Human Physiology. 



waste matter. We can live without food much longer than 

 without water. Purification is the first condition of health and 

 cure : water is the great purifier. The second condition of 

 cure is invigoration, and nothing is so invigorating as water, to 

 herb, or beast, or man. 



How natural are the principles and practices of water cure a 

 moment's reflection will demonstrate. You cannot wash even 

 your face, hands, and feet, without feeling its benefit. The 

 daily washing of the whole body purifies and invigorates. Sea 

 bathing is a glorious form of water cure. The washings and 

 purifications of the Egyptians, Jews, Hindoos, and Maho- 

 medans; the magnificent baths of every Roman city, and even 

 the military stations of their most distant provinces, of which 

 so many remains have been found in Britain ; the Turkish hot- 

 air baths, with their shampooings, and hot and cold water 

 washings, douches, and plunge baths ; the vapour baths of the 

 Russians, with the final plunge in cold water or colder snow ; 

 the sweating and washing cures of the Red Indians ; the natural 

 hot springs, baths, and medicinal waters resorted to for health 

 in all parts of the world, Spa, Vichy, Baden, Bath, Saratoga, 

 Virginia, Arkansas, California, thousands scattered over the 

 world ; the Holy Wells, like those of Malvern, once the health 

 resort of thousands who believed in their miraculous virtues, and 

 which were none the less efficacious for the earnest faith which 

 accompanied their libations and ablutions are all but varied 

 applications of the water cure, which is an instinctive mode 

 of healing, or health giving, as old as the world, and appli- 

 cable to all vegetative and animal life. 



Cleanliness is the largest and most important condition of 

 health, and we wash and are clean, applying the water cure not 

 only to our persons, but to our food, clothing, dwellings, and 

 all our surroundings. For every uncleanness the Mosaic dis- 

 pensation had one remedy the washing of purification. The 

 Syrian leper was told to wash seven times in Jordan; miracu- 



2 B 



