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Dr. Rauss, author of a work on hydropathy which passed through several editions, says, “It is almost impossible for any one to die of an acute disease, in whom reaction can be produced, and who from the commencement is treated Hydropathically.

“Those unacquainted with this treatment will naturally doubt its wonderful power; and the physician, when he reflects upon the number of patients who in acute diseases have perished under his hands, will no doubt treat it with derision; nevertheless,” says the Doctor, “as I am not advancing a doctrine that may be controverted, I here publicly make known that I am ready, by deeds as well as words, to prove all that I have stated.” “To state,” adds the Doctor, “$1” The cure of all acute diseases, of whatever nature or kind, with these exceptions, is to Priessnitz merely child’s play; in no instance of nervous fevers or inflammations, in any stage, was he ever known to lose a patient; and what is worthy of remark in acute cases, a cure is effected in a few days without the subsequent debility which results from other treatment. Whilst I was at Gräfenberg, all descriptions of acute attacks came under my immediate notice, and I assert, without fear of contradiction, that they were all cured, with but one exception,—and that a highly valued friend of my own, a medical man, who was attacked with inflammation of the lungs. The doctor, who was advanced in life, retained his old prejudices, and consequently refused to submit to the treatment until too late. Confident in the power of Hydropathy for the last six years, whenever occasions offered (and they were not few during my sojourn in Ireland), I applied the treatment with invariable success. A case of inflammation of the mucous membrane is worthy of notice. One M. D. declared his belief that the patient would not live two hours; the other, that he could not exist until the evening. On the application of the wet sheet and tepid bath, the resuscitation of the man was as by miracle. In a case of diarrhoea, the rubbing sheet and its bath acted to the astonishment of the family. A young man had been under medical treatment for diarrhoea for a month, when he could not sleep more than a quarter of an hour at a time. He abandoned drugs, and was cured by hydropathy in three days. Dr. Engel of Vienna, and many other writers on the subject, are quite of the same opinion as Dr. Rauss as regards acute disease. This mode of treatment is efficacious in chronic diseases accompanied by atony; in all nervous affections, spasms, pains of which medicine will not discover the cause; in cases of obstruction of the bowels, and all the systematic evils which arise from them, such as indigestion, hypochondria, piles, jaundice, &c; in gout, rheumatism, scrofula, and most diseases affecting women; in fact, it is successful in a number of complaints altogether beyond the reach of medicine. I have had frequent occasions for admiring the result of the treatment in cases of ague, nervous, typhus, putrid, and scarlet fevers; but its most signal triumphs are obtained over those serious derangements of the system produced by the abuse of drugs, or when consumptions are produced by iodine, arsenic, or the consequences of mercury, tartar emetic, or other dangerous medicaments, have manifested themselves.”

It may be stated without the fear of contradiction (not a word has been written to the contrary), that in small-pox, scarlatina, measles, croup, and all the complaints incidental to children; in fevers, inflammations, cholera, cholic, dysentery, diarrhoea, and, in fact, all acute diseases, hydropathy competently administered is omnipotent; and that in chronic complaints it effects more than can be obtained by any other means. The question is frequently put, “Will hydropathy cure all complaints?” I answer it is no catholicon, no panacea; nor is any cure for all diseases to be found.

“As man, perhaps, the moment of his birth,

Receives the lurking principle of death,

The young disease that must subdue at length,

Grows with his growth and strengthens with his strength.”

Thus Pope viewed it, and thus it must be viewed by all who think on the subject. What the advocates of hydropathy assert is, that sudden fevers, of whatever nature they may be, diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, English or Asiatic, in fact, all complaints that are termed acute, when the vital energies can be roused are sure of being cured; and that in old-standing complaints, usually denominated chronic, the water cure will do all that can be done by drugs, and that it is all-powerful over many complaints which are beyond the reach of all pharmaceutical remedies.