HYDROPATHY. 383 



part was dry, would be also dead. And temperature accompanies 

 the frame in the fluids as vehicles. Now the water cure is allied to 

 the natural moisture everywhere, and applies itself specially to the 

 universal skin-system (p. 271). Whatever relief can be obtained 

 for suffering, by means of the perspirations, is carried to the great- 

 est degree by those parts of the water treatment which so powerfully 

 favor perspiration. Whatever benefit can come from the tone which 

 cold water so instantaneously arouses, is heightened in the plunge 

 bath, the wet sheet, and the douche. Whatever calmness and cool- 

 ness can do for the irritations and heats of the body, is brought about 

 in an extraordinary degree by the cold quietude of the sitz bath. 

 In short, the water cure is the exaggeration of the hygienic pro- 

 cesses, until they come to be powerful agents for changing morbid 

 conditions. There is nothing like the action of specific medicines 

 in this method of healing; for though the actions and reactions of 

 the body are quickened and strengthened, they remain true to them- 

 selves, and assume no toxicological phase. Water is not a poison 

 any more than alcohol (pp. 159, 160), though both of them stimu- 

 late and depress to an alarming degree, if their use is abused. 



It is hardly necessary to enter the lists in defence of the water 

 cure : the public has derived from it so much benefit, and withal 

 has acquired so much knowledge of the subject, and caution in the 

 knowledge, that the art and science of Preissnitz may be considered 

 as established things. The water cure takes a capital stand among 

 the bases of a common-sense hygiene, and while fountains bubble 

 and rivers run, it will not be abandoned by those who love the 

 welfare of their bodies. 



Though hydropathy be not medical in the drug sense, yet it is 

 impossible to say without experiment what number of diseases it 

 can cure. We have no certain discrimination of those maladies 

 which arise from stoppage of the natural processes, or from over or 

 under stimulation of the frame. And although every loss of the 

 balance of health depends upon defect of the whole organism, 

 which is too weak to protect itself against circumstances, yet the 

 symptoms of that loss may be combated by circumstantial means. 

 Cure is another thing, if by cure be meant that restoration which 

 provides against relapse : such cures are unhappily rare. But for 



