Perhaps there is nothing more characteristic of the march of intellect of the present day, or more indicative of a healthy tone of mind, than the suspicion with which the public in general, and many physicians in particular, are beginning to regard the use of drugs as curative agents—that chiefest engine of the allopathic physician for the relief of suffering humanity.

The freeing of the mind from old and preconceived ideas—from practices, with which we have been familiarized from childhood—the looking with distrust upon a system which since the times of Æsculapius and Hippocrates has held undisputed sway, arrogating to itself the name of Orthodox, and dubbing its opponents as quacks—such a change in public opinion deserves respect or reprobation, according to the causes from which it springs, whether from a calm investigation of the question presented for examination, in which strong arguments, based on natural laws—prescribing a treatment which produces the results aimed at—are found to preponderate in favour of a new system, or from a revolutionary love of novelty, indicative of versatility and want of faith in established institutions, a love of change which would espouse and propagate any doctrine irrespective of its merits, merely because it was new.

That this change of opinion to which we refer, viz., the want of confidence in drugs, is not altogether frivolous, would [6]appear from the following confession of Dr. Forbes, a distinguished allopathic physician, who thus sums up the experience of a long professional career:—

“Firstly, that in a large proportion of the cases treated by allopathic physicians, the disease is cured by nature and not by them. Secondly, that in a lesser, but still not a small proportion, the disease is cured by nature in spite of them; in other words their interference opposing instead of assisting the cure; and Thirdly, that consequently in a considerable proportion of diseases it would fare as well or better with patients, if all remedies, especially drugs, were abandoned.”

Again one of the most eminent of living medical writers says:—

“When healthy properties are impaired, we know of no agent by which they can be directly restored, when vital action is perverted or deranged, we possess no means of immediately rectifying it, but we must be satisfied with using those means under which it is most likely to RECTIFY ITSELF.”

It is the knowledge of these facts that has produced discontent with the usual mode of medicinal treatment, and has encouraged the belief, that it does more harm than good in cases of disease. Dr. Gully states:—

“By it (the drug system) the body is placed in the most unnatural position, and its efforts at relief constantly thwarted. Disease, which is quite as natural a process as health, is not allowed to go on as nature would; the internal organs whose morbid action alone can cause death, are made the arena for all sorts of conflicting and inflicting medical stimulants; and between the action which these excite, and that which originally existed, their vitality fails, their efforts towards restoration flag, and their functions are at last extinguished.”

Dr. Rush says:—

“We have multiplied diseases—we have done more, we have increased their mortality.”

The celebrated Dr. Bailie, who enjoyed, it appears, a long and lucrative practice, declared at the termination of his career, “that he had no faith in physic;” and on his death-bed frequently exclaimed, “I wish I could be sure that I have not killed more than I have cured.”

Abernethy observes sarcastically,

“There has been a great increase of medical men of late years, but upon my life, diseases have increased in proportion.”

The British and Foreign Quarterly Journal—the leading advocate of drug medication—thus writes:—

“This mode of treating disease (Hydropathy) is unquestionably far from inert, and most opposed to the cure of diseases, by the undisturbed processes of nature. It in fact perhaps affords the very best evidence we possess of the curative power of art, and is unquestionably when rationally [7]regulated a most effective mode of treatment in many diseases. Still it puts in a striking light, if not exactly the curative powers of nature, at least the possibility—nay, facility—with which all the ordinary instruments of medical cure, drugs, may be dispensed with. If so many and such various diseases get well entirely without drugs, under one special mode of treatment, is it not more than probable, that a treatment consisting almost exclusively of drugs may be often of non-effect—sometimes of injurious effect?”

Dr. Headland, in his prize essay on the action of medicines on the system, thus writes:—

“On no question perhaps have scientific men differed more than on the theory of the action of medicines. Either facts, essentially opposed and incompatible, have been adduced by the disagreeing parties, or which is nearly as common, the same fact has received two distinct and opposite interpretations.”

Such quotations as the above, which might be multiplied ad infinitum, by any student of medical lore, show that enquiry is abroad amongst the medical profession, and that some at least of its members are dissatisfied with the truth of the system which would consider drug medication as an essential instrument in the cure of disease.

The following remarks by Dr. Maclæoud, contained in a letter written by him to Professor Simpson of Edinburgh, show at least, that if the lay public place confidence in allopathic drugging, they place their faith in a system which does not command the confidence of physicians themselves.

“Formerly there were several wards in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, of which three Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians had the charge. One physician had the top ward, another the middle ward, and a third the low ward. It happened that on the same day, three young persons of nearly the same age, ill of typhus fever, were admitted into the hospital. The disease was of equal severity in each, and the stage of complaint the same in all. What was the treatment pursued in those three cases, by the three Fellows of the College? Of course, it should have been the same, at least, if the system be correct; for the physicians in question would choose the best. But, sir, it was not the same. He in the top ward bled his patient with lancet and leeches. He in the middle ward treated his patient with drastic purgatives. He in the low ward, again, gave whiskey, wine, and opiates. What was the result of such deplorable freaks? I refer you to the statistic book; I have no doubt you will find it there!”

“In the University formerly, two professors used to lecture, on alternate days, on clinical medicine. It happened once that each had, at the same time, under his care an acute case of pericarditis. The professor who lectured on his case on Monday night, said in substance, as follows:—

“Gentlemen.—As to the treatment of this disease, it has been the practice to give large doses of mercury, so as to bring the constitution under its action, and to effect this as rapidly as possible, small quantities of opium are usually combined with it. The practice I, however, believe [8]to be erroneous; for I have observed the progress of the disease unchecked, even during profuse salivation. The most efficient remedy—in fact our sheet-anchor—in this disease is tartar emetic. You will have noticed the large doses I have given of this remedy, and yet the patient seems not to suffer from it. In fact, the constitution in this disease, as in some others, has a remarkable tolerance for tartar emetic.”

“When the lecture was finished, I left the hall fancying I had heard some great truth, and knew better than an hour before how to save life. On Wednesday evening, during the same week, in the same hall, and to the same students, the other professor lectured. The lecture was devoted to the acute case of pericarditis under his care in the hospital. After describing the case, and giving a sketch of the character and progress of the disease, he spoke in substance, as follows:—

“Gentlemen.—It is a remarkable thing that there should be any difference in regard to the mode of treatment to be pursued in a disease such as this, I believe it is the Italian and French schools which advocate so very strongly the employment of tartar emetic; but I would strongly urge you to put no confidence in this remedy, for if you do so, you will lean on a broken reed. Our sheet-anchor in this disease is mercury; under the action of which you must bring the patient as soon and as freely as you possibly can—even bleeding is of little importance in comparison with the use of mercury. The two combined, i.e., mercury and blood-letting is, of course, best; but at all events use mercury, and never trust to tartar emetic.

“Thus doctors differ and the patient dies.”

As in the theatrical world a peep behind the scenes destroys the illusion of the piece, so in the real world such revelations as the foregoing, are well calculated to stagger thoughtful minds, and to shake to the centre a blind and unreasoning faith in the allopathic system.

Does not the reflection suggest itself on reading such a revelation as the above—since it is impossible that the practice of both these learned professors can be right, is it not possible that the practice of both may be wrong?

That eminent physician, the late Sir Philip Crampton, was in the habit of warning all his gouty and rheumatic patients to avoid the use of colchicum, terming it a “desperate remedy,” and affirming that it was better to bear any amount of pain than have recourse to it. This was the deliberate opinion of one of the most able men in his profession, who must have been fully impressed with a conviction of its injurious effects; yet this remedy is continued to be prescribed to thousands, with what result let those who have experienced it testify. Here then again is a serious disagreement in practice between members of the medical profession, in which one party must again be wrong. If those who use colchicum are to be ranged amongst the latter, where our own sufferings [9]under it would place them, their victims may well be pitied. If colchicum be not a poisonous drug, why did Sir Philip Crampton so strongly inveigh against it? If it be, can that system be right which prescribes it as a remedy? Such is the system termed orthodox, styling all who presume to differ from it quacks.

