THEORY OF HYDROPATHY. 1009 



from the bowels in dysentery and diarrhoea, or 

 the spasms of cholera, tetanus, and hydrophobia, 

 exert the slightest tendency to remove the proxi- 

 mate cause of these symptoms, which owe their 

 existence to debility, and a diminution of those 

 actions that constitute the vis medicatrix nature. 

 On the erroneous supposition that diseases arise 

 from an effort of nature to expel some morbific 

 agent from the blood, the Hydropathists cause 

 their deluded patients to remain exposed to the 

 cold bath from one to two or three hours daily, 

 until fever is induced, or the body is covered with 

 eruptions and ulcers, which are evidently pro- 

 duced by the influence of cold, and must be cured 

 by overcoming the weakened condition of the 

 capillaries, as in all cases of congestion and in- 

 flammation.* 



* It is a curious fact, that we are indebted to an ignorant 

 empiric for the elucidation of a most important principle in patho- 

 logy ; viz. that cold alone, or the abstraction of caloric from the 

 body, by the continued employment of the cold bath, cold wet 

 bandages., and by drinking enormous quantities of cold water, is 

 capable of producing a vitiated condition of the blood, dryness and 

 roughness of the skin, herpes, boils, ulcers, abscesses, violent head- 

 ache, dizziness, tremor of the limbs, (a species of palsy,) nausea, 

 vomiting, diarrhoea, and fever, all of which are regarded as 

 salutary efforts of nature to expel morbific matter from the blood. 

 (See Claridge on Hydropathy, pp. 122. 196. 214. 239.) And 

 yet the practice is now extensively employed for the cure of nearly 

 all diseases, including inflammation of the lungs, rheumatism, and 

 gout. Claridge says expressly, that few individuals pass more 

 than five or six weeks under the treatment of the cold water 

 system, without being charged with eruptions and boils : that 



