HY'DROTHER'APY, or HYDROP'ATHY (from Gk. i;ctop, hydar, water± Otpareia, there peia, cure, front Oeparetietv, therapeuein, to cure, from Bepdrov, therap5n, attendant ) . Water treatment.. The efficacy of water in the cure of numerous forms of disease has long been recog nized. Water was largely employed by Hippoc rates in the treatment of many kinds of disease. Horace speaks of Antonius Musa. the hydropathic physician of the Emperor Augustus (Epist. i. 15). Both Celsus and Galen speak favorably in their writings of the use of water in the cure of disease, regarding it as of high value in the treat ment of acute complaints. particularly of fevers. Throughout the Ages, likewise. many physicians, including Atitius, Paulus -Egineta, and Paracelsus, were advocates of the remedial virtues of water; all of them. however, having faith in its uses in the treatment rather of acute than of chronic disorders. In 1723 Niceolo Lan zani, a Neapolitan physician, published a learned treatise on the subject. In England, about the beginning of the eighteenth century. Sir .Tohn Moyer and Dr. ltaynard made large use of water. Their conjoint work, denominated Psy chrolousia, or the "'History of Cold Bathing. both Ancient•and :Nlodern," is replete with quaint learning and practical shrewdness and sagacity. But the most able and scientific among the older treatises that have appeared in England on the subject of the water treatment is the work of Dr. Currie, published in 1797, entitled Medical Reports on. the Effects of Water, Cold and Warm, etc. In this work Currie recommends the cold affusion in typhus and other fevers, and gives practical directions in regard to the cases and the times when it may be used with advantage, although lie appears to have limited his use of water to acute ailments exclusively.
We have thus seen that up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, by sonic of those who employed it as a curative agent, water was used in the treatment of acute, and by others of chronic, diseases; by some as an internal agent alone; by others as an external application in the various forms of the bath; but never in all the manners combined. This combination was first effected by the original genius of Vincent Priessnitz, a Silesian farmer, with whom began a new era for the water cure. It was owing. we are told, to his successful treatment of more than one bodily injury which he had sustained in his own person that, about the year 1820. became so convinced of the curative powers of water as to employ it medically in the cure of others. Beginning with the external application of water for trifling diseases among the poor of his neighborhood, he gradually undertook an ex tended range of cases, and multiplied the modes of administration, introducing the wet compress, the douche bath, partial baths of all kinds, the sweating process, the wet sheet, together with copious drinking of pure water. In addition to water in all these forms, he insisted on the value of exercise, diet, fresh air, and mental repose in the cure of disease, thus practically calling to his aid the entire resources of hygiene. and estab lishing by a simple, yet thoroughly original com bination, nothing less than a new system of medical treatment. As to the success which at tended Priessnitz's practice, it is an fact that of 7500 patients who had gone to Gra fenhe•g for advice and treatment up to the year 1811. or within the space of about twenty yea there had been only 39 deaths. It is to be re gretted, however, that the founder of the new system was not himself an educated physician, so that he could have understood better phi losophy of his own practice and explained it more correctly. Ile would not have called his system the 'water cure? a name scientifically one sided and incomplete, and therefore misleading.
The undoubted merits of hydropathy at length called to its defense many men of standing in the profession, who, allowing for some of its early extravaganees, explained it seientifically, and from their advocacy has sprung up a school of hydropathic physicians. Dr. Winternitz. of (ler
man•, in ISS3 laid down the scientific. principles of modern hydrotherapy. The fundamental prin ciples of hydrotherapy are very simple. The art of applying these principles requires much teach ing, hut any one with even moderate sense and intellect can grasp the essential features. Water may be used either internally or externally. In ternally it may be used simply to wash out a 4';1Vity—the nose, the mouth, the stomach, the bladder, or the rectum. In addition, it may be taken internally hot or cold and passed into the blood. It may be used hot in the rectinn. as a simple enema, or for purposes of stimulation. Externally, water may lie used in many eoll ceivabh• ways, but essentially the use of water means with it the use of two very necessary aids, heat and cold. Hydrotherapy, apart from the use of heat and cold, is of secondary importance. The :lethal of water in the treatment of disease is therefore largely mechanical. The psychical side is not unimportant. It has been used by en lightened physicians ever since the dawn of medi cine, and its effects taught in all medical schools. tidy the quack and the charlatan will claim that hydrotherapy is a cure-all. Eccentricities, like the pp cure and others, are to be avoided by the sensible. Water acts physically and me chanically. it is capable of readily taking up heat and of giving it up; it thus lends itself most readily to the use of thermal agents. It may be used in gaseous form (steam), liquid form, or solid form (ice). The action of heat and cold is essentially important. Smooth inusele-fibre expands under the action of moderate beat and contracts under the influence of cold. Its con tracting power may be destroyed by an excess of either. Cold and heat, therefore, act as irritants to the nervous system, and through their agency we can act upon all of the organs, to stimulate or depress their activities. The heart, lungs, kidneys. liver, spleen, skin, etc.. may all he in fluenced; the body heat and the output of mois ture and secretions may he regulated. Thus by the use of heat or cold to certain portions of the skin or internally, almost every organ in the body can he influenced through its blood-vessels, and the skilled physician can, by guiding and directing these effects, bring about. changes in vascular states; can remove excess of blood from one part of the body and bring it to an other: can impart tone to a flagging organ, as the heart, or to the muscles or to the spinal cord; can increase the secretions from organs. such as the skin or the kidneys, and thus assist in excret ing poisonous products from the body.
The applications of water to disease are well systematized by Baruch as ablution, a ffusion, sheet bath, drip sheet, compresses, pack, tub bath, and douche.
Simple application of wafer by the hand or moist cloth over the body. In fevers the abdomen. the hack. the chest, the lower extremi ties as far as the knees are bathed successively every two or three hours. A temperature of 75 - be used at first, and gradually re duced to GO° F. Chilling is to be avoided. Re action is to be gained, the superficial capillaries becoming suffused and the body assuming a pinkish hue. Rubbing should always be used in aldut ions.
ArTustoN. The patient, with a cold wet cloth about the head, sits or stands in a tub containing about a foot of water at 100° F. A broad stream of water from a bucket or pitcher is poured with force directly over the body. The stimulation will depend upon the temperature of the water and its force of delivery. This is often used in states of profound prostration, in coma, and in stuporous, delirious states.