Before we proceed to inquire whether any escape is open to us from this unsatisfactory state of affairs—whether any system has been discovered more intelligible in its principles and more certain in its action, whose professors are found to agree in their practice, instead of maintaining opinions directly opposed to each other—we would respectfully address a few words to those whom we have often heard exclaiming, “I cannot believe that a system which has existed so long as the allopathic can be wrong; if it were, it would long since have been exposed and its errors refuted. No; when I reflect how long it has existed, I cannot but believe it is right.” To such we will merely say that we charitably hope they do not call this exclamation an argument, and that if they reflected for a moment they ought to remember numberless instances where error has existed for centuries unrefuted, and acquiesced in by all mankind; that on their principle error ought to prevail in exact proportion to its greatness, since the oldest errors are the earliest, and the earliest are, generally speaking, the greatest, the infancy of every science being its most imperfect stage. According to them, we should at present believe that the sun moves round the earth, because this doctrine prevailed for upwards of 5,000 years, and “if it had been wrong it could not have existed so long.” If such persons studied human nature better, they would acknowledge the truth of Horace’s lines, especially when applied to the medical profession, who, with some honourable exceptions, have on every occasion opposed all innovation on their system with the most uncompromising hostility—

an hostility which can only be ascribed to the effects of professional habit and prejudice. In such a profession reform must be brought about by the action of an enlightened public opinion, which, unwarped by prejudice and unfettered by [10]professional trammels, is free to perceive truth, and hold to it when discovered. When the public take the lead, the medical profession will “move on,” but not before. We are sorry to be forced to make these observations, but we appeal to the history of the medical profession past and present, and to the observation of our readers, in confirmation of their truth.

Sir Bulwer Lytton has well observed:—

“A little reflection taught me that the members of a learned profession are naturally the very persons least disposed to favour innovation upon the practices which custom and prescription have rendered sacred in their eyes. A lawyer is not the person to consult upon bold reforms in jurisprudence. A physician can scarcely be expected to own that hydropathy will cure diseases that have resisted an armament of vials.”

On looking about us for some therapeutic system more satisfactory than the allopathic, simpler in its principles and more consonant with the laws of nature, we select for examination hydropathy, on account of the great success which has attended its practice, the simplicity and rationality of its processes, and the high recommendations it has received from several eminent men, amongst which we extract the following. Mr. Herbert Mayo, Senior Surgeon of the Middlesex Hospital, speaking of hydropathy, thus expresses himself:—

“It (hydropathy) more than doubles our power of doing good. Of course it will meet with much opposition, but none, come from quarter it may, can possibly prevent its progress, and its taking firm root. It is like Truth, not to be subverted.”

Sir Charles Scudamore, M.D., records his opinion as follows:—

“The principles of the water-cure treatment are founded in nature and truth. We have in our power a new and most efficacious agent for the alleviation and cure of disease in various forms, and in proper hands as safe as it is effectual. I should be no friend to humanity nor to medical science if I did not give my testimony in its recommendation.”

Dr. James Johnson, Editor of the Medical Quarterly, thus writes of hydropathy:—

“Its paramount virtue is that of preserving many a constitution from pulmonary consumption.”

These are no small recommendations for any system to possess. Let us, therefore, with the readers’ permission, proceed at once to examine the principles and mode of action of this novel system, and see how far it can prove the title it lays claim to, of being a true rational and natural mode of curing disease.

The most eminent physiologists of the present day agree in regarding disease in general, as an effort of nature to relieve [11]the system of matter injurious to its well-being. This being the case, the natural and common sense mode of curing disease, would obviously consist in assisting nature in its efforts to expel the morbid substance from the system, and thus relieve it from the danger which threatened it. Now, this is exactly the principle on which Hydropathy proceeds; it aids, encourages, and strengthens the efforts of nature to heal herself, instead of irritating, thwarting, and weakening those efforts, by the pernicious administration of drugs.

To render the foregoing position intelligible to our readers, it is necessary to premise, that the action of all active medicines depends upon the principle (admitted by all physiologists), that nature ever makes a continued effort to cure herself, never ceasing in her attempts to relieve the body from whatever injurious matter may be present in it. It is this effort of nature to expel the irritant matter from the system, which makes the drug produce its effect. Thus when a preparation of sulphur is administered as a medicine, nature, in her effort to get rid of the sulphur, opens her pores to expel it. This is proved by the resulting perspiration, and by the circumstance that everything in contact with the patient is found, on analysis, to be largely impregnated with the constituents of the medicine;—the well-known fact of all articles of silver about the person, being tarnished, being an illustration of this effect;—in addition to this the stomach is weakened and irritated by the medicine which has been poured into it; and further, if the dose is repeated, nature, getting gradually accustomed to the intruder, ceases from her inhospitable exertion to expel it, and, as a consequence, the medicine fails in producing its intended effect. We have here referred to the successful administration of a drug, but in many instances it entirely fails to produce the desired result, acting injuriously upon other organs of the system, quite contrary to the effect intended. We will now compare this treatment with the hydropathic mode of producing the effects aimed at by sudorifics. Instead of injuring the stomach by pouring deleterious drugs into it, the Hydropathist applies himself; at once, to the great organ he seeks to act on, viz., the skin; his usual appliances consisting of the lamp and Turkish baths, and the result is this, that by his method a most powerful effect is produced on the skin in the course of about half an hour, after which the patient feels lightened, strengthened, and invigorated, no deleterious substances are passed into the stomach to irritate its membranes, producing nausea and [12]other disagreeable results, and the process may be repeated as often as may be necessary with undiminished effect. Who ever saw a patient recovering from the perspiratory process under the orthodox allopathic mode of treatment, that was not weakened and dejected by it, whilst buoyancy of spirits and invigoration of the system, are the usual accompaniments of the hydropathic process. Take another example from the process of wet-sheet packing, and examine its effects in subduing inflammatory and febrile affections. By this simple process the pulse is often reduced from 120 pulsations per minute to sixty-five, in the short period of three-quarters of an hour, the circulation equalized throughout the body, and a soothing effect produced on the patient, which language fails to describe—a result which no drug or combination of drugs, in the whole of the pharmacopeia, is capable of producing—in this case, again, little lowering of strength is produced, and the stomach is again saved from the injurious and irritating effects of Tartar emetic and other drugs; instead of the fever raging for a period of three weeks, it is generally subdued in as many days, when the patient goes forth, but little reduced in strength, instead of weak, miserable, and emaciated with the prospect of some six weeks elapsing before he is restored to his wonted strength. Sir Bulwer Lytton thus describes, from personal experience, the process of wet-sheet packing:—

“The sheet, after being well saturated, is well wrung out—the patient quickly wrapped in it—several blankets bandaged round, a down coverlet tucked over all; thus, especially where there is the least fever, the first momentary chill is promptly succeeded by a gradual and vivifying warmth perfectly free from the irritation of dry heat—a delicious sense of ease is usually followed by a sleep more agreeable than anodyne ever produced. It seems a positive cruelty to be taken out of this magic girdle in which pain is lulled and fever cooled, and watchfulness lapped in slumber.”

In the effects of wet-sheet packing in cases of congestion of the liver and other internal viscera, we fear an unfavourable comparison must again be drawn between the effects of the allopathic and hydropathic modes of treatment. In these cases the object to be effected is to relieve the oppressed and congested organs from the superabundance of blood with which they are gorged; and it appears to us that this effect is produced more certainly, more quickly, and more permanently, without subsequent injurious effects, by the wet-sheet packing and other hydropathic appliances, sitz baths amongst the rest, than could possibly be effected by all the drugs in the Apothecary’s Hall. In fact, hydropathy appears to possess [13]greater power in controlling the circulation and regulating the currents of the blood than any other system of therapeutics yet revealed to us; it can stimulate the circulation when low, reduce it when excited and disordered, determine it from the head in cases of apoplexy and cold feet, and drive it to the surface of the body in cases of visceral congestion. An engine capable of producing these effects without weakening the constitution, and possessing, in addition, the power of bracing and stimulating the nervous system when weakened, and of soothing and allaying irritation wherever it may exist, more effectually than any opiate; such a system we say, must ever occupy a high, if not the foremost place amongst all existing systems of Hygiene. The physiological effects of wet-sheet packing are thus described by Dr. Wilson:—

“It fulfils many indications according to the various phases of disease; if you revert to what I have said of the specific actions and effects of the packing process, you will see sufficient ground for our using the invaluable aid of the wet sheet in chronic disease. We often want heat to be abstracted in these diseases, we want the nerves soothed, the circulation equalized, muscles rested, fatigue removed, a movement of the fluids to be determined to the surface, interior congestions to be disgorged, the equilibrium of the fluids established, secretions and exhalations to be promoted, ill-conditioned solids to be broken up and eliminated, the tissues of the skin to be soaked, its capillaries to be emptied and cleansed, its sentient extremities to be soothed, and through them the brain to be quieted on the one hand, and the ganglionic3 system to be roused on the other.”

