experiments were made with the view of ascertaining the effect of
the suppression of transpiration by the skin, in animals, on coating
their bodies with an impermeable varnish. The committee of the French
Institute thus describes these experiments:—
“The substances which he used were givet-glue, dextrine, pitch, and
tar, and several plastic compounds; sometimes the varnish was made
to cover the whole of the animal’s body, at other times only a more
or less extensive part of it. The accidents which follow this
proceeding are more or less complete or incomplete, general or
partial. In every case the health of the animals is soon much
impaired and their life in danger. Those which have been submitted
to those experiments, under our observation, have died in one or
two days, and in some cases in a few hours only.
“In the opinion of the committee these experiments are full of
interest for the future, * * * * the experiments of M. Fourcault
cannot fail to throw a new light upon the physiological and
pathological phenomena, depending upon the double function of
inhalation and exhalation of the cutaneous system.”
Monsieur Fourcault himself thus writes:—
“The mucous membranes were not the only parts affected by the
artificial suppression of the insensible perspiration. We also
observed the production of serous effusions in the pericardium, and
even in the pleuræ. These effusions thus demonstrate that dropsies
are found in the same body as mucous discharges. Several dogs died
with paraplegia, and could only drag themselves along on their fore
paws; some died atrophied, and their lungs contained miliary
tubercules, which appeared to me, from their whiteness and
softness, to be of recent formation. It was, therefore, now
impossible to doubt the influence of the suppression of the
insensible perspiration of the skin upon the changes in the blood,
the mucous and serous exudations, and finally, upon the development
of local lesions.
“But the results of these experiments differ in toto according as
the plastering is partial or general, or as it suspends the action
of the skin incompletely or completely. In the first case, the
alteration of the blood is not carried so far as to cause the
dissolution of its organic elements; it can coagulate, and present,
in some few cases, a buffy coat of little consistency, bearing some
resemblance to that which is found in inflammatory blood. As to the
tissues affected, they, however, appear to me to present the
anatomical characteristics of the consequences of local
inflammation.
“But when the application of very adhesive substances upon the
whole of the body quickly suppresses the cutaneous exhalation, and
consequently prevents the action of the air upon the skin, death
takes place much more speedily, and appears to be the result of
true asphyxia. The breathing of the animals experimented upon, is
difficult; they take deep inspirations, in order to inhale a larger
quantity of air than usual; their death is violent, and is often
accompanied by convulsive movements. On dissection, we find in the
veins and the right cavities of the heart, sometimes also in the
left, but very rarely in the arteries, a black diffluent blood,
forming sometimes into soft and diffluent coagula, and coagulating,
very imperfectly, when exposed to atmospherical air. This
dissolution of the blood, favours the formation of large ecchymoses
and of effusions into the lungs and other organs, the capillary
vessels are usually injected;—one can see that the alteration of
the blood has been the true cause of the stagnation of the
circulation in this order of vessels. * * * * *
“It is important to state that man, in the same way as animals,
dies from cutaneous asphyxia when his body is covered by
impermeable applications. I shall detail, in another work, the
results of my researches upon this subject, and facts which still
belong to general history will enter into the province of medicine.
Thus, at Florence, when Leo X. was raised to the pontificate, a
child was gilt all over, in order to represent the golden age. This
unfortunate child soon died, the victim of a physiological
experiment of a novel kind. I have gilded, silvered, and tinned
several guinea-pigs, and all have died like the child at Florence.”
Monsieur Fourcault, in summing up his researches, remarks as follows:—
“Nasal catarrh, diarrhœa, paralysis, marasmus, convulsive
movements, and finally the phenomena of asphyxia are also the
results of the same experiments. Cutaneous asphyxia may cause the
death of man and animals; in this affection, the blood presents, in
the highest degree, the refrigerant and stupefying qualities of
VEINOUS [9] blood.”
The above extracts are our answer to those superficial medical
objectors, who would argue that death is not occasioned, in the above
instances, by the exclusion of atmospheric air from the system, but by
the suppression of poisonous salts secreted in the skin. The effects of
the suppression of the most poisonous and irritating of these is well
known to the physician, but their phenomena bear no analogy to those
presented in the case before us, which exhibits all the symptoms and
appearance of true suffocation. If, however, the evidence of these
experiments be not sufficient to convince them, that a deficient supply
of air, producing suffocating symptoms, was the real cause of death in
the above cases, we will be prepared to meet them on a more convenient
battle-field, where arguments, which would only prove tedious and
unintelligible to the non-professional reader, may be freely adduced in
support of our position.
Were it not tedious to multiply instances, many more might be adduced,
such as the dangerous stage of small-pox being contemporaneous with the
breaking of the pustules, when the surface of the body becomes
partially varnished over, and the fact that a scald or burn is
dangerous, not in proportion to its depth, but breadth.
Now, if it be conceded that the main cause of consumption, tracing the
disease back to its first cause, is to be found in an insufficient
supply of oxygen to the system (which certainly the success attendant
on the treatment based upon this theory would lead one to suppose), we
would beg of our readers seriously to ask themselves how can
consumption be cured by drugging, and how can the much required oxygen
be supplied to the blood by any proceeding of the kind? We think that
the results of such a system afford a conclusive answer to this
question; failure marking its course wherever it has been tried. Again,
as regards the fashionable remedy of going abroad, [10] how are we
likely to get more oxygen supplied to our blood by going abroad than by
staying at home? What magic is there in the process? A mild climate may
certainly prove less irritating than its native air to a diseased and
disordered lung, and the suffering and uneasiness consequent on the
irritation may be thereby allayed, but we are not a whit nearer being
cured by this device, nor have we, in so doing, properly gone to work
to remove the main spring and cause of the disease.
Let our readers bear in mind the following aphorism of Dr. Hall: “Close
bed rooms make the graves of multitudes;” let them recollect that
impure blood is the origin of consumption, and that impure air causes
impure blood.
Carrying out these principles, in curing consumption, Dr. Barter would
use all means to place the system in a favourable condition to receive
a full supply of oxygen, first, by a direct inhalation of a mixture of
oxygen and atmospheric air through the lungs; secondly, by enjoining a
large amount of active exercise in the open air, when practicable, and
sleeping at night with open windows; and thirdly, by inducing a healthy
action of the skin, [11] and consequent supply, through it, of oxygen
to the blood, by the intervention of the Turkish bath. This mode of
treatment has, we believe, proved most successful, whilst the old mode
of treatment, of which it is the very antipodes, viz., keeping the
patient in a heated and impure atmosphere, swathing him with flannels,
[12] dosing him with prussic acid, and applying a respirator to the
mouth, has proved most unsuccessful and fatal. How it could ever have
entered into the brain of a physician to recommend the use of a
respirator, as a cure for consumption, we are at a loss to imagine, as
a more ingenious mode of shutting out the pure atmosphere, essential to
our existence, and exchanging it for one loaded with carbonic acid
(thus aggravating the disease which it seeks to cure), could not
possibly be devised. Man, in a state of health, requires pure air as a
condition of his existence; and can it be supposed that, in a state of
disease, he will be able, more successfully, to resist the effects of
poison on his system than when in a state of health? Will he, in a
state of disease, be strengthened and improved by the loss of that, on
a due supply of which, when well, the continuance of his health and
strength would depend? Does the experience of our readers furnish them
with a single case of recovery from consumption caused by the use of a
respirator, or does it not, on the contrary, furnish them, in every
case where it has been resorted to, with instances of the bad effects
attendant upon its use?
In support of the view taken by Dr. Barter, we would observe, that
narrow and contracted lungs, an impure atmosphere, uncleanly habits,
sedentary occupation, indulgence in alcoholic liquors, and over eating,
all directly tend to the overloading of the blood with carbon, and they
are also the most constant causes of consumption. But the success
attending this treatment is the argument which will have most weight
with the public, and cause its adoption by the profession at large.
When this takes place we shall not have consumptive patients sent
abroad to seek restoration of their health—
“To Nice, where more native persons die of consumption than in any
English town of equal population—to Madeira, where no local disease
is more prevalent than consumption—to Malta, where one-third of the
deaths amongst our troops are caused by consumption—to Naples,
whose hospitals record a mortality, from consumption, of one in two
and one-third of the patients—nor, finally, to Florence, where
pneumonia is said to be marked by a suffocating character, and a
rapid progress towards its final stage. Sir James Clarke has
assailed with much force the doctrine, that change of climate is
beneficial in cases of consumption. M. Carriere, a French
physician, has written strongly against it. Dr. Burgess, an eminent
Scotch physician, also contends that climate has little or nothing
to do with the cure of consumption, and that if it had, the
curative effects would be produced through the skin and not the
lungs, by opening the pores, and promoting a better aeration of the
blood.”
