Читать книгу Every Man His Own Doctor - R. T. Claridge - Страница 14

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Thales, like Homer, looked upon water as the principle of every thing. The Spartans bathed their children as soon as born in cold water; and the men of Sparta, both old and young, bathed at all seasons of the year in the Eurotas, to harden their flesh and strengthen their bodies.

Pindar, in one of his Olympic Odes, says, “The best thing is water, and the next gold.”

There was a Greek proverb to the effect that the water of the sea cured all ills.

Pythagoras recommended the use of cold baths strongly to his disciples, to fortify both body and mind.

Hippocrates, the father of medicine, who added friction to cold bathing, was accustomed to use cold water in his treatment of the most serious illnesses. It was Hippocrates who first observed that warm water chilled, whilst cold water warmed.

The Macedonians considered warm water to be enervating; and their women, after accouchement, were washed with cold water.

Virgil called the ancient inhabitants of Italy, a race of men hard and austere, who immersed their newly-born children in the rivers, and accustomed them to cold water.

Pliny, in speaking of A. Musa, who cured Horace by means of cold water, said that he put an end to confused drugs; and he also alludes to a certain Charmes, who made a sensation at Rome by the cures he effected with cold water. On being asked what he thought drugs were sent for, he said, “he could not imagine, except that men might destroy themselves with them when they were tired of living.”

Celsus, called the Cicero of doctors, employed water for complaints of the head and stomach.

Galen, in the second century, recommended cold bathing to the healthy, as well as to patients labouring under the attacks of fever.

Charlemagne, aware of the salubrity of cold bathing, encouraged the use of it throughout his empire, and introduced swimming as an amusement at his court.

Michael Savonarola, an Italian doctor, in 1462, recommended cold water in gout, ophthalmia, and hæmorrhages.

Cardanus, of Pavia, 1575, complains that the doctors in his time made so little use of cold water in the curing of gout.

Van der Heyden, a doctor at Ghent, in a work published in 1624, states that during an epidemic dysentery, he cured many hundreds of persons with cold water, and that during a long practice of fifty years, the best cures he ever made were effected with cold water.

Short, an English doctor, 1656, states that he had cured the dropsy and the bite of mad dogs with cold water.

Dr. Sir John Floyer published a work, called “the Psychrolusic,” in 1702, showing how fevers were to be cured with water. From that period to 1722, his work went through six editions in London.

Dr. Hancock, in 1722, published an anti-fever treatise upon the use of cold water, which went through seven editions in one year.

Dr. Currie of Liverpool, who published a work in 1797, on the use of water, introduced that element extensively in his practice with astounding results.

Tissot, in his “Advice to the People,” published in Paris, 1770, shows the importance of cold water.

Hoffman, the famous German doctor, says that if there existed anything in the world that could be called a panacea, it was pure water: first, because that element would disagree with nobody; secondly, because it is the best preservative against disease; thirdly, because it would cure agues and chronic complaints; fourthly because it responded to all indications.

Hahn, who was born in Silesia, in 1714, wrote an excellent work upon the curative agency of water in all complaints, a copy was lately found upon a book-stall, and purchased by Professor Oertel, for little more than one penny, and has been re-published; it is interesting to all who regard with attention that great moral change which the Water-cure is calculated to effect.

In Dr. Hahn’s work, it is stated that Pater Bernardo, a Capuchin monk from Sicily, went in the year 1724 to Malta, and there made some most astonishing water-cures, the fame of which spread throughout Europe: he used iced water internally and externally, and allowed his patients to eat but very little. He made a proposition that the doctors should take 100 patients, and said if they, by their mode of treating them, could cure forty, then would he undertake to cure sixty more easily and securely, and in a shorter time. His remedy of iced water, was just as effectual in winter as in summer. A case is cited of a man, ninety-two years of age, who was at the point of death from the virulence of a fever, and was cured with cold water only.

Evan Hahnemann, father of Homeopathy, in a work published at Leipsic, 1784, recommends fresh water, without which, he says, ulcers of any long standing cannot be cured, and adds, if there be any general remedy for disease, “it is water.”

The Rev. John Wesley, a.m., published a work in 1747 (about a century ago), which went through thirty-four editions, called “Primitive Physic, or an Easy and Natural Method of Curing most Diseases.”

After deprecating the manner in which drugs were imposed upon mankind, the mysteries with which the science of medicine is surrounded, and the interested conduct of medical men, the Rev. gentleman proceeds to shew, that he was fully aware of the healing powers of water; and from the long list which he has given, and which follows, it will be evident that he thought water capable of curing almost every disease to which human nature is exposed. He writes:—

“The common method of compounding and decompounding medicines, can never be reconciled to common sense. Experience shews, that one thing will cure most disorders, at least as well as twenty put together. Then why do you add the other nineteen? Only to swell the apothecary’s bill! nay, possibly on purpose to prolong the distemper, that the doctor and he may divide the spoil.

“How often, by thus compounding medicines of opposite qualities, is the virtue of both utterly destroyed?

“Nay, how often do those joined together destroy life, which singly they might have preserved?

“This occasioned that caution of the great Boerhaave, against mixing things without evident necessity, and without full proof of the effect they will produce when joined together, as well as of that they produce when asunder; seeing (as he observes) that several things which taken separately are safe and powerful medicines, when compounded not only lose their former power, but compose a strong and deadly poison.”

In recommending to his followers the use of water, Mr. Wesley proceeds to state, “that cold bathing cures young children of the following complaints:—