How many lives have been sacrificed by the practice of bleeding in feverish and inflammatory cases, from the non-adoption of wet-sheet packing, which causes no loss of strength, and leaves behind none of the debility and consequent long convalesence, which bleeding and strong medicines necessarily occasion. It is to us, indeed, inexplicable how so insane a process as bleeding can still be resorted to in this enlightened 19th century, a process which deprives nature of her vital fluid, and lets flow the stream on which our very existence depends.4 How can this tapping of the springs of life [14]be defended when an expedient for lowering inflammation without reducing the strength, presents itself for adoption by the physician, one which by its action purifies the blood, reducing fever by the abstraction of heat, and by the removal of the serum or watery constituent of the blood, which contains all its impurities. Will the public, then, place confidence in the physician who, when invited to cure them, would weaken them by bleeding, and assist the operations of nature by depriving her of that vital fluid, on the existence of which her powers of self-restoration depend? Will they prefer a system which ensures a long convalesence to the patient, to that in which he recovers from his disease without any sensible diminution of his strength, or injury to his constitution? In short, the operation of wet-sheet packing is so extraordinary and satisfactory in its results, that he who refuses to make use of it must lag behind, whilst success will attend the efforts of him who judiciously applies it in the cases to which it is suited.

The compress and hot stupe, next demand our attention; both are usually applied to the stomach; the latter consisting of a vulcanized India-rubber bag filled with hot water, which is laid over a towel, the under folds of which are moistened and placed next the body, a most efficient and convenient form of fomentation; these remedies are applied in the treatment of nearly all chronic diseases, where there is morbid action of the stomach, liver, or kidneys; this form of stupe, Dr. Wilson calls the

“Ne plus ultra of poulticing, soothing and derivation being by it most perfectly obtained, and in the greatest degree. Each operation has on deep seated chronic irritation, as one of its qualities, the advantageous effect of a mild blister or mustard plaister, without any of its drawbacks, and in acute inflammations, in all nervous or neuralgic pains, in the sufferings of colic, biliousness, or sickness of the stomach, or other digestive derangements from dietetic errors, and in the malaise ushering in fevers and inflammations, in sore throat, &c., or affections of the lungs and air tubes, it is then found to be the most agreeable and potent anodyne and equalizer of the circulation.”

It, in effect, accomplishes the most salutary operations of opiates, without any risk of congesting the liver, or producing that sickness and atony of the stomach, and all but paralysis of the lower bowels which result from the use of narcotic drugs.

“No nervous irritations,” says Dr. Wilson, “no visceral congestions, especially if of recent formation, but are soon relieved by this powerful revulsive rubefacient and anodyne. With the dissipation of those interior [15]congestions comes the solution of pains and spasms, or flatulence which may have risen to a severe state of suffering, the release of bilious and nervous headaches, neuralgic pains, asthmatic fits, &c. These have all their origin near or remote in visceral obstructions, congestions, &c. In most cases where for a longer or a shorter time any organic action has been embarrassed, sleep banished or disquieted, and the patient irritated and exhausted to the last degree; by aid of the fomentations, in a brief time organic calm takes the place of organic tumult, ease succeeds to agitation, and the whole apparatus feels to work normally and with renewed alacrity. What I have just described, you may frequently hear repeated and descanted upon in the same strain by my patients.”

The effect of the hot-stupe in the removal of irritation from the viscera, the immediate cause of dysentery, &c., is very remarkable, and from our knowledge of its effects, we have often regretted that so simple and rational an expedient was not resorted to, in the treatment of those diseases by which our noble army was more than decimated in the late Crimean Campaign. On this subject Dr. Wilson remarks—

“So strong was my conviction, that I wrote to my good friend Lord Rokeby, requesting him to offer my service through Mr. Sidney Herbert. I offered to go and remain there (at Scutari) entirely at my own expense, not as a ‘water doctor,’ but as an ordinary medical practitioner, willing to lend a hand, and make himself generally useful. I stated that I had almost lived in hospitals for seven years, had afterwards witnessed the practice of nearly every great hospital in Europe, and could undertake simple operations, and any amputations with little preparation: had been twenty-five years in practice. After some weeks I received a polite letter thanking me, but fearing it could not be done, not being quite the custom. About this time there was an outcry for medical men, those at the hospitals were too few for the work, they were worn out with fatigue.”

Further on he adds—

“I have had a great many patients suffering under Chronic diseases from climate, exposure, and want of care, &c., patients from India, Ceylon, and the Antipodes, with long continued diarrhœa, dysentery, and intractable fever of an intermittent character. From the success of this simple treatment in those cases, I have not ceased to regret that I did not go to Scutari on my own account without permit or introduction. I might have introduced the practice gradually, being sure that it only required a trial to have been adopted by the medical staff with great satisfaction.”

We join Dr. Wilson heartily in this regret, as it would have led to the introduction of this remedy if proved efficient, and silenced its advocates if it proved a failure. Nowhere could the two systems have been more severely and satisfactorily tested, and we should all have benefited by the result; the relative merits of the two systems would have been decided, and the public no longer left to hang in doubt between them.

The sitz bath and foot bath come next in point of importance. [16]The former acts with marked effect in cases of congestion of the liver and other internal organs; by abstracting heat from the surface of the body submitted to its influence, it causes a transference of fluids from the centre to the exterior, and the congested organs are relieved from their excess of blood by its being thus determined to the surface; this effect, at first temporary, becomes permanent when the use of the bath has been persevered in for some time. Let us now compare the effects of this bath, in the cases of congestion of the liver, with the treatment usually pursued by the orthodox physicians. Their remedies consist in dosing with Calomel, or Taraxacum, or in the application of leeches to the affected region. The two former stimulate the action of the liver, in spite of the congested blood which oppresses it, but they do not attempt to deal with the causes of this congestion, the result of which is that the liver being weakened by its unnatural exertions consequent on the unnatural stimulants which have been administered to it, sinks—after the effect of the unnatural stimulus has worn away—into a more enfeebled and exhausted state, and the original cause of the congestion remaining unremoved, matters become worse than at first. In the case of leeching, the topical bleeding relieves the affection for a time, but this is a remedy which cannot be REPEATED in consequence of the weakness which it engenders, and when the bleeding is given up, how do matters stand? The disease remains in statu quo; not so, however, the constitution, for this has been weakened by the bleeding, and nature being consequently less able to cure herself, chronic disease of the liver results. On the other hand, the hydropathic treatment necessary to determine the blood from the congested organ to the surface, and so remove the disease, can be repeated as often as desirable, with constantly increasing effect, until permanent relief is afforded by a perseverance in the treatment, and the patient improves in general health, pari passu, with the cure of his particular disease. The effects of the sitz bath, are, it appears, either tonic or relaxing according to the length of time during which it is administered; if a tonic effect is desired, a period varying from ten to fifteen minutes is prescribed—if a relaxing or derivative effect is to be produced, the period is extended to half-an-hour or forty-five minutes.

We should have thought it superfluous to make any observations on the evil effects of mercury, which we thought were [17]acknowledged by everybody, were it not that we recently heard it designated by a much respected physician as “a most wholesome substance,” the chief objection to it being “that persons got too fat upon it.” This opinion astonished us not a little, and we felt that when habit5 and prejudice could so pervert the mind of a physician as to make him look upon a poisonous substance as a positive good, we could easily account for the difficulty which has been always experienced in converting a medical man—for the unsatisfactory state of the medical art, and its having so long pertinaciously followed the routine practice of our ancestors. When a mind cannot perceive the difference between black and white, it is in vain to place less obvious differences before it. We now quote the opinion of Dietrich as to the effects of this “wholesome” ingredient, mercury, for the benefit of the physician in question, and such of our readers as may hitherto have agreed with him. He tells us that—

“Soon after salivation has been established, the blood exhibits an inflammatory crust; at a later period its colour deepens, and its coagulability is diminished; the proportion of clot, and, therefore, of fibrin, to serum (or watery part) becomes smaller; the formation of albumen and mucus sinks to that of serum; the whole organic formation of the patient is less consistent and cohesive.”

Which opinion is right, let the public judge. We will not prejudice their verdict by any further observations of ours, but will merely ask them, if mercury be proved unnecessary, how can its continued use be defended?

Dr. Farre writes sportively as follows:—

“A full, plethoric woman, of a purple-red complexion, consulted me * * * I gave her mercury, and in six weeks blanched her as white as a lily.”

If this be what the Allopathist boasts of, and one of the effects he aims at producing, we congratulate him on the melancholy success which usually attends his efforts.