With respect to the administering of prussic acid, to lower the pulse
in consumption, we cannot TOO STRONGLY reprobate this mistaken
practice. Do physicians, when prescribing this poison, ever reflect
that this elevation of the pulse, which they employ themselves so
sedulously to lower, is an effort of nature to supply more oxygen to
the system by an increased action of the lungs, and that the more the
lungs are injured by disease, the greater is this compensating effort
of nature: just as a blacksmith must work a small or defective bellows
more rapidly than a large one, to keep his fire going. If this be the
case, the destructive effects of prussic acid will at once be evident,
since by it all the powers of the system become reduced, and nature’s
efforts at self-relief most mischievously obstructed. The feverish
action of the pulse is, in itself, of no moment; it is only as a
symptom of derangement in the system that it becomes alarming; it is
nature telling us that something is wrong by the very action which she
is establishing to cure it. What then must be thought of a practice
which silences the tell-tale pulse, stops the voice of nature, and
checks her curative efforts, without attempting to cure the disorder;
doing immense mischief, whilst it effects no good? The fact is, the
only reduction of the pulse which is worth a farthing, is that which
follows naturally from removing the cause of its elevation, viz., a
want of oxygen in the system. That the supplying of this want has the
effect of lowering the consumptive pulse, without the assistance of
prussic acid, is abundantly proved by the rapid fall of the pulse
produced by the Turkish bath,—a result most satisfactory to the
physiologist, as evidencing the soundness of the theory which
prescribes it as a remedy.
Having referred to the erroneous practice of swathing consumptive
patients in flannel, it may not be out of place here to make a few
observations on the origin of caloric in the animal system, and the
office of clothing in relation to it.
The only true source of caloric in animals, is that produced by the
chemical combination of oxygen with the carbon and other oxidizable
products of their system. Every cause which quickens and exalts this
chemical action increases the animal heat, whilst every interfering
cause produces cold and chilliness. It is in this way that drinking
cold water, or taking exercise in the open air, increases the warmth of
the body, by producing a healthy [13] waste of the system, and so
stimulating the chemical combustion within it. Clothing, it should be
recollected, has merely the effect of retaining animal heat and
preventing its dissipation, but it cannot, in the slightest degree,
create it: if, therefore, any thing occurs to interfere with that
action, by which heat can alone be generated, all the clothes in the
world will fail to warm us. How little these facts are reflected on, is
shown by the excessive and injurious amount of clothing worn by
delicate persons, which defeats the very object they are intended to
effect. These facts also explain the apparent paradox of patients who,
previous to undergoing the water system, complain of chilliness when
smothered with clothing, but who afterwards are enabled to wear very
light clothing, without any feeling of their former chilliness. [14] On
this subject Dr. Gully observes:—
“Should, however, the reader desire to learn the most effectual way
of destroying the power of generating animal heat, let him pursue
the plan which so many shivering patients who come to Malvern have
followed. Let him drink spirits and wine, eat condiments, swallow
purgatives, and especially mercurials, take a ‘course of iodine,’
and, as an occasional interlude, lose a little blood, and we stake
our reputation that he will shiver to his heart’s content, and find
himself many degrees lower in the scale of Fahrenheit than cold
water, cool air, early rising, and exercise can possibly make him.”
Before leaving this subject, we would entreat our readers seriously to
consider the observations we have addressed to them, and the facts
which we have adduced in support of the mode of treatment which we have
advocated. The subject is one of serious moment, since, on this disease
being rightly understood, the lives of millions of our countrymen
depend. If a rational mode of treatment be adopted, its fearful ravages
may be successfully encountered and stayed, but if not, the gaunt
spectre will stalk as hitherto, unchecked through the length and
breadth of our island, dealing death to millions of its sons.
With regard to water drinking, an important part of the Hydropathic
process, and against which much prejudice exists, the following
extracts from the pen of the justly celebrated Allopathic physician,
Sir Henry Holland, will not, we hope, be considered out of place. In
his work styled “Medical Notes and Reflections,” treating of
“Diluents,” he thus writes:
“Though there may seem little reason for considering these as a
separate class of remedies, yet I doubt whether the principles of
treatment implied in the name is sufficiently regarded in modern
practice. On the Continent, indeed, the use of diluents is much
more extensive than in England; and, under the form of mineral
waters especially, makes up in some countries a considerable part
of general practice. But putting aside all question as to mineral
ingredients in water, the consideration more expressly occurs, to
what extent and with what effects this great diluent, the only one
which really concerns the animal economy, may be introduced into
the system as a remedy? Looking at the definite proportion which,
in a healthy state, exists in all parts of the body between the
aqueous, saline, and animal ingredients—at the various organs
destined, directly or indirectly, to regulate the proportion—and at
the morbid results, occurring whenever it is materially altered—we
must admit the question as one very important in the animal
economy, and having various relation to the causes and treatment of
disease. Keeping in mind then this reference to the use of water as
an internal remedy, diluents may be viewed under three conditions
of probable usefulness:—First, the mere mechanical effect of
quantity of liquid in diluting and washing away matters,
excrementitious or noxious, from the alimentary canal;—secondly,
their influence in modifying certain morbid conditions of the
blood;—and thirdly, their effect upon various functions of
secretion and excretion, and especially upon those of the kidneys
and skin * * * The first is an obvious benefit in many cases, and
not to be disdained from any notion of its vulgar simplicity. It is
certain there are many states of the alimentary canal in which the
free use of water at stated times produces good, which cannot be
attained by other or stronger remedies. I have often known the
action of the bowels to be maintained with regularity for a long
period, simply by a tumbler of water, warm or cold, on an empty
stomach, in cases where medicine had almost lost its effect, or
become a source only of distressing irritation. The advantage of
such treatment is still more strongly attested, where the
secretions taking place into the intestines, or the products formed
there during digestion, become vitiated in kind. Here dilution
lessens that irritation to the membranes, which we cannot so
readily obviate by other means, and aids in removing the cause from
the body with less distress than any other remedy. In some cases,
where often and largely used, its effect goes farther in actually
altering the state of the secreting surfaces by direct application
to them. I mention these circumstances upon experience, having
often obtained much good from resorting to them in practice, when
stronger medicines and ordinary methods had proved of little avail.
Dilution thus used, for example, so as to act on the contents of
the bowels, is beneficial in many dyspeptic cases, where it is
especially an object to avoid needless irritation to the system.
Half-a-pint or more of water taken when fasting, at the temperature
most agreeable to the patient, will often be found to give singular
relief to his morbid sensations. * * * In reference to the
foregoing uses of diluents, it is to be kept in mind that the
lining of the alimentary canal is, to all intents, a surface, as
well as the skin, pretty nearly equal in extent; exercising some
similar functions, with others more appropriate to itself, and
capable in many respects of being acted upon in a similar manner.
As respects the subject before us, it is both expedient and correct
in many cases to regard diluents as acting on this internal surface
analogously to liquids on the skin. And I would apply this remark
not only to the mechanical effects of the remedy, but also to their
use as the medium for conveying cold to internal parts; a point of
practice which either the simplicity of the means, or the false
alarms besetting it, have hitherto prevented from being duly
regarded.”
Again he writes:—
“Without reference, however, to these extreme cases, it must be
repeated, that the use of water, simply as a diluent, scarcely
receives attention and discrimination enough in our English
practice.”
And again:—
“As I have been treating of this remedy only in its simplest form,
I do not advert to the use of the different mineral waters farther
than to state, that they confirm these general views, separating,
as far as can be done, their effect as diluents from that of the
ingredients they contain. The copious employment of some of them in
Continental practice gives room for observation, which is wanting
under our more limited use. I have often seen five or six pints
taken daily for some weeks together (a great part of it in the
morning while fasting), with singular benefit in many cases to the
general health, and most obviously to the state of the secretions.
* * * These courses, however, were always conjoined with ample
exercise and regular habits of life; doubtless influencing much the
action of the waters, and aiding their salutary effect.”
With this quotation we take leave of Sir Henry Holland, merely
observing, that no Hydropathist could say more on the subject than he
has done, and that the Continental practice referred to, of drinking
large quantities of water, conjoined with ample exercise and regular
habits of life, is precisely that practice which Hydropathy enjoins.
Sir John Forbes, a physician already quoted, says, on water drinking—
“The water cure is a stomachic, since it invariably increases the
appetite.”
Dr. Pereira states—
“It is a vital stimulus, and is more essential to our existence
than aliment.”
Liebig, the celebrated physiological chemist, bears similar testimony,
viz.—“It increases the appetite.”
Are these effects consistent with lowering the tone of the stomach? are
they not, on the contrary, the strongest evidence of the TONIC effects
of water?
Some objectors say, “water drinking thins the blood.” After demolishing
these objections by arguments which we regret we have not space to
quote, Dr. Gully concludes his observations as follows;—
“But the whole assertion regarding thin blood proceeds on grounds
that betray intense ignorance, both of physiology and of the water
cure. It supposes that the whole water imbibed enters into, and
remains in the circulating blood, quasi water, that no chemical
transformation of it takes place in the body at all: this is
ignorance of physiology. And it supposes that ALL who are treated
by water are told to drink the same, and that a large quantity,
without discrimination of the individual cases of disease
presented: this is ignorance of the water cure. So between the
horns of this compound ignorance, and of wilful misrepresentation,
we leave the declaimers about the ‘thinning of the blood.’”
