The following statement, extracted from a letter written by Mr. James Morgan of Cork, and which appeared in theLimerick 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 butcold 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[32]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 theChroniclein 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 theChronicle, 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[33]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 ourmode of lifethat makes us fit subjects for cholera, and that it is ourmode of treating italone, 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.16Secondly, 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[34]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 andfree 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, apermanentcure 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 itstotaleradication, 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 ofpermanentcure, 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 notfor everroot 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: thegoutis removed, and that is what[35]was desired. The physician, however, who is a physiologist, will say, ‘True, that irritation which you callgout, has left theextremities, whither it had been sent by nature to save her nobleinternalparts. 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 werepainedandinflamed? 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,’ (thusbafflingnature’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 Allopathistcuresskin diseases,drivingin the irritation which nature is struggling to drive out; this he eventually succeeds in doing, byweakeningthe 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 ofdyspepsia.All derangements of the digestive organs, imperfect powers of nutrition—themalaiseof 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 seendisorders of the heartwhich have been pronouncedorganicby 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, especiallymercuryandiodine; 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.”[36]Nor will the above results form at all a subject for wonder, when it is remembered that every natural disease arises eitherfrom impurity in the blood ormaldistributionof 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 theimpartialtestimony 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 physicianopposed to Hydropathy, who did not, on catechising him, exhibit the mostabsurdignorance 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 ominousshakeof the head, consists in, “Don’t attempt the water cure, or it will kill you.”17If medical men would butsee, 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 poison18their 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[37]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 organismalone; 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,19the 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[38]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 thatALLthe 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 thepossibilityof 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[39]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 following statement, extracted from a letter written by Mr. James Morgan of Cork, and which appeared in theLimerick 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 butcold 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[32]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 theChroniclein 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 theChronicle, 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[33]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 ourmode of lifethat makes us fit subjects for cholera, and that it is ourmode of treating italone, 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.16Secondly, 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[34]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 andfree 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, apermanentcure 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 itstotaleradication, 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 ofpermanentcure, 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 notfor everroot 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: thegoutis removed, and that is what[35]was desired. The physician, however, who is a physiologist, will say, ‘True, that irritation which you callgout, has left theextremities, whither it had been sent by nature to save her nobleinternalparts. 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 werepainedandinflamed? 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,’ (thusbafflingnature’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 Allopathistcuresskin diseases,drivingin the irritation which nature is struggling to drive out; this he eventually succeeds in doing, byweakeningthe 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 ofdyspepsia.All derangements of the digestive organs, imperfect powers of nutrition—themalaiseof 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 seendisorders of the heartwhich have been pronouncedorganicby 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, especiallymercuryandiodine; 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.”[36]Nor will the above results form at all a subject for wonder, when it is remembered that every natural disease arises eitherfrom impurity in the blood ormaldistributionof 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 theimpartialtestimony 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 physicianopposed to Hydropathy, who did not, on catechising him, exhibit the mostabsurdignorance 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 ominousshakeof the head, consists in, “Don’t attempt the water cure, or it will kill you.”17If medical men would butsee, 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 poison18their 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[37]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 organismalone; 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,19the 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[38]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 thatALLthe 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 thepossibilityof 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[39]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 following statement, extracted from a letter written by Mr. James Morgan of Cork, and which appeared in theLimerick 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 butcold 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[32]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 theChroniclein 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 theChronicle, 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[33]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 ourmode of lifethat makes us fit subjects for cholera, and that it is ourmode of treating italone, 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.16Secondly, 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[34]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 andfree 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, apermanentcure 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 itstotaleradication, 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 ofpermanentcure, 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 notfor everroot 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: thegoutis removed, and that is what[35]was desired. The physician, however, who is a physiologist, will say, ‘True, that irritation which you callgout, has left theextremities, whither it had been sent by nature to save her nobleinternalparts. 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 werepainedandinflamed? 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,’ (thusbafflingnature’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 Allopathistcuresskin diseases,drivingin the irritation which nature is struggling to drive out; this he eventually succeeds in doing, byweakeningthe 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 ofdyspepsia.All derangements of the digestive organs, imperfect powers of nutrition—themalaiseof 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 seendisorders of the heartwhich have been pronouncedorganicby 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, especiallymercuryandiodine; 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.”[36]Nor will the above results form at all a subject for wonder, when it is remembered that every natural disease arises eitherfrom impurity in the blood ormaldistributionof 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 theimpartialtestimony 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 physicianopposed to Hydropathy, who did not, on catechising him, exhibit the mostabsurdignorance 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 ominousshakeof the head, consists in, “Don’t attempt the water cure, or it will kill you.”17If medical men would butsee, 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 poison18their 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[37]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 organismalone; 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,19the 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[38]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 thatALLthe 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 thepossibilityof 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[39]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 following statement, extracted from a letter written by Mr. James Morgan of Cork, and which appeared in theLimerick 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 butcold 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[32]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 theChroniclein 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 theChronicle, 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.” * * * * *
“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 butcold 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[32]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 theChroniclein 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 theChronicle, 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.”
“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[33]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.’ ”
“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[33]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 ourmode of lifethat makes us fit subjects for cholera, and that it is ourmode of treating italone, 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.16Secondly, 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[34]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.”
“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.16Secondly, 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[34]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 andfree 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, apermanentcure 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 itstotaleradication, 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 ofpermanentcure, 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 notfor everroot 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.”
“It would be folly, however, to avoid a treatment because it will notfor everroot 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: thegoutis removed, and that is what[35]was desired. The physician, however, who is a physiologist, will say, ‘True, that irritation which you callgout, has left theextremities, whither it had been sent by nature to save her nobleinternalparts. 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 werepainedandinflamed? 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,’ (thusbafflingnature’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.’ ”
“To the patient, and, indeed, to the physician who knows little of physiology, all this will appear right: thegoutis removed, and that is what[35]was desired. The physician, however, who is a physiologist, will say, ‘True, that irritation which you callgout, has left theextremities, whither it had been sent by nature to save her nobleinternalparts. 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 werepainedandinflamed? 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,’ (thusbafflingnature’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 Allopathistcuresskin diseases,drivingin the irritation which nature is struggling to drive out; this he eventually succeeds in doing, byweakeningthe 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 ofdyspepsia.All derangements of the digestive organs, imperfect powers of nutrition—themalaiseof 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 seendisorders of the heartwhich have been pronouncedorganicby 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, especiallymercuryandiodine; 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.”
“Thirdly, that wide and grisly family of affliction classed under the common name ofdyspepsia.All derangements of the digestive organs, imperfect powers of nutrition—themalaiseof 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 seendisorders of the heartwhich have been pronouncedorganicby 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, especiallymercuryandiodine; 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.”
[36]
Nor will the above results form at all a subject for wonder, when it is remembered that every natural disease arises eitherfrom impurity in the blood ormaldistributionof 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 theimpartialtestimony 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 physicianopposed to Hydropathy, who did not, on catechising him, exhibit the mostabsurdignorance 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 ominousshakeof the head, consists in, “Don’t attempt the water cure, or it will kill you.”17If medical men would butsee, 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 poison18their 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[37]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 organismalone; 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,19the 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[38]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 thatALLthe 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 thepossibilityof 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[39]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!!”