As regards the use of the foot bath, we may observe that the theory of its administration subverts all our preconceived notions respecting the proper mode of treating those affections for which it is usually prescribed. For instance, the old mode of proceeding in affections of blood to the head, or in cases of cold feet, was to apply cold to the head and warmth to the feet, in the shape of hot flannels, hot bricks, and hot stupes. [18]Now the Hydropathic mode of treatment is the very reverse of this, viz., to bathe the head in tepid, and place the feet in cold water to about the depth of three inches, up to the ankles—friction of the feet accompanying their immersion; the whole being continued for about ten minutes. Let any person suffering from cold feet try this remedy, and he will satisfy himself of the truth of the principles which enjoin it. Its rationale is as follows:—The application of warm water to the head, of the same temperature as the body, does not increase the flow of blood to it, whilst the subsequent evaporation from the moist and warm surface of the head cools it gradually, and so diminishes the flow of blood to it, whilst the cold application to the feet, has, “for a secondary result, the attraction and retention in those parts of great quantity of blood, and consequently of increased temperature there. In fact,” continues Dr. Gully, “a cold foot bath of twelve or fifteen minutes, followed by a walk of half-an-hour, is the most certain way to warm the feet that can be devised; just as, per contra, the most certain way to insure cold feet, is to soak them in hot water. The same applies to the hands. When the patient is in a condition to take it, a walk is necessary to obtain the circulating reaction alluded to:” he adds, “the warmth remains for several hours. Very frequently I have heard persons say that they have not known cold feet since they began to take cold foot baths.”

With respect to bathing generally, very erroneous opinions appear to prevail, two of which only we will notice:—First, that for delicate constitutions bathing is dangerous, because no reaction takes place in the system;—secondly, that it is dangerous to bathe in cold water when the body is heated. To the first we answer, that no matter how delicate the constitution may be, reaction can always be obtained, if water of a proper temperature be used; this temperature will vary with the vitality of the individual—the more delicate the individual the warmer the water must be. A delicate person will often receive the same shock and benefit to his system from water at a temperature of 80°, as a strong man may, perhaps, receive from water at a temperature of 42°. To the second we reply, that a more erroneous opinion could not by possibility prevail, and that the idea in question is exactly the opposite of the truth; the fact being, that the body cannot be too warm for cold bathing, always provided, that such warmth has not been produced at the cost of bodily languor and fatigue, as in such cases the system will be too much weakened to react after the [19]bath with effect; but with this exception, the warmer the body the greater will be the reaction and benefit received, and the longer may the bather continue with impunity to luxuriate in the bath. The body is never so well calculated to withstand the effects of cold as when it is heated; and the only danger to be apprehended from cold bathing is that arising from entering the water in a chilled condition, when, from the low vitality of the body, the subsequent reaction becomes imperfect. Let these maxims be remembered:—that without subsequent reaction, no bath is beneficial—therefore, water should be always used of a proper temperature to secure reaction, and exercise to warmth, taken immediately before and after a cold bath, when practicable; that the colder the bath (provided reaction follows) the greater its benefit, the reaction being always a mean proportional between the temperature of the bather and the water in which he bathes. Whenever bathing is found to disagree with any person, it will be always found that some of the preceding conditions have been neglected, a very common fault being that of entering the water in a chilled state, and remaining there for twenty minutes, when five would have proved, perhaps, more than sufficient; then headache, languor, and chilliness succeed, and we are told that bathing disagrees. With such bathing, the wonder would be that it did not.

We would next make some observations on the different modes of treating pulmonary consumption, that fatal and mysterious disease, which has so long baffled the curative efforts of the most eminent physicians of their day, and it is gratifying to find that a great step towards a rational and successful mode of treatment, based on sound physiological principles, has lately obtained in its case, which mode we hope soon to see generally adopted by the medical profession.6 The unsuccessful treatment of this disease has hitherto cast a slur on medical science, and it is not to be wondered at that little success should have attended on the orthodox mode of treatment, since recent observation, and matured experience have shown, on physiological principles, that no worse mode could have been devised for curing, nor a surer one adopted for aggravating the disease. This new view of the matter is [20]very ably set forth in Dr. Lane’s work, which we heartily recommend to the perusal of our readers, as a sensible and modest statement of the benefits resulting from Hydropathic treatment in cases of that nature. Dr. Lane looks upon consumption as essentially a blood disease, in which opinion he is confirmed by the first physiologists of the day, and by those physicians who have had most experience in the treatment of that particular disease, Sir James Clarke, Professor Bennet, Dr. Balbyrnie, and others. These physicians concur in confirming the observation of others, to the effect that indigestion or derangement of the stomach and digestive organs, is a universal forerunner of pulmonary consumption, and that without such derangement consumption cannot exist. Consequent on this diseased state of the digestive organs, imperfect blood is assimilated, deficient in its oleaginous elements, and containing an undue amount of albuminous materials; that in consequence of this deficiency of oleaginous elements, the blood is incapable of being converted into true cellular tissue to replace the effete material of the lungs, and the superabundant quantity of albumen has a tendency to exude upon the lungs on their exposure to cold in the form of tubercles, which process is unaccompanied by inflammatory action. These facts are based on long observation and direct chemical analysis of the substance composing the tubercles, which consist of almost pure albumen; and on this theory the wonderful effects of cod liver oil in consumptive cases, and the great emaciation of body which results from the disease are satisfactorily explained. In the one case, the cod liver oil supplies, in a light and digestible form, the oleaginous element in which the blood is deficient; in the other, the system has recourse to the fatty or adipose matter of the body to supply the oleaginous principle. But now the question arises, supposing that indigestion is the universal precursor of consumption, from what does this indigestion and consequent imperfect assimilation of the blood proceed? This question Dr. Lane does not touch upon, but we believe that Dr. Barter, the well-known Hydropathic physician of Blarney, considers that it arises from defective vitality7 in the blood, caused by deficiency of oxygen in the system, more immediately proceeding [21]from defective capacity of the lungs, and imperfect action of the skin. The skin and lungs, it must be remembered, are supplementary organs; stop the action of either, and death inevitably ensues, and on their perfect or imperfect action, perfect or imperfect health depends. This view of the disease is illustrated by the history of the monkey: in its wild state, the best authorities state, it never gets consumption, but domesticate the animal, so inducing bad action of the lungs, from want of sufficient exercise and wholesome air, and imperfect action of the skin, arising from the same cause, and it usually dies of this disease. These observations equally apply to all cases of scrofulous degeneration, which physicians estimate as carrying off prematurely one-sixth of the whole human family.8 Of this terrible disease, the scourge of the human race, it is sufficient to observe, that consumption is merely a form of it, and that it is, moreover, hereditary, a fact which would corroborate the opinion of its being a true blood disease.

Having referred to the fact of the lungs and skin being supplementary organs—the principal duty of both being to aerate the blood—it may be interesting to lay before our readers the following extracts from the results of Monsieur Fourcault’s experiments bearing on the subject. These experiments were made with the view of ascertaining the effect of the suppression of transpiration by the skin, in animals, on coating their bodies with an impermeable varnish. The committee of the French Institute thus describes these experiments:—

“The substances which he used were givet-glue, dextrine, pitch, and tar, and several plastic compounds; sometimes the varnish was made to cover the whole of the animal’s body, at other times only a more or less extensive part of it. The accidents which follow this proceeding are more or less complete or incomplete, general or partial. In every case the health of the animals is soon much impaired and their life in danger. Those which have been submitted to those experiments, under our observation, have died in one or two days, and in some cases in a few hours only.

“In the opinion of the committee these experiments are full of interest [22]for the future, * * * * the experiments of M. Fourcault cannot fail to throw a new light upon the physiological and pathological phenomena, depending upon the double function of inhalation and exhalation of the cutaneous system.”

Monsieur Fourcault himself thus writes:—

“The mucous membranes were not the only parts affected by the artificial suppression of the insensible perspiration. We also observed the production of serous effusions in the pericardium, and even in the pleuræ. These effusions thus demonstrate that dropsies are found in the same body as mucous discharges. Several dogs died with paraplegia, and could only drag themselves along on their fore paws; some died atrophied, and their lungs contained miliary tubercules, which appeared to me, from their whiteness and softness, to be of recent formation. It was, therefore, now impossible to doubt the influence of the suppression of the insensible perspiration of the skin upon the changes in the blood, the mucous and serous exudations, and finally, upon the development of local lesions.

“But the results of these experiments differ in toto according as the plastering is partial or general, or as it suspends the action of the skin incompletely or completely. In the first case, the alteration of the blood is not carried so far as to cause the dissolution of its organic elements; it can coagulate, and present, in some few cases, a buffy coat of little consistency, bearing some resemblance to that which is found in inflammatory blood. As to the tissues affected, they, however, appear to me to present the anatomical characteristics of the consequences of local inflammation.