It is a curious fact that in all the medical works which treat of
anaemia, or bloodlessness, “allusion is never once made to
water-drinking as a known cause—not even to the possibility of its
being a cause of it.”
In so flagrant a case of thin blood, why has this principal cause been
omitted? It is further curious that this injurious effect of water was
never invented, much less preached, until Hydropathy was found to be
making inconvenient strides in public favour.
Is the reader aware that eighty per cent. of water enters into the
composition of healthy blood, without making any allowance for the
enormous quantity required for the various secretions?
Granting, however, for the sake of argument, that all, and more than
these objectors urge, were true, we still have a kind of feeling that
water is more congenial to the system than prussic acid, or even
iodine. But we may be wrong.
Perhaps there is no disease which would appear, at first sight, so
little suited for Hydropathic treatment as cholera; [15] that disease
for the successful treatment of which we have been hitherto accustomed
to consider stimulants and hot applications of all kinds as
indispensably necessary, and yet there is no disease, in the treatment
of which Hydropathy has been more successful.
The principles of its treatment, by the water system, are so sensibly
and rationally put forward in the pamphlet entitled, “An Address, &c.,”
that, as we think, the greatest sceptic must be convinced of the truth
of the doctrines it propounds, we strongly recommend its perusal to our
readers. Of the many cases treated by the author, ALL, we are told,
recovered, whilst not a single instance of secondary fever—the
invariable accompaniment of the Allopathic treatment, and only
secondary in danger to the disease itself—occurred. The necessary
prevalence of this secondary fever in the one case, and its absence in
the other, are beautifully explained, on natural principles, at pages 9
and 10. Though the pamphlet in question is anonymous, and the author
has taken some pains to explain his reason for concealing his name, yet
he has unwittingly betrayed his identity in the following extract from
a letter from Lieut.-Colonel Cummins, C.M., who, having tried the
system as an amateur, in America, thus writes of it:—
“Tell Barter that his system has lately become the universal
practice in the Southern States, for cholera; and since its
adoption, although it is, of course, but imperfectly carried out,
the mortality is not one-fourth.
“I never saw cholera of so frightful a character; that at Quebec,
which you recollect was so near doing for me, was nothing to it;
the violence of the spasms was such that blood oozed out through
all the pores of the skin, especially with the niggers. It did not
give the slightest warning; the men often fell while at work, and
before four hours were dead.”
The following statement, extracted from a letter written by Mr. James
Morgan of Cork, and which appeared in the Limerick Chronicle, 4th
April, 1849, affords a remarkable instance of the beneficial effects of
fresh air and cold water, so strongly insisted upon by Dr. Barter, and
corroborating the practice which, on theoretical grounds, he
recommends:
“In a temporary cholera hospital at Gloucester, there were sixteen
patients, one of whom was an interesting young female, between
fifteen and sixteen years of age, for whose recovery the attending
physician (Dr. Shute) was most anxious. On leaving the hospital in
the evening, the girl was in collapse, and quite blue; he called
the nursetender, and bade her be attentive to her, and give her
whatever she may call for, as all hopes had vanished. In the course
of the night the nurse went to increase the fire which was near the
girl’s berth in the ward; but she begged the woman not to do so, as
she was almost suffocated, and, at the same time, asked for a
drink. The nurse brought her a bowl of tea, which was rejected, but
she requested water. Remembering the doctor’s directions, the
nurse, not without some reluctance and apprehension, brought her a
pint mug full of water, which she drank with avidity; and continued
to call for water about every five minutes, until she had taken two
gallons of it; when she fell into a profound sleep, in which she
was found by the doctor in the morning, when her natural complexion
reappeared, and she was, to his astonishment, in a state of
convalescence. Having with amazement elevated his eyes, exclaiming,
‘this is something like a miracle!’ he called the nursetender, who
related what had taken place; and perceiving the window open over
the patient’s berth, he asked why it was not shut? and was told by
the attendant, that it was left open at the earnest desire of the
girl. The doctor immediately ordered all the windows of the ward to
be opened, the heavy bed covering on the patients to be removed,
and replaced by light rugs; directed that no drink should be given
but cold water, and the result was, that the whole sixteen persons
were cured of cholera; one, however, died of consecutive fever,
produced by eating too much chicken and drinking too much broth
whilst convalescent. The case was reported to the Government Board
of Health, then sitting in London; and similar treatment was
pursued by all the medical men in and about Gloucester with the
most complete success. The report, names of the doctors, and all
the correspondence are minutely detailed in the columns of the
Chronicle in the year 1832.
“Need more be offered upon the subject; and yet with such facts
upon record, ‘hot punch’ is now given to the poor patients in the
cholera hospitals in Limerick. Those pious and angelic Sisters of
Mercy, to whom you have alluded in the Chronicle, never, in all
probability, heard or read of the treatment of cholera as above
narrated; but ever attentive and observant as they are in the
performance of their hallowed vocation, they have not been
unmindful of the good effects of cold water. Nature prompts the
sufferer to call for it, and it should be always supplied. In
cholera, pure water is balsamic.
“As to the operation of cold water on the human system in cholera,
or the action of the system on water, I will not presume to
pronounce; but I may say that it is commonly supposed that when the
serum (one of the important constituents of the blood) is exhausted
by discharges, collapse takes place, and the livid hue of the
countenance follows; and everybody has heard of the experimental
operation of transfusion of warm water, combined with albumen and
soda, into the veins, to supply the absence of serum, in order to
give the vital current its natural and healthy flow: whether cold
water, from the oxygen it contains, and the necessary heat it is
therefore calculated to impart, is taken up rapidly by the
absorbents to cherish and feed the blood, and fill the channels of
circulation, so as to remove collapse in cholera, I shall leave
physiologists to determine; but it is indisputable that cholera
patients have anxiously asked for, and eagerly swallowed, copious
draughts of cold water, till their thirst was allayed, genial
warmth restored, agony banished, and the vital functions vivified
and invigorated.” * * * * *
The following extract is taken from Braithnorth’s “Retrospect of
Medicine,” a standard professional work:—
“I am acquainted with three persons, who, after they had been laid
out for dead, on being washed, previous to interment, in the open
court-yard, with water, to obtain which the ice had been broken,
recovered in consequence, and lived many years. I received from
Erycroon, in Turkey, a letter from our excellent Consul, Mr. Brant,
who states that Dr. Dixon, of that place, was then curing more
patients by friction, with ice or snow, than any other treatment.
The same practice is reported to have been the most effectual in
Russia.”
We make no comments on the foregoing, leaving the public to draw their
own conclusions from the facts stated. In setting the facts before
them, we feel we have done our duty; we leave the leaven to work in
their minds, and produce its own result on their future conduct.
In condemning the mistaken administration of hot stimulants, such as
“hot punch,” &c., Dr. Barter proceeds:—
“I never yet saw a patient that did not cry out for cold water; and
the confirmed dram-drinker can, with difficulty, be persuaded to
taste his favourite beverage; he objects more to brandy or punch
than the temperate do; this I have often remarked. I have seen a
patient travel for miles on an open car, through sleet and rain,
without any covering, and drinking cold water on the way, and
remarked that he did better than when treated with brandy, hot
tins, &c. In fact, I often saw such patients beg to be allowed out
again, they used to call loudly for cold water. ‘For the love and
honour of God, sir, get us a drink of cold water,’ was no
unfrequent request amongst them, and that pronounced with an
earnestness of manner most truly impressive; but, alas! in 1832,
this appeal was always refused, though in 1849 a step has been
taken in a right direction, and it is allowed, according to the
Sisters of Mercy, ‘in small quantities.’”
The truth will ere long be acknowledged, that it is our mode of life
that makes us fit subjects for cholera, and that it is our mode of
treating it alone, which makes the disease so dangerous. The wretch who
is cast uncared for in a ditch, exposed to all the inclemency of the
weather, with water alone to quench his burning thirst, has ten chances
to one in favour of his recovery, compared with the well-cared patient
who is dosed with brandy and the favourite specifics of the
apothecary’s shop. If we look at cholera, and divest our minds of its
accustomed mode of treatment, we will find that every symptom of the
disease points to the presence of some highly irritant poison in the
blood; and in the effort to expel this poison, the serum which contains
it, is drained from the system. What, therefore, can be more rational
than to supply the system with the materials of restoration, by giving
water in large quantities, and to stimulate its chemical combinations
by which the caloric of the system shall be restored, by the influence
of fresh air, water drinking, and cold bathing.
