I860.] to the Science and Practice of Medicine^ 2S9. 



advantage, by obtaining some knowledge of that great human system 

 which is the common arena of all the professors of the healing art. 

 Every school, normal or abnormal, must make its appeal to physiologi- 

 cal principles. How much good may be done, how much evil may be 

 avoided, by an enlightened application of the public mind in these 

 directions, the speaker proceeded to point out, by directing attention 

 to the phenomena of growth and progress in certain systems, according 

 as the attention of the public has or has not been called to them. 

 For this purpose, he took the allied theories of Dr. Currie of Liverpool, 

 and M. Priessnitz, the author of what is termed hydropathy. About 

 the end of last century. Dr. Currie, reasoning deductively from facts 

 observed by himself and Dr. Wright, affirmed the applicability of the 

 affusion of cold water in a large group of cases. His views have no 

 doubt left behind them in the medical mind an increased tendency to 

 avoid certain mischievous agents in the treatment of febrile disorders. 

 But tliey have not fructified consistently with his great and well- 

 deserved reputation. " In the first British epidemic which broke out 

 subsequently, they were speedily abandoned by all practitioners," says 

 Dr. Christison, writing in 1840 ; "and for twenty years Dr. Currie's 

 theory has been almost unknown in the treatment of fever." Nor has 

 any speculative question since arisen among us, as to what might pos- 

 sibly yet be deducible from a scientific hypothesis at first eminently 

 successful. 



Very different has been the fate of the hydropathic theory, con- 

 trived by an untutored Silesian peasant, neglected by the regular pro- 

 fession, and cared for by a credulous, but not an indifferent public. 

 If, in the latter case, a rash sciolism has been largely predominant, 

 against which a better informed public might have protected itself, this 

 must at least be admitted, that an important principle of treatment 

 has thus been kept alive by the public, though put before them in its 

 least scientific shape. While a similar principle of treatment from 

 which all the valuable elements of the hydropathic system might have 

 been deduced by scientific thinkers, without its concomitant mischief, 

 has been allowed by the medical profession to sleep and be forgotten. 



With respect to the mischief concomitant to hydropathy, the 

 speaker quoted the following passage from a work by Dr. Bence 

 Jones — "■ Until Professor Liebig directed attention anew to the action 

 of oxygen on the human body, the causes of success or failure in hydro- 

 pathy were unknown. The greatest possible action of the skin is pro- 

 duced under hydropathy, on the system, by baths : large quantities of 

 water are taken, and by these means tlie action of oxygen on the body 

 is promoted to a very high degree, and death enstces, if ever the system 

 is unable to furnish matter to resist the action of oxygen^ A fact, 

 which, on the highest authority, indicates the expediency of an in- 

 creased amount of medical and physiological knowledge in the 

 public, who select for themselves both medical systems and medical 

 advisers. 



The speaker, after expressing his regret that the patronage of the 

 public had not been extended to another hypothesis, equally neglected 