“But when the application of very adhesive substances upon the whole of the body quickly suppresses the cutaneous exhalation, and consequently prevents the action of the air upon the skin, death takes place much more speedily, and appears to be the result of true asphyxia. The breathing of the animals experimented upon, is difficult; they take deep inspirations, in order to inhale a larger quantity of air than usual; their death is violent, and is often accompanied by convulsive movements. On dissection, we find in the veins and the right cavities of the heart, sometimes also in the left, but very rarely in the arteries, a black diffluent blood, forming sometimes into soft and diffluent coagula, and coagulating, very imperfectly, when exposed to atmospherical air. This dissolution of the blood, favours the formation of large ecchymoses and of effusions into the lungs and other organs, the capillary vessels are usually injected;—one can see that the alteration of the blood has been the true cause of the stagnation of the circulation in this order of vessels. * * * * *

“It is important to state that man, in the same way as animals, dies from cutaneous asphyxia when his body is covered by impermeable applications. I shall detail, in another work, the results of my researches upon this subject, and facts which still belong to general history will enter into the province of medicine. Thus, at Florence, when Leo X. was raised to the pontificate, a child was gilt all over, in order to represent the golden age. This unfortunate child soon died, the victim of a physiological experiment of a novel kind. I have gilded, silvered, and tinned several guinea-pigs, and all have died like the child at Florence.”

[23]

Monsieur Fourcault, in summing up his researches, remarks as follows:—

“Nasal catarrh, diarrhœa, paralysis, marasmus, convulsive movements, and finally the phenomena of asphyxia are also the results of the same experiments. Cutaneous asphyxia may cause the death of man and animals; in this affection, the blood presents, in the highest degree, the refrigerant and stupefying qualities of VEINOUS9 blood.”

The above extracts are our answer to those superficial medical objectors, who would argue that death is not occasioned, in the above instances, by the exclusion of atmospheric air from the system, but by the suppression of poisonous salts secreted in the skin. The effects of the suppression of the most poisonous and irritating of these is well known to the physician, but their phenomena bear no analogy to those presented in the case before us, which exhibits all the symptoms and appearance of true suffocation. If, however, the evidence of these experiments be not sufficient to convince them, that a deficient supply of air, producing suffocating symptoms, was the real cause of death in the above cases, we will be prepared to meet them on a more convenient battle-field, where arguments, which would only prove tedious and unintelligible to the non-professional reader, may be freely adduced in support of our position.

Were it not tedious to multiply instances, many more might be adduced, such as the dangerous stage of small-pox being contemporaneous with the breaking of the pustules, when the surface of the body becomes partially varnished over, and the fact that a scald or burn is dangerous, not in proportion to its depth, but breadth.

Now, if it be conceded that the main cause of consumption, tracing the disease back to its first cause, is to be found in an insufficient supply of oxygen to the system (which certainly the success attendant on the treatment based upon this theory would lead one to suppose), we would beg of our readers seriously to ask themselves how can consumption be cured by drugging, and how can the much required oxygen be supplied to the blood by any proceeding of the kind? We think that the results of such a system afford a conclusive answer to this question; failure marking its course wherever it has been tried. Again, as regards the fashionable remedy of [24]going abroad,10 how are we likely to get more oxygen supplied to our blood by going abroad than by staying at home? What magic is there in the process? A mild climate may certainly prove less irritating than its native air to a diseased and disordered lung, and the suffering and uneasiness consequent on the irritation may be thereby allayed, but we are not a whit nearer being cured by this device, nor have we, in so doing, properly gone to work to remove the main spring and cause of the disease.

Let our readers bear in mind the following aphorism of Dr. Hall: “Close bed rooms make the graves of multitudes;” let them recollect that impure blood is the origin of consumption, and that impure air causes impure blood.

Carrying out these principles, in curing consumption, Dr. Barter would use all means to place the system in a favourable condition to receive a full supply of oxygen, first, by a direct inhalation of a mixture of oxygen and atmospheric air through the lungs; secondly, by enjoining a large amount of active exercise in the open air, when practicable, and sleeping at night with open windows; and thirdly, by inducing a healthy action of the skin,11 and consequent supply, through it, of oxygen to the blood, by the intervention of the Turkish bath. This mode of treatment has, we believe, proved most successful, whilst the old mode of treatment, of which it is the very antipodes, viz., keeping the patient in a heated and impure atmosphere, swathing him with flannels,12 dosing him [25]with prussic acid, and applying a respirator to the mouth, has proved most unsuccessful and fatal. How it could ever have entered into the brain of a physician to recommend the use of a respirator, as a cure for consumption, we are at a loss to imagine, as a more ingenious mode of shutting out the pure atmosphere, essential to our existence, and exchanging it for one loaded with carbonic acid (thus aggravating the disease which it seeks to cure), could not possibly be devised. Man, in a state of health, requires pure air as a condition of his existence; and can it be supposed that, in a state of disease, he will be able, more successfully, to resist the effects of poison on his system than when in a state of health? Will he, in a state of disease, be strengthened and improved by the loss of that, on a due supply of which, when well, the continuance of his health and strength would depend? Does the experience of our readers furnish them with a single case of recovery from consumption caused by the use of a respirator, or does it not, on the contrary, furnish them, in every case where it has been resorted to, with instances of the bad effects attendant upon its use?

In support of the view taken by Dr. Barter, we would observe, that narrow and contracted lungs, an impure atmosphere, uncleanly habits, sedentary occupation, indulgence in alcoholic liquors, and over eating, all directly tend to the overloading of the blood with carbon, and they are also the most constant causes of consumption. But the success attending this treatment is the argument which will have most weight with the public, and cause its adoption by the profession at large. When this takes place we shall not have consumptive patients sent abroad to seek restoration of their health—

“To Nice, where more native persons die of consumption than in any English town of equal population—to Madeira, where no local disease is more prevalent than consumption—to Malta, where one-third of the deaths amongst our troops are caused by consumption—to Naples, whose hospitals record a mortality, from consumption, of one in two and one-third of the patients—nor, finally, to Florence, where pneumonia is said to be marked by a suffocating character, and a rapid progress towards its final stage. Sir James Clarke has assailed with much force the doctrine, that change of climate is beneficial in cases of consumption. M. Carriere, a French physician, has written strongly against it. Dr. Burgess, an eminent Scotch physician, also contends that climate has little or nothing to do with the cure of consumption, and that if it had, the curative effects would be produced through the skin and not the lungs, by opening the pores, and promoting a better aeration of the blood.”

With respect to the administering of prussic acid, to lower [26]the pulse in consumption, we cannot TOO STRONGLY reprobate this mistaken practice. Do physicians, when prescribing this poison, ever reflect that this elevation of the pulse, which they employ themselves so sedulously to lower, is an effort of nature to supply more oxygen to the system by an increased action of the lungs, and that the more the lungs are injured by disease, the greater is this compensating effort of nature: just as a blacksmith must work a small or defective bellows more rapidly than a large one, to keep his fire going. If this be the case, the destructive effects of prussic acid will at once be evident, since by it all the powers of the system become reduced, and nature’s efforts at self-relief most mischievously obstructed. The feverish action of the pulse is, in itself, of no moment; it is only as a symptom of derangement in the system that it becomes alarming; it is nature telling us that something is wrong by the very action which she is establishing to cure it. What then must be thought of a practice which silences the tell-tale pulse, stops the voice of nature, and checks her curative efforts, without attempting to cure the disorder; doing immense mischief, whilst it effects no good? The fact is, the only reduction of the pulse which is worth a farthing, is that which follows naturally from removing the cause of its elevation, viz., a want of oxygen in the system. That the supplying of this want has the effect of lowering the consumptive pulse, without the assistance of prussic acid, is abundantly proved by the rapid fall of the pulse produced by the Turkish bath,—a result most satisfactory to the physiologist, as evidencing the soundness of the theory which prescribes it as a remedy.

Having referred to the erroneous practice of swathing consumptive patients in flannel, it may not be out of place here to make a few observations on the origin of caloric in the animal system, and the office of clothing in relation to it.