Sir Bulwer Lytton thus sums up his impressions of Hydropathy:—
“Those cases in which the water-cure seems an absolute panacea, and
in which the patient may commence with the most sanguine hopes,
are—first, rheumatism, however prolonged, however complicated. In
this the cure is usually rapid—nearly always permanent. [16]
Secondly, gout: here its efficacy is little less startling to
appearance than in the former case; it seems to take up the disease
by the roots; it extracts the peculiar acid which often appears in
discolorations upon the sheets used in the application, or is
ejected in other modes. But here, judging always from cases
subjected to my personal knowledge, I have not seen instances to
justify the assertion that returns of the disease do not occur. The
predisposition—the tendency, has appeared to remain; the patient is
liable to relapses, but I have invariably found them far less
frequent, less lengthened, and readily susceptible of simple and
speedy cure, especially if the habits remain temperate.”
If it be asked why Hydropathy has proved itself so effective a remedy
in curing rheumatism, we would answer, on account of its great power in
strengthening and invigorating the stomach and digestive organs, in the
derangement of which, the cause of that disease is to be found.
Rheumatism proceeds from a sluggish circulation in the extremities,
consequent on a low vitality in the system, arising from a derangement
of the digestive organs and viscera; if these latter were sound and
free from irritation, all the cold and wet, we could possibly be
exposed to, would fail to produce that inflammation of the sheaths of
the muscles in which rheumatism consists. That Hydropathy is capable of
strengthening and invigorating these organs, is well known to all who
have tried it, and is even admitted by its greatest opponents when they
state, “Oh! it is good for the general health,” for it is utterly
impossible for the “general health” to be good without a sound
digestion.
With respect to gout, a permanent cure from it is rarely to be found,
and why?—Because few people have either the time or patience to
continue long enough under treatment for its total eradication, running
away from an “establishment” the moment they get relief from the
pressing fit, and consequently the disease recurs. Now, of all
diseases, gout is perhaps the most tedious of permanent cure, the
visceral irritation which gives rise to it being always inveterate and
of long duration, and nothing short of chronic treatment—treatment
continuing for years instead of months, will remove it. Dr. Gully
observes respecting it:—
“It would be folly, however, to avoid a treatment because it will
not for ever root up your disease in your own convenient time. Look
at the destructive manner in which colchicum reduces a gouty fit,
how it approximates the attacks, and utterly disorganizes the
viscera; and then regard what the water cure is capable of doing,
both against individual attacks, and in reduction of the diathesis,
the vital parts meanwhile improving under its operation; ... if it
does not utterly cure the gout, at least it does not shorten the
patient’s life as colchicum does.”
On the effects of colchicum he, further on, observes:—
“To the patient, and, indeed, to the physician who knows little of
physiology, all this will appear right: the gout is removed, and
that is what was desired. The physician, however, who is a
physiologist, will say, ‘True, that irritation which you call gout,
has left the extremities, whither it had been sent by nature to
save her noble internal parts. But look to the signs exhibited by
those parts; are they not those of augmented irritation, at least
of irritation of a degree and kind that did not exist so long as
the limbs were pained and inflamed? The fact is, that your
colchicum has set up in the viscera so intense an irritation as to
reconcentrate the mischief within; and the fit is cured, not by
ridding the body of the gouty irritation, but by driving or drawing
it in again,’ (thus baffling nature’s efforts at self relief).
‘Hence the continuance of the dyspeptic symptoms after the fit;
hence, as you will find, the recurrence of another fit ere long,
the intervals becoming less and less, until gouty pain is
incessantly in the limbs, and gouty irritation always in the
viscera.’”
When the drugging practitioner drives the inflammation from the
extremities to a more dangerous internal position, he congratulates
himself on having cured the gout; but what in reality has he done?—By
his mischievous interference with nature, he has endangered his
patient’s life and shaken his constitution; whilst the gouty
irritation, which causes the complaint, remains unsubdued, ready to be
transferred at a moment to the head or heart, the practitioner having
cleverly banished it from its original harmless position. It is in this
way also that the Allopathist cures skin diseases, driving in the
irritation which nature is struggling to drive out; this he eventually
succeeds in doing, by weakening the powers of the system, and then
fancies the disease is cured, whilst the patient pays in the long run
for these hostile operations against nature.
But we have interrupted Sir Bulwer Lytton,—he thus proceeds:—
“Thirdly, that wide and grisly family of affliction classed under
the common name of dyspepsia. All derangements of the digestive
organs, imperfect powers of nutrition—the malaise of an injured
stomach, appear precisely the complaints on which the system takes
firmest hold, and in which it effects those cures that convert
existence from a burden into a blessing.
“Hence it follows that many nameless and countless complaints,
proceeding from derangement of the digestive organs, cease as that
great machine is restored to order. I have seen disorders of the
heart which have been pronounced organic by no inferior authorities
of the profession, disappear in an incredibly short time; cases of
incipient consumption, in which the seat is in the nutritious
powers; hæmorrhages, and various congestions, shortness of breath,
habitual fainting fits, many of what are called improperly nervous
complaints, but which in reality are radiations from the main
ganglionic spring: the disorders produced by the abuse of powerful
medicines, especially mercury and iodine; the loss of appetite, the
dulled sense and the shaking hand of intemperance, skin complaints,
and the dire scourge of scrofula;—all these seem to obtain from
Hydropathy relief,—nay, absolute and unqualified cure, beyond not
only the means of the most skilful practitioner, but the hopes of
the most sanguine patient.”
Nor will the above results form at all a subject for wonder, when it
is remembered that every natural disease arises either from impurity
in the blood or maldistribution of it, and that all the processes
of the water cure, from the Turkish bath down to the wet sheet,
act powerfully as depurators of the blood and controllers of its
circulation,—attracting it here, and repelling it there, at will.
We know not whether the public will prefer the impartial testimony of
an intelligent observer like Sir Bulwer Lytton, to that of the
Allopathic physician, naturally wedded to his own system and anxious to
sustain it against all intruders; but we may observe, that we never yet
met a physician opposed to Hydropathy, who did not, on catechising him,
exhibit the most absurd ignorance respecting it. Their chronic idea is
that of a person being left to shiver in wet sheets; and, as a
consequence, their chronic note of warning, accompanied by an ominous
shake of the head, consists in, “Don’t attempt the water cure, or it
will kill you.” [17] If medical men would but see, before they assert,
then much value might be attached to their opinion; but what value can
be attached to their opinion about a system which they will not take
the trouble of examining into? How many orthodox physicians have ever
visited Blarney, or any similar Hydropathic establishment?—The
proportion of such visitors (and no one can form a fair idea of the
system without seeing it at work), to the whole profession would be
more than represented by an infinitesimal fraction.
We wonder how long the public will continue to poison [18] their
systems with mercury, colchicum, iodine, and prussic acid, because a
physician chooses to tell them that a mode of treatment which he has
never investigated “will kill them.”
It may not be uninteresting to observe, that under Hydropathic
treatment, chronic disease frequently becomes acute; for, as the body
improves in strength, the more acutely will any existing disease
develop itself, and for the following reason: pain is caused by an
effort of nature to relieve the system of some morbid influence
residing in it, and the stronger the constitution, the greater efforts
will it make to remove that morbid influence, and therefore the greater
will be the pain; but on the other hand, when the body is enfeebled,
its efforts to relieve itself, though continual, are weak and
inefficient, and the disease remaining in the system, assumes the
chronic and less painful form. Now with these facts before them, we
have been amused at hearing physicians observe, in their efforts to
decry the “Water System,” “Oh it is good for the general health, but
nothing more,” a result albeit, which unfortunately the Allopathic
system cannot lay claim to. When speaking thus they do not however
reflect that they are affording the strongest possible testimony in
support of the system which they seek to decry, inasmuch as every
physiologist, from Cape Clear to the Giant’s Causeway, admits the
principle, that the cure of disease is to be sought for in the powers
of the living organism alone; and it must be evident that the more you
strengthen that organism, the more you increase its powers to cure
itself, and diminish its liability to future disease.
Having trespassed thus far on the attention of our readers, we would
conclude by inviting them and the medical profession, generally, to a
calm and dispassionate investigation, as far as the opportunities of
each allow, of the relative merits of the Allopathic and Hydropathic
systems, approaching the investigation, as far as possible, with a mind
devoid of prejudice and bigotry. Their duty to themselves and to
society demands this inquiry at their hands—two antagonistic (we use
the term advisedly) systems are presented for their acceptance—which
will they lay hold of? To assist them in determining this point we
would recommend for their quiet perusal either or all of the works
alluded to in this article, [19] the study of which will be found
interesting and profitable. If they conclude that drugs are wholesome,
let them by all means be swallowed; but if they are proved to be
injurious, deleterious and unnecessary, then away with them;—if opiates
are innocuous let them be retained, but if they congest the liver,
sicken the stomach, and paralyze the actions of the vital organs, the
sooner they are erased for ever from the Hygienic Pharmacopeia the
better—let them gracefully retire before the improved system of hot
stupes, fomentations, and the abdominal compress.