The only true source of caloric in animals, is that produced by the chemical combination of oxygen with the carbon and other oxidizable products of their system. Every cause which quickens and exalts this chemical action increases the animal heat, whilst every interfering cause produces cold and chilliness. It is in this way that drinking cold water, or taking exercise in the open air, increases the warmth of the body, by producing a healthy13 waste of the system, and so stimulating the chemical [27]combustion within it. Clothing, it should be recollected, has merely the effect of retaining animal heat and preventing its dissipation, but it cannot, in the slightest degree, create it: if, therefore, any thing occurs to interfere with that action, by which heat can alone be generated, all the clothes in the world will fail to warm us. How little these facts are reflected on, is shown by the excessive and injurious amount of clothing worn by delicate persons, which defeats the very object they are intended to effect. These facts also explain the apparent paradox of patients who, previous to undergoing the water system, complain of chilliness when smothered with clothing, but who afterwards are enabled to wear very light clothing, without any feeling of their former chilliness.14 On this subject Dr. Gully observes:—

“Should, however, the reader desire to learn the most effectual way of destroying the power of generating animal heat, let him pursue the plan which so many shivering patients who come to Malvern have followed. Let him drink spirits and wine, eat condiments, swallow purgatives, and especially mercurials, take a ‘course of iodine,’ and, as an occasional interlude, lose a little blood, and we stake our reputation that he will shiver to his heart’s content, and find himself many degrees lower in the scale of Fahrenheit than cold water, cool air, early rising, and exercise can possibly make him.”

Before leaving this subject, we would entreat our readers seriously to consider the observations we have addressed to them, and the facts which we have adduced in support of the mode of treatment which we have advocated. The subject is one of serious moment, since, on this disease being rightly understood, the lives of millions of our countrymen depend. If a rational mode of treatment be adopted, its fearful ravages may be successfully encountered and stayed, but if not, the gaunt spectre will stalk as hitherto, unchecked through the length and breadth of our island, dealing death to millions of its sons.

With regard to water drinking, an important part of the Hydropathic process, and against which much prejudice exists, the following extracts from the pen of the justly celebrated Allopathic physician, Sir Henry Holland, will not, we hope, be considered out of place. In his work styled “Medical Notes and Reflections,” treating of “Diluents,” he thus writes:

“Though there may seem little reason for considering these as a separate class of remedies, yet I doubt whether the principles of treatment [28]implied in the name is sufficiently regarded in modern practice. On the Continent, indeed, the use of diluents is much more extensive than in England; and, under the form of mineral waters especially, makes up in some countries a considerable part of general practice. But putting aside all question as to mineral ingredients in water, the consideration more expressly occurs, to what extent and with what effects this great diluent, the only one which really concerns the animal economy, may be introduced into the system as a remedy? Looking at the definite proportion which, in a healthy state, exists in all parts of the body between the aqueous, saline, and animal ingredients—at the various organs destined, directly or indirectly, to regulate the proportion—and at the morbid results, occurring whenever it is materially altered—we must admit the question as one very important in the animal economy, and having various relation to the causes and treatment of disease. Keeping in mind then this reference to the use of water as an internal remedy, diluents may be viewed under three conditions of probable usefulness:—First, the mere mechanical effect of quantity of liquid in diluting and washing away matters, excrementitious or noxious, from the alimentary canal;—secondly, their influence in modifying certain morbid conditions of the blood;—and thirdly, their effect upon various functions of secretion and excretion, and especially upon those of the kidneys and skin * * * The first is an obvious benefit in many cases, and not to be disdained from any notion of its vulgar simplicity. It is certain there are many states of the alimentary canal in which the free use of water at stated times produces good, which cannot be attained by other or stronger remedies. I have often known the action of the bowels to be maintained with regularity for a long period, simply by a tumbler of water, warm or cold, on an empty stomach, in cases where medicine had almost lost its effect, or become a source only of distressing irritation. The advantage of such treatment is still more strongly attested, where the secretions taking place into the intestines, or the products formed there during digestion, become vitiated in kind. Here dilution lessens that irritation to the membranes, which we cannot so readily obviate by other means, and aids in removing the cause from the body with less distress than any other remedy. In some cases, where often and largely used, its effect goes farther in actually altering the state of the secreting surfaces by direct application to them. I mention these circumstances upon experience, having often obtained much good from resorting to them in practice, when stronger medicines and ordinary methods had proved of little avail. Dilution thus used, for example, so as to act on the contents of the bowels, is beneficial in many dyspeptic cases, where it is especially an object to avoid needless irritation to the system. Half-a-pint or more of water taken when fasting, at the temperature most agreeable to the patient, will often be found to give singular relief to his morbid sensations. * * * In reference to the foregoing uses of diluents, it is to be kept in mind that the lining of the alimentary canal is, to all intents, a surface, as well as the skin, pretty nearly equal in extent; exercising some similar functions, with others more appropriate to itself, and capable in many respects of being acted upon in a similar manner. As respects the subject before us, it is both expedient and correct in many cases to regard diluents as acting on this internal surface analogously to liquids on the skin. And I would apply this remark not only to the mechanical effects of the remedy, but also to their use as the medium for conveying cold to internal parts; a point [29]of practice which either the simplicity of the means, or the false alarms besetting it, have hitherto prevented from being duly regarded.”

Again he writes:—

“Without reference, however, to these extreme cases, it must be repeated, that the use of water, simply as a diluent, scarcely receives attention and discrimination enough in our English practice.”

And again:—

“As I have been treating of this remedy only in its simplest form, I do not advert to the use of the different mineral waters farther than to state, that they confirm these general views, separating, as far as can be done, their effect as diluents from that of the ingredients they contain. The copious employment of some of them in Continental practice gives room for observation, which is wanting under our more limited use. I have often seen five or six pints taken daily for some weeks together (a great part of it in the morning while fasting), with singular benefit in many cases to the general health, and most obviously to the state of the secretions. * * * These courses, however, were always conjoined with ample exercise and regular habits of life; doubtless influencing much the action of the waters, and aiding their salutary effect.”

With this quotation we take leave of Sir Henry Holland, merely observing, that no Hydropathist could say more on the subject than he has done, and that the Continental practice referred to, of drinking large quantities of water, conjoined with ample exercise and regular habits of life, is precisely that practice which Hydropathy enjoins.

Sir John Forbes, a physician already quoted, says, on water drinking—

“The water cure is a stomachic, since it invariably increases the appetite.”

Dr. Pereira states—

“It is a vital stimulus, and is more essential to our existence than aliment.”

Liebig, the celebrated physiological chemist, bears similar testimony, viz.—“It increases the appetite.”

Are these effects consistent with lowering the tone of the stomach? are they not, on the contrary, the strongest evidence of the TONIC effects of water?

Some objectors say, “water drinking thins the blood.” After demolishing these objections by arguments which we regret we have not space to quote, Dr. Gully concludes his observations as follows;—

“But the whole assertion regarding thin blood proceeds on grounds that betray intense ignorance, both of physiology and of the water cure. It supposes that the whole water imbibed enters into, and remains in the circulating blood, quasi water, that no chemical transformation of it takes [30]place in the body at all: this is ignorance of physiology. And it supposes that ALL who are treated by water are told to drink the same, and that a large quantity, without discrimination of the individual cases of disease presented: this is ignorance of the water cure. So between the horns of this compound ignorance, and of wilful misrepresentation, we leave the declaimers about the ‘thinning of the blood.’ ”

It is a curious fact that in all the medical works which treat of anaemia, or bloodlessness, “allusion is never once made to water-drinking as a known cause—not even to the possibility of its being a cause of it.”

In so flagrant a case of thin blood, why has this principal cause been omitted? It is further curious that this injurious effect of water was never invented, much less preached, until Hydropathy was found to be making inconvenient strides in public favour.

Is the reader aware that eighty per cent. of water enters into the composition of healthy blood, without making any allowance for the enormous quantity required for the various secretions?

Granting, however, for the sake of argument, that all, and more than these objectors urge, were true, we still have a kind of feeling that water is more congenial to the system than prussic acid, or even iodine. But we may be wrong.

Perhaps there is no disease which would appear, at first sight, so little suited for Hydropathic treatment as cholera;15 that disease for the successful treatment of which we have been hitherto accustomed to consider stimulants and hot applications of all kinds as indispensably necessary, and yet there is no disease, in the treatment of which Hydropathy has been more successful.

The principles of its treatment, by the water system, are so sensibly and rationally put forward in the pamphlet entitled, “An Address, &c.,” that, as we think, the greatest sceptic must be convinced of the truth of the doctrines it propounds, we strongly recommend its perusal to our readers. Of the many cases treated by the author, ALL, we are told, recovered, whilst not a single instance of secondary fever—the invariable accompaniment of the Allopathic treatment, and only secondary in danger to the disease itself—occurred. The necessary prevalence of this secondary fever in the one case, and its [31]absence in the other, are beautifully explained, on natural principles, at pages 9 and 10. Though the pamphlet in question is anonymous, and the author has taken some pains to explain his reason for concealing his name, yet he has unwittingly betrayed his identity in the following extract from a letter from Lieut.-Colonel Cummins, C.M., who, having tried the system as an amateur, in America, thus writes of it:—

“Tell Barter that his system has lately become the universal practice in the Southern States, for cholera; and since its adoption, although it is, of course, but imperfectly carried out, the mortality is not one-fourth.