The very simplicity of the processes of the “water-cure,” which people
cannot believe capable of producing the effects ascribed to them,
combined with a belief, ingrained by long habit, in the absolute
necessity for drugs in curing disease, have chiefly militated against a
more extended reception of Hydropathy by the lay public; but when they
reflect that ALL the powers of the medical art range themselves under
two great categories, stimulants and sedatives—blistering, bleeding,
drugs, and leeching—acknowledging no other objects, they cannot but
admit the possibility of Hydropathy possessing the powers attributed to
it, since its bracing and soothing properties cannot be questioned.
Were, however, the position of affairs reversed, and Hydropathy become
as old a system as the Allopathic this belief, in the efficacy of the
old school might be securely entertained; for no one would think for a
moment of exchanging a system, fixed, intelligible, and certain in its
action, as based on scientific principles, and consonant with the laws
of physiology, for the uncertain, groping, empirical, and injurious
practice of drug medication.
We would ask the medical profession of Ireland to reflect on the fact,
that Dr. Barter’s establishment at Blarney, contains at this moment
upwards of 120 patients, with many more frequently seeking for
admission within its walls, most of whom leave the establishment ardent
converts to Hydropathy, determined for the rest of their lives to
“throw physic to the dogs,” fleeing from it as from some poisonous
thing. It will not do for them to “pooh-pooh” the system, and tell
their patients, as many of them do, that it will kill them; [20] such
language only betrays ignorance on their part, and will not put down a
system which daily gives the lie to their predictions by affording
ocular demonstration of its efficacy, in the restored health and
blooming cheek of many a once emaciated friend. Men are too sensible
now-a-days to pin their faith on the dictum of a medical man, who runs
down a system without fairly investigating it, and examining the
principles on which it acts, to say nothing of the prejudice he must
feel in favour of his own particular system; but if a mode of treatment
be rational, producing cures where every other system of treatment has
failed, and recommend itself to the common sense and reason of mankind,
we believe that such a principle will make its way despite of the
opposition of all the physicians that ever lived; and this very
progress the water cure is now making.
We would in conclusion apostrophize Hydropathy, in the words of the
American traveller, who gave vent to his feelings on first beholding
the falls of Niagara, by exclaiming, “Well done, Water!!”
THE TURKISH BATH. [21]
“Come hither, ye that press your beds of down
And sleep not, see him sweating o’er his bread
Before he eats it.—’Tis the primal curse,
But softened into mercy, made the pledge
Of cheerful days, and nights without a groan.”—Cowper.
“Melancholy is overcome by a free perspiration; and cheerfulness,
without any evident cause, proceeds from it.”—Sanctorius.
What is a Turkish bath? Should this question be asked by any of our
readers, we would answer, that it is a bath differing from all other
hot baths in this important particular, viz., that the heated medium is
AIR instead of water; and that all parts of the body, when in the bath,
are subjected to an even and equal temperature. The result of which is,
that inasmuch as man was constituted to breathe AIR instead of vapour,
the Turkish bath may be enjoyed for hours at a time, without
inconvenience; whereas in the vapour-bath the patient is unable to
remain in it for more than about a quarter of an hour, in consequence
of a feeling of suffocation, from want of a sufficient supply of air to
the lungs. And further, there is this difference between the two baths,
that in the case both of the vapour-bath and the vapour-box [22] the
pulse is materially raised, whilst in the Turkish bath the pulse seldom
rises above its normal state, which shows that the circulation is very
little affected by it—an all-important fact, which is thus accounted
for:—The normal temperature of the human body, when in a state of
health, is about 98° Faht., a temperature which cannot be much
augmented or diminished without producing injurious results in the
system; but as it is impossible always to maintain so low temperature
about us, Nature has provided, by means of perspiration, a safety
valve, by which the human body is protected from the evil consequences
which would arise from its exposure to a high temperature—the principle
on which she acts being as follows:—It is a physical law that whenever
evaporation takes place a considerable amount of latent heat, (i.e.
heat not sensible to the thermometer), is absorbed, by which
abstraction of heat the temperature of the body from which the
evaporation proceeds is greatly lowered; but as evaporation consists in
the absorption of vapour by the surrounding air, it is evident that no
evaporation can take place where that air is already saturated with
moisture, and it is also evident that the amount of evaporation will
depend on the dryness of that air. Accordingly, in the Turkish bath,
the air being almost dry, when perspiration takes place it is followed
by a rapid evaporation which cools the body, and prevents its
temperature from rising above a healthful limit; whereas, in the
vapour-bath and vapour-box, the air being saturated, with moisture,
evaporation cannot take place, and consequently as no means for
reducing the high temperature of the body exist, the heat is thrown in
upon the system, raising the pulse, producing feverish headache, and
other symptoms of a highly deranged circulation; whilst a further
derangement arises from an insufficient supply of air to the surface of
the body. In the Turkish bath, again, the system, feeling that it has
an ample supply of air, is not called upon to quicken the circulation
through the lungs in order to obtain an increased supply, and thus
another source of feverish excitement is obviated. These and other
considerations give the Turkish bath the pre-eminence, longo intevallo,
over all other artificial modes [23] yet invented for acting on the
skin by perspiration.
It may be observed that, cæteris paribus, the strength of each person’s
constitution is directly proportional to the quantity of oxygen which
his system is capable of imbibing, for on this the vitality of his
system and the purity of his blood, and therefore his health, depends.
Hence arises the importance of supplying the system with an abundance
of pure air, and the absolute necessity, when the lungs are by nature
small and deficient, of increasing that supply of air through the only
other medium open to us, viz., the skin [24]—(the great supplementary
organ to the lungs)—the necessity for improving and developing the
absorptive powers of which is in exact proportion to the lungs’
diminished capacity. It is in this lies the great therapeutic value of
the Turkish bath, viz., in its opening the pores of the skin [25], and
so improving that medium for the access of oxygen to the blood. Let two
individuals, one with large lungs, the other with small, pursue the
same habits of living; the individual with large lungs indulging
himself to the furthest extent, consistent with the continuance of his
health, and it will be found, that his small-lunged companion, in
trying to keep pace with him, will utterly break down, his blood
becoming diseased, and his health failing him from want of a sufficient
supply of oxygen to purify his blood by burning off the carbonaceous
matter which poisons it and depresses his vitality. The individual with
large lungs will indulge in alcoholic beverages with impunity, to an
extent which would entail consumption or some other miserable disease
on his narrow-chested companion; it was the great exercise, constant
exposure to, and rapid passage through, the air, (by which a large
quantity of oxygen was supplied to the system through the lungs) that
enabled our fox-hunting ancestors of old to live a life which their
more sedentary descendants of the present day dare not attempt to
practise.
Having premised thus far, we now proceed to a description of the
principal features of the Turkish, or more correctly speaking, the
Roman bath: at the same time strongly recommending to our readers the
perusal of Mr. Urquhart’s pamphlet, for an historic and detailed
account of this interesting remnant of Roman civilization.
The bath consists of three apartments, communicating with each other,
each being dedicated to a special purpose. The first, or
cooling-chamber, consists of a good-sized room, which may or may not be
open to the heavens; but this condition is essential to it, that it be
well ventilated, with a free current of cool air passing through it. In
this room are placed sofas and reclining couches; and here the bather
divests himself of his clothes, and places his feet in wooden clogs,
previous to his entering the bath, the first act of which is enacted in
the second or middle chamber.
This middle chamber consists of a room fitted with marble slabs, and
mattresses to recline on; the ceiling being arched, and light
transmitted from above through stars of stained glass, spreading a
tinted gloom through the apartment, which effectually cuts off the mind
from all communication with the outer world, disposing it to rest or
quiet meditation—a frame of mind peculiarly desirable for those who
medicinally [26] seek the bath. After reclining in the apartment for
about half-an-hour or three quarters, according to the temperature,
which varies from 90° to 100° Faht., until the surface of the body
becomes soft and moist, and the pores slightly excited, you enter the
third, or heated apartment, the Sudatorium [27] of the Romans. Under a
roof similar to the one already described, are arranged seats of
marble, together with a large platform of the same material, which is
placed in the centre of the apartment, whilst along the walls are
ranged marble basins, supplied by pipes with hot and cold water. In
this chamber, the temperature of which varies from 130° to 150° Faht.,
shampooing, an essential part of the bath, is performed, a description
of which process we will borrow from Mr. Urquhart’s interesting
pamphlet. Having placed the bather on the marble platform, he thus
describes the process:—
“The cloths are taken from your head and shoulders; one is spread
for you to lie on, the other is rolled for your head. You lie down
on your back, the tellak (bath attendant) kneels at your side, and
bending over, gripes and presses your chest, arms, and legs,
passing from part to part like a bird shifting its place on a
perch. He brings his whole weight on you with a jerk; follows the
line of muscle with anatomical thumb; draws the open hand strongly
over the surface, particularly round the shoulder, turning you half
up in so doing; stands with his feet on the thighs and on the
chest, and slips down the ribs; then up again three times, and,
lastly, doubling your arms, one after the other, on the chest,
pushes with both hands down, beginning at the elbow, and then
putting an arm under the back and applying his chest to your
crossed elbows, rolls on you across till you crack.”
The foregoing account of the process of shampooing may appear anything
but pleasant to many of our readers; but they should recollect that it
is a description of the process when FULLY carried out, and that it may
be modified to any extent, or wholly omitted, according to the tastes
of the bathers, or the physician’s prescription. Shampooing is,
however, healthful and invigorating, causing the blood to flow briskly
through the minor veins and capillaries, and bringing muscles and
sinews into play which would otherwise remain inactive, unless a large
amount of exercise were taken; it also materially assists in removing
the inert skin from the surface of the body, and brings the pores into
healthy action. Few people, after once undergoing the operation, would
consider that they had received the full benefit of the bath were
shampooing omitted. The shampooing being concluded, the bather is
conducted to one of the marble fountains already described, where the
waters are mixed to the required temperature. With these he is
thoroughly washed, the water being poured over the body from metal
bowls. Soap is then had recourse to, which, had it been used earlier in
the process, would have materially interfered with its success, as the
alkali of the soap, by combining with the oily substance of the
epidermis, would have deprived it of the necessary consistency for its
easy detachment from the body.
After a good lathering, and a good washing with warm water:—
“You are led a step or two and seated, the shoulder-cloth is taken
off, another put on, the first over it; another is folded round the
head; your feet are already in the wooden pattens; you are wished
health; you return the salute, rise, and are conducted by both arms
to the first or outer chamber, where the concluding act takes
place. The platform round the chamber is raised and divided by low
balustrades into little compartments, where the couches of repose
are arranged, so that while having the uninterrupted view all
round, parties or families may be by themselves. This is the time
and place for meals. The bather, having reached this apartment, is
conducted to the edge of the platform, to which there is only one
high step. You drop the wooden patten, and on the matting a towel
is spread, anticipating your footfall. You now recline on a couch
in the form of the letter W elongated, and, as you rest on it, the
weight is everywhere directly supported. Every tendon, every muscle
is relaxed—the mattress fitting, as it were, into the skeleton.
There is total inaction, and the body appears to be suspended.”
We shall not easily forget the sensations we ourselves experienced on
first reclining on such a couch, after emerging from the Turkish bath
(as revived by Dr. Barter at his far-famed hydropathic establishment
near Blarney), enjoying a luxurious, balmy, and quiet repose, followed
by an elasticity of body and mind such as we had never before felt.
[28] We must here extract from a note in Mr. Urquhart’s pamphlet the
following description of the feelings induced by reclining, after the
bath, on these delicious couches:—
“On trouve alors des lits delicieux; on s’y repose avec volupté, on
y eprouve un calme et un bîenetre difficile à exprimer. C’est une
sorte de régénération dont le charme est encore augmenté par des
boissons restaurantes et surtout par un café exquis.”—D’Ohsson, t.
vii., p. 63.
Another writer thus describes it:—
“When all is done, a soft and luxurious feeling spreads itself over
your body; every limb is light and free as air; the marble-like
smoothness of the skin is delightful; and, after all this
pommelling, scrubbing, racking, parboiling, and perspiring, you
feel more enjoyment than you ever felt before.”
The object to be attained by the proceeding last described is to allow
the body to cool down after the perspiration produced by the bath, and
to encourage the free absorption of oxygen through the skin, the body
being fully exposed to the action of the air when the pores are in the
best condition to inhale it. We would here observe, that the Turks have
given up the cold immersion of the Romans, which succeeded the last
washing with warm water in the third or inner chamber, after which the
bather was again conducted to the hot room for a few moments previous
to his finally emerging into the first or cooling chamber. For this
immersion the Turks have substituted the fanning of the body by a boy
armed with a napkin or feather-fan, which, setting the cool air in
motion, rapidly cools the body; whilst, with the same view, Dr. Barter
uses, in some cases, the cold vertical and horizontal douches, or
simple plunge bath, [29] according to the strength and powers of the
individual, each mode realizing, however, the same end—namely, the
preventing the breaking out of a second perspiration.
Mr. Urquhart thus finishes his description of the process:—
“The body has come forth shining like alabaster, fragrant as the
cistus, sleek as satin, and soft as velvet. The touch of your own
skin is electric. Buffon has a wonderful description of Adam’s
surprise and delight at his first touch of himself. It is the
description of the human sense when the body is brought back to its
purity. The body thus renewed, the spirit wanders abroad, and,
reviewing its tenement, rejoices to find it clean and tranquil.
There is an intoxication, or dream, that lifts you out of the
flesh, and yet a sense of life and consciousness that spreads
through every member. Each breastful of air seems to pass, not to
the heart but to the brain, and to quench, not the pulsation of the
one but the fancies of the other. That exaltation which requires
the slumber of the senses—that vividness of sense that drowns the
visions of the spirit—are simultaneously engaged in calm and
unspeakable luxury; you condense the pleasures of many scenes, and
enjoy in an hour the existence of years. But this, too, will pass.
The visions fade, the speed of the blood thickens, the breath of
the pores is checked, the crispness of the skin returns, the
fountains of strength are opened—you seek again the world and its
toils, and those who experience these effects and vicissitudes for
the first time exclaim, ‘I feel as if I could leap over the moon.’
Paying your pence according to the tariff of your deserts, you walk
forth a king.”
Having now described the bath, as we hope, in a form intelligible to
our readers, we would make some observations on its physical and moral
effects: and, first, as to its physical. For cleansing the blood from
all impurities there is nothing equal to its effects. Sarsaparilla may
hide its diminished head. By the principle of endosmosis and exosmosis,
a principle well known to chemists, the serum containing all the morbid
portions of the blood, on passing off in perspiration, is replaced by
water, and the fountains of life are cleansed. This benefit will be
appreciated when it is recollected how many of “the ills that flesh is
heir to” are derived from a diseased and morbid condition of the blood.
As an instance of the purifying effect of the Turkish bath we may
mention, that where mercury exists in the system, the gold ring of the
bather has been turned to the colour of silver, owing to the mercury
amalgamating with it on its exuding from the skin. Mr. Urquhart
observes:—
“Where the bath is the practice of the people there are no diseases
of the skin. All cases of inflammation, local and general are
subdued. Gout, rheumatism, sciatica, or stone, cannot exist where
it is consecutively and sedulously employed as a curative means. I
am inclined to say the same thing in reference to the plague. I am
certain of it with reference to cholera. (In Cork the men employed
in cleaning out the brewers’ vats, and who have thus been in a
Turkish bath, were, during the prevalence of cholera, free from
that disorder. The other workmen in those establishments petitioned
to be put to that work.) As to consumption—that scourge of
England—that pallid spectre, which sits by every tenth domestic
hearth, among the higher orders—it is not only unknown where the
bath is practised, but is curable by its means.”
We ourselves have seen obstinate cases of sciatica, which for several
years had baffled all the remedies of the most eminent Allopathic
physicians, yield completely to the benign influence of the Turkish
bath in the course of six weeks. We have witnessed similar effects
produced in cases of rheumatism, and contracted joints arising from
rheumatic gout; whilst in cases of skin disease it is a sovereign
remedy, unrivalled by any other mode of treatment, not excepting the
Harrowgate waters. And it should be remembered, that all the beneficial
effects here mentioned are experienced, not at the cost of a weakened
and debilitated constitution, too often the result of Allopathic
treatment, but in conjunction with an improved state of health and
body, the whole system being strengthened and invigorated, whilst the
special disease is driven out.
We know that some people imagine that the Turkish bath is weakening in
its effects, but on this point hear Mr. Urquhart:—
“We can test this in three ways. Its effects on those debilitated
by disease, on those exhausted by fatigue, and on those who are
long exposed to it. First, in affection of the lungs, and
intermittent fever, the bath is invariably had recourse to against
the debilitating nightly perspirations. The temperature is kept
low, not to increase the action of the heart or its secretions.
This danger avoided, its effect is to subdue, by a healthy
perspiration in a waking state, the unhealthy one in sleep. No one
ever heard of any injury from the bath. The moment a person is
ailing he is hurried off to it.”
The perspirations so often attendant on consumption, are nature’s last
struggle to supply the system with oxygen, by opening the pores of the
skin, this additional source of supply being rendered necessary by the
diminished action of the lungs, consequent on their diseased condition;
the perspirations cease, however, on the patient having recourse to the
Turkish bath, as there nature’s efforts are superseded by an action,
similar in kind, but greater in degree, unattended by debilitating
effects. As an instance of nature’s efforts at self-relief, it may be
stated, that in several cases of chest disease, recovery has dated from
the commencement of the nightly perspirations.