“I never saw cholera of so frightful a character; that at Quebec, which you recollect was so near doing for me, was nothing to it; the violence of the spasms was such that blood oozed out through all the pores of the skin, especially with the niggers. It did not give the slightest warning; the men often fell while at work, and before four hours were dead.”

The following statement, extracted from a letter written by Mr. James Morgan of Cork, and which appeared in the Limerick Chronicle, 4th April, 1849, affords a remarkable instance of the beneficial effects of fresh air and cold water, so strongly insisted upon by Dr. Barter, and corroborating the practice which, on theoretical grounds, he recommends:

“In a temporary cholera hospital at Gloucester, there were sixteen patients, one of whom was an interesting young female, between fifteen and sixteen years of age, for whose recovery the attending physician (Dr. Shute) was most anxious. On leaving the hospital in the evening, the girl was in collapse, and quite blue; he called the nursetender, and bade her be attentive to her, and give her whatever she may call for, as all hopes had vanished. In the course of the night the nurse went to increase the fire which was near the girl’s berth in the ward; but she begged the woman not to do so, as she was almost suffocated, and, at the same time, asked for a drink. The nurse brought her a bowl of tea, which was rejected, but she requested water. Remembering the doctor’s directions, the nurse, not without some reluctance and apprehension, brought her a pint mug full of water, which she drank with avidity; and continued to call for water about every five minutes, until she had taken two gallons of it; when she fell into a profound sleep, in which she was found by the doctor in the morning, when her natural complexion reappeared, and she was, to his astonishment, in a state of convalescence. Having with amazement elevated his eyes, exclaiming, ‘this is something like a miracle!’ he called the nursetender, who related what had taken place; and perceiving the window open over the patient’s berth, he asked why it was not shut? and was told by the attendant, that it was left open at the earnest desire of the girl. The doctor immediately ordered all the windows of the ward to be opened, the heavy bed covering on the patients to be removed, and replaced by light rugs; directed that no drink should be given but cold water, and the result was, that the whole sixteen persons were cured of cholera; one, however, died of consecutive fever, produced by eating too much chicken and drinking too much broth whilst convalescent. The case [32]was reported to the Government Board of Health, then sitting in London; and similar treatment was pursued by all the medical men in and about Gloucester with the most complete success. The report, names of the doctors, and all the correspondence are minutely detailed in the columns of the Chronicle in the year 1832.

“Need more be offered upon the subject; and yet with such facts upon record, ‘hot punch’ is now given to the poor patients in the cholera hospitals in Limerick. Those pious and angelic Sisters of Mercy, to whom you have alluded in the Chronicle, never, in all probability, heard or read of the treatment of cholera as above narrated; but ever attentive and observant as they are in the performance of their hallowed vocation, they have not been unmindful of the good effects of cold water. Nature prompts the sufferer to call for it, and it should be always supplied. In cholera, pure water is balsamic.

“As to the operation of cold water on the human system in cholera, or the action of the system on water, I will not presume to pronounce; but I may say that it is commonly supposed that when the serum (one of the important constituents of the blood) is exhausted by discharges, collapse takes place, and the livid hue of the countenance follows; and everybody has heard of the experimental operation of transfusion of warm water, combined with albumen and soda, into the veins, to supply the absence of serum, in order to give the vital current its natural and healthy flow: whether cold water, from the oxygen it contains, and the necessary heat it is therefore calculated to impart, is taken up rapidly by the absorbents to cherish and feed the blood, and fill the channels of circulation, so as to remove collapse in cholera, I shall leave physiologists to determine; but it is indisputable that cholera patients have anxiously asked for, and eagerly swallowed, copious draughts of cold water, till their thirst was allayed, genial warmth restored, agony banished, and the vital functions vivified and invigorated.” * * * * *

The following extract is taken from Braithnorth’s “Retrospect of Medicine,” a standard professional work:—

“I am acquainted with three persons, who, after they had been laid out for dead, on being washed, previous to interment, in the open court-yard, with water, to obtain which the ice had been broken, recovered in consequence, and lived many years. I received from Erycroon, in Turkey, a letter from our excellent Consul, Mr. Brant, who states that Dr. Dixon, of that place, was then curing more patients by friction, with ice or snow, than any other treatment. The same practice is reported to have been the most effectual in Russia.”

We make no comments on the foregoing, leaving the public to draw their own conclusions from the facts stated. In setting the facts before them, we feel we have done our duty; we leave the leaven to work in their minds, and produce its own result on their future conduct.

In condemning the mistaken administration of hot stimulants, such as “hot punch,” &c., Dr. Barter proceeds:—

“I never yet saw a patient that did not cry out for cold water; and the confirmed dram-drinker can, with difficulty, be persuaded to taste his [33]favourite beverage; he objects more to brandy or punch than the temperate do; this I have often remarked. I have seen a patient travel for miles on an open car, through sleet and rain, without any covering, and drinking cold water on the way, and remarked that he did better than when treated with brandy, hot tins, &c. In fact, I often saw such patients beg to be allowed out again, they used to call loudly for cold water. ‘For the love and honour of God, sir, get us a drink of cold water,’ was no unfrequent request amongst them, and that pronounced with an earnestness of manner most truly impressive; but, alas! in 1832, this appeal was always refused, though in 1849 a step has been taken in a right direction, and it is allowed, according to the Sisters of Mercy, ‘in small quantities.’ ”

The truth will ere long be acknowledged, that it is our mode of life that makes us fit subjects for cholera, and that it is our mode of treating it alone, which makes the disease so dangerous. The wretch who is cast uncared for in a ditch, exposed to all the inclemency of the weather, with water alone to quench his burning thirst, has ten chances to one in favour of his recovery, compared with the well-cared patient who is dosed with brandy and the favourite specifics of the apothecary’s shop. If we look at cholera, and divest our minds of its accustomed mode of treatment, we will find that every symptom of the disease points to the presence of some highly irritant poison in the blood; and in the effort to expel this poison, the serum which contains it, is drained from the system. What, therefore, can be more rational than to supply the system with the materials of restoration, by giving water in large quantities, and to stimulate its chemical combinations by which the caloric of the system shall be restored, by the influence of fresh air, water drinking, and cold bathing.

Sir Bulwer Lytton thus sums up his impressions of Hydropathy:—

“Those cases in which the water-cure seems an absolute panacea, and in which the patient may commence with the most sanguine hopes, are—first, rheumatism, however prolonged, however complicated. In this the cure is usually rapid—nearly always permanent.16 Secondly, gout: here its efficacy is little less startling to appearance than in the former case; it seems to take up the disease by the roots; it extracts the peculiar acid which often appears in discolorations upon the sheets used in the application, or is ejected in other modes. But here, judging always from cases [34]subjected to my personal knowledge, I have not seen instances to justify the assertion that returns of the disease do not occur. The predisposition—the tendency, has appeared to remain; the patient is liable to relapses, but I have invariably found them far less frequent, less lengthened, and readily susceptible of simple and speedy cure, especially if the habits remain temperate.”

If it be asked why Hydropathy has proved itself so effective a remedy in curing rheumatism, we would answer, on account of its great power in strengthening and invigorating the stomach and digestive organs, in the derangement of which, the cause of that disease is to be found. Rheumatism proceeds from a sluggish circulation in the extremities, consequent on a low vitality in the system, arising from a derangement of the digestive organs and viscera; if these latter were sound and free from irritation, all the cold and wet, we could possibly be exposed to, would fail to produce that inflammation of the sheaths of the muscles in which rheumatism consists. That Hydropathy is capable of strengthening and invigorating these organs, is well known to all who have tried it, and is even admitted by its greatest opponents when they state, “Oh! it is good for the general health,” for it is utterly impossible for the “general health” to be good without a sound digestion.

With respect to gout, a permanent cure from it is rarely to be found, and why?—Because few people have either the time or patience to continue long enough under treatment for its total eradication, running away from an “establishment” the moment they get relief from the pressing fit, and consequently the disease recurs. Now, of all diseases, gout is perhaps the most tedious of permanent cure, the visceral irritation which gives rise to it being always inveterate and of long duration, and nothing short of chronic treatment—treatment continuing for years instead of months, will remove it. Dr. Gully observes respecting it:—

“It would be folly, however, to avoid a treatment because it will not for ever root up your disease in your own convenient time. Look at the destructive manner in which colchicum reduces a gouty fit, how it approximates the attacks, and utterly disorganizes the viscera; and then regard what the water cure is capable of doing, both against individual attacks, and in reduction of the diathesis, the vital parts meanwhile improving under its operation; … if it does not utterly cure the gout, at least it does not shorten the patient’s life as colchicum does.”