The benefit of the bath in cases of consumption is undoubted, [30]
arising, as we believe, from better oxidation of the blood, consequent
on the improved action of the pores of the skin, which enables the
oxygen to enter and aerate it. As a result of this, the digestive
organs are strengthened, and healthy blood elaborated, the
non-formation of which is the cause of the disease.
“Second, after long and severe fatigue—that fatigue such as we
never know, successive days and nights on horseback—the bath
affords the most astonishing relief. Having performed long journeys
on horseback, even to the extent of ninety-four hours, without
taking rest, I know by experience its effects in the extremest
cases.”
Again he says:—
“Well can I recall the hâmam-doors which I have entered, scarcely
able to drag one limb after the other, and from which I have sprung
into my saddle again elastic as a sinew, and light as a feather....
You will see a hummal (porter), a man living only on rice, go out
of one of those baths, where he has been pouring with that
perspiration which we think must prostrate and weaken, and take up
his load of five hundred-weight, placing it unaided on his back.
“Third, the shampooers spend eight hours daily in the steam. They
undergo great labour there, shampooing perhaps, a dozen persons,
and are remarkably healthy. [31] They enter the bath at eight years
of age. The duties of the younger portion are light, and chiefly
outside in the hall, to which the bathers return after their bath.
Still there they are from that tender age exposed to the steam and
heat, so as to have their strength broken if the bath were
debilitating. The best shampooer under whose hands I have ever
been, was a man whose age was given me as ninety, and who, from
eight years of age, had been daily eight hours in the bath. I might
adduce, in like manner, the sugar-bakers in London, who, in a
temperature not less than that of the bath, undergo great fatigue,
and are also remarkably healthy.”
We have seen at Blarney the Turkish bath administered with equal
benefit to the child of only a few months old, and the man of eighty
summers.
Having now observed on the physical effects of the Turkish bath, we
shall quote Mr. Urquhart’s opinions regarding its moral aspect:—
“Next are temperance and sobriety. At first sight the connection
will not appear so immediate. It will, however, be unquestionable
to those familiar with countries where the bath is in use. I know
of no country, in ancient or modern times, where habits of
drunkenness have co-existed with the bath. Misery and cold drive
men to the gin-shop. If they had the bath, not the washing-tub, but
the sociable hâmam, to repair to, this, the great cause of
drunkenness, would be removed; and if this habit of cleanliness
were general, restraints would be imposed on such habits by the
feelings of self-respect engendered. The poor of England have never
had an opportunity of knowing the comfort which is derived on a
cold day from the warmth imparted by such an atmosphere. How many
of the wretched inhabitants of London go to their chilly homes in
the winter months, benumbed with cold, and with no means of
recovering their animal warmth but by resorting to spirits and a
public-house fire! The same six-pence which will only procure them
a quartern of the stimulant, which imparts but a momentary heat,
would, if so expended, obtain for them at once warmth and
refreshment.
“Do not run away with the idea that it is Islamism that prevents
the use of spirituous liquors—it is the bath. It satisfies the
cravings which lead to those indulgences, it fills the period of
necessary relaxation, and it produces, with cleanliness, habits of
self-respect which are incompatible with intoxication. It keeps the
families united, which prevents the squandering of money for such
excesses. In Greece and Rome, in their worst times, there was
neither ‘blue ruin’ nor ‘double stout.’”
This opinion of Mr. Urquhart’s is further supported by the following
extract from Lord Stanley’s address to the National Association for the
Promotion of Social Science, as quoted by Dr. Haughton [32]:—
“All men know and deplore the destruction of life and property by
intemperate habits in England; but not all men know (though it has
been repeatedly proved) that one of the strongest predisposing
causes to intemperance is that sense of depression, and general
weakness, demanding and seeming to justify the use of stimulants,
which, itself a disease, attacks those who live in undrained and
unventilated localities.”
The Turkish bath supplies this stimulant, the desire for which prompts
intoxication, and so becomes, as Mr. Urquhart argues, a powerful engine
in the promotion of temperance; by improving the general health, it
also removes the desire for the stimulus.
Having now dwelt on the numerous advantages of the Turkish bath, its
beneficial effects in preserving health and curing disease, we cannot
refrain from expressing our astonishment that the year 1857 should find
our noble city destitute of so valuable an institution. [33] Shall we
any longer allow this state of things to continue, and permit
barbarians to enjoy a source of comfort and of health which we deny to
ourselves? Shall we any longer practise this self-denial, and any
longer be content to lag behind the civilization of the East? Is it not
astonishing that our medical practitioners should have hitherto
overlooked the wonderful curative agency of this Turkish bath? and
through its want have permitted cholera, and other diseases [34]
equally fatal, to roam unchecked through our city, carrying off
thousands of our countrymen. Shall the sufferer from sciatica longer
submit to the cupping, blistering, and mercurial dosing of the
Allopathic physician, undermining his constitution and ruining his
health, when he might obtain certain relief from the delightful and
health-restoring bath?
We will not fatigue our readers by following Mr. Urquhart into his
calculation regarding the probable cost of erecting a Turkish bath in
this country, but we believe that an expenditure of about £800 would
prove sufficient for the purpose; and dull indeed must we be in
perceiving our own interests if we hesitate, for this trifling outlay,
to secure to ourselves so great a blessing—at once a luxurious
indulgence, a purifier of the blood, a preservative of health, [35] and
a remedy against disease.
It must not be supposed that we seek here to advocate the Turkish bath
as a better means of maintaining health than that of exercise to
perspiration, [36] the means ordained by nature for promoting a healthy
activity of all the functions of life: no—we can never improve on the
laws of nature, which have been pre-eminently adapted by a beneficent
Providence, for the accomplishment of their specific ends: it is only
when those laws have been outraged and neglected by the
“over-working-brain and under-working-body” habits of a 19th century,
that art steps in, in the shape of the Turkish bath, and proposes to
produce those beneficial effects on the system, without injury to it,
which nature had meant to be produced by active exercise. The Turkish
bath is, in short, an antidote for the unwholesome lives we live,
[37]—a peace-offering to outraged nature for our non-compliance with
her laws. To ladies, to invalids, and men of business, whose sedentary
occupations preclude the possibility of healthful exercise, the Turkish
bath presents an inestimable boon.
We strongly recommend the perusal of Dr. Barter’s lecture at Bradford
to our readers, as a masterly exposition of a subject by the only
physician in the kingdom who has practically studied it.
NOTES
[1] 1. The Water Cure in Chronic Disease. By James M. Gully, M.D.
London: Churchill.
2. The Water Cure. By James Wilson, M.D. London: Trubner and Co.
3. Hydropathy. By Ed. Wm. Lane, M.D. London: Churchill.
4. Confessions of a Water Patient. By Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, Bart, M.P.
London: H. Baillière.
5. An Address to the Public on the Prevention and Treatment of Cholera
on rational principles. Cork: Geo. Purcell and Co.
6. A few Facts forgotten by the Faculty. By S. B. Birch, M.D. London:
H. Baillière.
[2] Because either they disapprove of whatever is not practiced by
themselves, or they are ashamed to follow new opinions, and to
acknowledge when old, the errors they had imbibed in youth.
[3] The ganglionic nerves are those which cover the stomach, and
regulate the digestive organs: they are also called the “Solar Plexus.”
[4] The late melancholy case of Mr. Stafford O’Brien is an instance of
this injurious practice; that gentleman was copiously bled, doubtless
that he might be the better enabled, in his so enfeebled condition, to
resist the action of a powerful poison (opium) afterwards administered
with deadly effect. We cast no imputation whatever on the attendant
physician in this case, as we believe the treatment pursued by him was
strictly that enjoined by the orthodox school. Yet, if one wished to
destroy life, could they take a surer means of doing it?
[5] “The generality of men are not so much accustomed to pursue this or
that course, in consequence of their previous conviction that it is
right, as to believe that it is right, because they have been
accustomed to pursue it.”—Archbishop Whately.
[6] We do not pretend to assert, that consumption is curable when
ORGANIC disease of the lungs has actually been established, but we
maintain that the disease is perfectly curable in its incipient stages,
though not by drugs nor banishment to a foreign clime. The latter may
somewhat prolong the disease, but will not cure it, unless by accident,
when of a very mild form.
[7] The temperature and vitality of our bodies depend upon the
continued and rapid combination of oxygen with the oxidizable products
of the blood; if the necessary supply of oxygen be interfered with, the
vitality of the system flags, and disease results.
[8] The very name of scrofula points to the origin of the disease, it
being derived from the Latin Scrofa, a pig (quod sues præcipue hoc
morbo vexantur. Cels. 5, 38), in allusion to the condition of the skin
in those persons in whom a scrofulous habit has been engendered. It has
been proved beyond contradiction that the partial closure of the pores,
which every one suffers from in some degree, is the chief source of
scrofula in all its hideous forms.
[9] When blood is overloaded with carbon, and deprived of its necessary
supply of oxygen, the term “veinous” is applied to it.
[10] Where consumption has been relieved by residence abroad, the
benefit derived must be attributed to the action on the skin produced
by the hot climates to which the patient is usually ordered, but
recovery in this way has been confined to very mild forms of the
disease, and cannot be looked upon as a scientific mode of treatment;
the improved action of the skin deserving to be considered rather as
induced accidentally than by design; as otherwise more attention would
have been paid to so important a matter, and there would have been no
necessity for ordering the patient abroad, as similar results could
have been obtained much more easily and effectually by keeping him at
home; the use of the Turkish bath conferring all the benefits of
increased temperature, followed by the tonic effects of cool air and
water, by which the debilitating effects of continual residence in a
warm climate are obviated.
[11] Dr. Hufeland remarks—“The more active and open the skin is the
more secure will the people be against obstructions and diseases of the
lungs, intestines, and lower stomach; and the less tendency will they
have to gastric (bilious) fevers, hypochondriasis, gout, asthma,
catarrh, and varicose veins.”
[12] The wearing of flannel close to the skin has a two-fold injurious
effect:—First, by driving the blood from the surface, whereby the
activity of the skin is seriously impaired; and secondly, by shutting
out the air, and so preventing it from having access to the blood, to
aerate and purify it.
[13] By healthy waste, we mean waste accompanied by corresponding
renewal.
[14] We have seen consumptive patients arrive at Blarney shivering with
cold though swathed in flannels, who before leaving it were able to
wear clothing in winter, under which they previously would have
shivered in the hottest day of summer.
[15] The great mortality which has attended the Allopathic treatment of
cholera, ought to make us have little compunction in trying something
new. There is no fear, in this case, of our “jumping from the
frying-pan into the fire;” we are already in it—let us quench it.
[16] Dr. Russell, a well-known Homœopathic author, appears to give the
palm to Hydropathy in some rheumatic cases. He thus writes: “In regard
to rheumatism, I am inclined to think that there are some varieties of
this complaint which utterly defy all Homœopathic medicines, from the
deeply morbid condition of the blood; and that in these cases a
thorough water course, by effecting a rapid and total renovation of
this fluid, might enable our remedies to act more beneficially.”
Contrast this liberality with that of the Allopathic physician.
[17] We were told by our physician that the water system would kill us,
as we had “not sufficient reaction to stand it.” Had he, however,
understood anything of its working, he could not have made this
observation, as Hydropathy implies cold water only in those cases to
which cold water is suited; and if he had asked Dr. Barter, he would
have told him that the chief thing he had to guard against in practice,
was excessive reaction, instead of the want of it. We ran the gauntlet,
however, and can truly say we never knew what real health was until we
did so, and forswore the use of drugs.
[18] The administering of poison to cure disease, is nothing short of a
contradiction of terms; for the word poison, if it means anything,
means something injurious to bodily health, and therefore incompatible
with its welfare. We might as well try to strengthen a man by bleeding
him.
[19] To those who desire a detailed and scientific account of the water
cure in a popular form, we recommend “The Confessions of a Water
Patient,” by Sir Bulwer Lytton; “The Water Cure,” by Dr. Wilson; and
“Hydropathy,” by Dr. Lane; whilst to those desiring a learned, lucid,
and most able scientific treatise, we would suggest “The Water Cure in
Chronic Disease,” by Dr. Gully; and “Domestic Hydropathy,” by Dr.
Johnson.
[20] A friend of ours was told by a physician in whom many place
confidence, that if he opted to take the Turkish bath, it would KILL
him. Having, however, read something on the subject, he went to
Blarney, tried the bath, luxuriated in it, and derived the greatest
benefit from its use. We can tell the reader that this physician at the
time he prophesied, had never visited the Blarney bath, nor could he
have known any thing about it, as no description of it had been
published at the time. Under such circumstances an unsophisticated mind
would think it more becoming for him to have said—“I cannot advise you
in this matter, as I have not studied the subject; what you do must be
on your own responsibility.” It is such illiberality of mind as the
above—such a want of pursuing truth for its own sake—which has brought
discredit on the medical profession, and loosened its hold on the
public.
[21] 1. “Turkish Bath; with a View to its Introduction into the British
Dominions.” London: David Bryce, 48, Paternoster-row.
2. “The Turkish Bath; being a lecture delivered at Bradford, by Dr.
Barter.” London: Routledge & Co.
[22] In the vapour-bath, or vapour-chamber, the whole of the body is
surrounded by vapour, whilst in the vapour-box the head of the patient
is exposed to the influence of the external air. In neither case can
the bather endure a higher temperature than 120° Faht., while in the
Turkish bath a temperature of 300° may be endured with perfect safety.
[23] We read in Chambers’ Dictionary, published in Dublin in 1758,
(under the head “turf sweating,”) an account of an air bath much used
by the Indians; and a case is related in America of a gentleman, 74
year of age, who was cured by it of an illness, which for 9 weeks
(during the entire of which he was confined to bed) resisted all the
ordinary modes of treatment: it adds that he enjoyed excellent health
for 11 years after, dying at the age of 85. The operation consisted in
heating sods in an oven, which were then spread on the ground, the
patient being laid on them enveloped in a sheet, under a covering of
hot sods and blankets. Verily there is nothing new under the sun.
[24] The surface of the body in an ordinary sized individual contains
7,000,000 of pores, the bringing of which into action from a state of
inactivity, is equivalent to giving the system the benefit of a second
set of lungs.
[25] When the pores of the skin are clogged and unable to perform their
functions, their duty is thrown upon other organs of the body, which
become diseased from overwork, consequent on the double duty imposed
upon them.
[26] It is a fact of which Ireland may feel justly proud, that the
FIRST Turkish bath which was ever specially designed for curative
purposes, was erected by an Irishman upon Irish ground. The eastern
world had long enjoyed the bath as a social and religious institution;
but the shrewd intelligence of Dr. Barter first saw a great principle
involved in it, and he straight-way set to work to apply it to the cure
of disease. From Blarney, as a centre, this bath is rapidly spreading
itself over the surface of Great Britain, and it is difficult to say
where the movement, once commenced, will end. A Constantinople journal
has lately observed, that the western world had borrowed the
construction of the bath from the east, and in return had taught them
to appreciate its curative power, an element which had not hitherto
received from them the attention it deserved.
[27] The two heated chambers were called respectively by the Romans,
the Tepidarium, and Sudatorium, or Caldarium: the first, or anteroom,
where the concluding portion of the bath was enacted, was termed the
Frigidarium and the plunge bath, when it existed, the Piscinum.
[28] This sensation which can only be compared to a kind of waking
sleep—a dreamy but conscious existence, is so novel in kind, that to be
realized, it must be experienced.
[29] The body becoming accustomed to these extremes of temperature,
treats with the utmost indifference all the intermediate changes of
which this climate is capable—looking on them as the “Idle wind, which
it regards not.”
[30] Cyprus is in point, containing a mixed population of Mahommedans
and Christians: the former take the bath as a religious observance, and
are free from consumption; the latter do not, and are victims to the
disease.
[31] At Blarney, the healthy appearance of the shampooers, at once
strikes the visitor.
[32] The “Oriental Bath,” paper read by Dr. Haughton before the Royal
Dublin Society, April, 1858.
[33] Since the above was written, we have heard that arrangements have
been made for the immediate erection of a Turkish bath in this city on
an extensive scale, and on the most approved principles (in
Lincoln-place, Merrion-square), to which we wish every success. Six
Turkish baths are now in operation in the town of Bradford in
Yorkshire, three at Blarney, two at Cork, in the vicinity of which
latter town a third one is now erecting by Dr. Barter, on a scale of
magnificence hitherto unattempted in the western world.
[34] Of Dropsy, Dr. Osborne asserts, that, “sweating being
accomplished, the disease, if free from complication, never fails to be
removed.”
[35] It is the use of the Turkish bath which enables the Turks to smoke
to the excess they do with impunity—the noxious vapours being burned
out by the excessive temperature. How different must be the effects of
smoking in a damp climate like ours, where the poisonous fumes, unable
to evaporate, remain in the system, a prolific source of disease.
[36] The blacksmith, begrimed with smoke and dirt, who freely perspires
over his daily task, is cleaner in the true sense of the term than the
best washed individual in the land. Surface washing alone will not
suffice; to secure health the blood itself must be purified, its inmost
channels flushed and cleansed.
[37] If we always breathed pure air, took daily exercise to
perspiration, performed daily ablutions, and partook temperately of
plain and wholesome food, disease would be almost unknown amongst us.
Whenever we depart from these conditions of health, we lay the sure
foundation of disease. It has been truly said, that if we took the same
care of our own bodies as we do of our horses’, we should enjoy much
better health than we are wont. Sir Astley Cooper used to say, that
“man did not pay sufficient attention to the grooming of his body.”
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