On the effects of colchicum he, further on, observes:—

“To the patient, and, indeed, to the physician who knows little of physiology, all this will appear right: the gout is removed, and that is what [35]was desired. The physician, however, who is a physiologist, will say, ‘True, that irritation which you call gout, has left the extremities, whither it had been sent by nature to save her noble internal parts. But look to the signs exhibited by those parts; are they not those of augmented irritation, at least of irritation of a degree and kind that did not exist so long as the limbs were pained and inflamed? The fact is, that your colchicum has set up in the viscera so intense an irritation as to reconcentrate the mischief within; and the fit is cured, not by ridding the body of the gouty irritation, but by driving or drawing it in again,’ (thus baffling nature’s efforts at self relief). ‘Hence the continuance of the dyspeptic symptoms after the fit; hence, as you will find, the recurrence of another fit ere long, the intervals becoming less and less, until gouty pain is incessantly in the limbs, and gouty irritation always in the viscera.’ ”

When the drugging practitioner drives the inflammation from the extremities to a more dangerous internal position, he congratulates himself on having cured the gout; but what in reality has he done?—By his mischievous interference with nature, he has endangered his patient’s life and shaken his constitution; whilst the gouty irritation, which causes the complaint, remains unsubdued, ready to be transferred at a moment to the head or heart, the practitioner having cleverly banished it from its original harmless position. It is in this way also that the Allopathist cures skin diseases, driving in the irritation which nature is struggling to drive out; this he eventually succeeds in doing, by weakening the powers of the system, and then fancies the disease is cured, whilst the patient pays in the long run for these hostile operations against nature.

But we have interrupted Sir Bulwer Lytton,—he thus proceeds:—

“Thirdly, that wide and grisly family of affliction classed under the common name of dyspepsia. All derangements of the digestive organs, imperfect powers of nutrition—the malaise of an injured stomach, appear precisely the complaints on which the system takes firmest hold, and in which it effects those cures that convert existence from a burden into a blessing.

“Hence it follows that many nameless and countless complaints, proceeding from derangement of the digestive organs, cease as that great machine is restored to order. I have seen disorders of the heart which have been pronounced organic by no inferior authorities of the profession, disappear in an incredibly short time; cases of incipient consumption, in which the seat is in the nutritious powers; hæmorrhages, and various congestions, shortness of breath, habitual fainting fits, many of what are called improperly nervous complaints, but which in reality are radiations from the main ganglionic spring: the disorders produced by the abuse of powerful medicines, especially mercury and iodine; the loss of appetite, the dulled sense and the shaking hand of intemperance, skin complaints, and the dire scourge of scrofula;—all these seem to obtain from Hydropathy relief,—nay, absolute and unqualified cure, beyond not only the means of the most skilful practitioner, but the hopes of the most sanguine patient.”

[36]

Nor will the above results form at all a subject for wonder, when it is remembered that every natural disease arises either from impurity in the blood or maldistribution of it, and that all the processes of the water cure, from the Turkish bath down to the wet sheet, act powerfully as depurators of the blood and controllers of its circulation,—attracting it here, and repelling it there, at will.

We know not whether the public will prefer the impartial testimony of an intelligent observer like Sir Bulwer Lytton, to that of the Allopathic physician, naturally wedded to his own system and anxious to sustain it against all intruders; but we may observe, that we never yet met a physician opposed to Hydropathy, who did not, on catechising him, exhibit the most absurd ignorance respecting it. Their chronic idea is that of a person being left to shiver in wet sheets; and, as a consequence, their chronic note of warning, accompanied by an ominous shake of the head, consists in, “Don’t attempt the water cure, or it will kill you.”17 If medical men would but see, before they assert, then much value might be attached to their opinion; but what value can be attached to their opinion about a system which they will not take the trouble of examining into? How many orthodox physicians have ever visited Blarney, or any similar Hydropathic establishment?—The proportion of such visitors (and no one can form a fair idea of the system without seeing it at work), to the whole profession would be more than represented by an infinitesimal fraction.

We wonder how long the public will continue to poison18 their systems with mercury, colchicum, iodine, and prussic acid, because a physician chooses to tell them that a mode of treatment which he has never investigated “will kill them.”

It may not be uninteresting to observe, that under Hydropathic treatment, chronic disease frequently becomes acute; for, as the body improves in strength, the more acutely will any [37]existing disease develop itself, and for the following reason: pain is caused by an effort of nature to relieve the system of some morbid influence residing in it, and the stronger the constitution, the greater efforts will it make to remove that morbid influence, and therefore the greater will be the pain; but on the other hand, when the body is enfeebled, its efforts to relieve itself, though continual, are weak and inefficient, and the disease remaining in the system, assumes the chronic and less painful form. Now with these facts before them, we have been amused at hearing physicians observe, in their efforts to decry the “Water System,” “Oh it is good for the general health, but nothing more,” a result albeit, which unfortunately the Allopathic system cannot lay claim to. When speaking thus they do not however reflect that they are affording the strongest possible testimony in support of the system which they seek to decry, inasmuch as every physiologist, from Cape Clear to the Giant’s Causeway, admits the principle, that the cure of disease is to be sought for in the powers of the living organism alone; and it must be evident that the more you strengthen that organism, the more you increase its powers to cure itself, and diminish its liability to future disease.

Having trespassed thus far on the attention of our readers, we would conclude by inviting them and the medical profession, generally, to a calm and dispassionate investigation, as far as the opportunities of each allow, of the relative merits of the Allopathic and Hydropathic systems, approaching the investigation, as far as possible, with a mind devoid of prejudice and bigotry. Their duty to themselves and to society demands this inquiry at their hands—two antagonistic (we use the term advisedly) systems are presented for their acceptance—which will they lay hold of? To assist them in determining this point we would recommend for their quiet perusal either or all of the works alluded to in this article,19 the study of which will be found interesting and profitable. If they conclude that drugs are wholesome, let them by all means be swallowed; but if they are proved to be injurious, deleterious and unnecessary, then away with them;—if opiates are innocuous let them be retained, but if they congest the liver, sicken [38]the stomach, and paralyze the actions of the vital organs, the sooner they are erased for ever from the Hygienic Pharmacopeia the better—let them gracefully retire before the improved system of hot stupes, fomentations, and the abdominal compress.

The very simplicity of the processes of the “water-cure,” which people cannot believe capable of producing the effects ascribed to them, combined with a belief, ingrained by long habit, in the absolute necessity for drugs in curing disease, have chiefly militated against a more extended reception of Hydropathy by the lay public; but when they reflect that ALL the powers of the medical art range themselves under two great categories, stimulants and sedatives—blistering, bleeding, drugs, and leeching—acknowledging no other objects, they cannot but admit the possibility of Hydropathy possessing the powers attributed to it, since its bracing and soothing properties cannot be questioned. Were, however, the position of affairs reversed, and Hydropathy become as old a system as the Allopathic this belief, in the efficacy of the old school might be securely entertained; for no one would think for a moment of exchanging a system, fixed, intelligible, and certain in its action, as based on scientific principles, and consonant with the laws of physiology, for the uncertain, groping, empirical, and injurious practice of drug medication.

We would ask the medical profession of Ireland to reflect on the fact, that Dr. Barter’s establishment at Blarney, contains at this moment upwards of 120 patients, with many more frequently seeking for admission within its walls, most of whom leave the establishment ardent converts to Hydropathy, determined for the rest of their lives to “throw physic to the dogs,” fleeing from it as from some poisonous thing. It will not do for them to “pooh-pooh” the system, and tell their patients, as many of them do, that it will kill them;20 [39]such language only betrays ignorance on their part, and will not put down a system which daily gives the lie to their predictions by affording ocular demonstration of its efficacy, in the restored health and blooming cheek of many a once emaciated friend. Men are too sensible now-a-days to pin their faith on the dictum of a medical man, who runs down a system without fairly investigating it, and examining the principles on which it acts, to say nothing of the prejudice he must feel in favour of his own particular system; but if a mode of treatment be rational, producing cures where every other system of treatment has failed, and recommend itself to the common sense and reason of mankind, we believe that such a principle will make its way despite of the opposition of all the physicians that ever lived; and this very progress the water cure is now making.

We would in conclusion apostrophize Hydropathy, in the words of the American traveller, who gave vent to his feelings on first beholding the falls of Niagara, by exclaiming, “Well done, Water!!”