Bulwer and Forbes on the water-treatment: a compilation of papers on the subject of hygiene and rational hydropathy; edited with additional matters

Front matter

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Preface

TO THE STEREOTYPE EDITION

The compilation herewith presented to the public owes its origin to a strong desire, on the part of the editor, that the various materials of which it is mainly composed should be embraced in a suitable form for permanent preservation. Although some of the papers seem to have been originally designed for merely temporary purposes, yet he is so perfectly convinced of their lasting value, that he has deemed it well worth while to render them easily accessible to the public — and especially to all who may chance to be interested in the deeply-absorbing subject of which they treat. So great is their literary merit, so> able and conclusive the arguments they embody, and so high and unimpeachable the social and professional reputation of their respective authors, that he cannot help feeling confident that there are a great many readers on this side of the Atlantic who will eagerly greet their present reappearance.

The leading paper, or Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton's "Confessions of a Water Patient," which originally appeared in Colburn'a JVev> Monthly Magazine for September, 1845, is the only one of the number from a non-medical source. Its style is singularly quaint and pleasing, its manner warm and earnest, and its reasonings generally correct ; insomuch that it can hardly fail to become a favorite treatise on the modern Water-Curo among those who possess refinement of mind and a cultivated taste. Addressed as it is to literary men as a body, and written with a genuine friendlinesi yi PREFACE.

and cordiality of tone, the editor ventures to add the hope that the brotherhood in America may profit by its admonitions and pay heed to its prophetic warnings.

Dr. Forbes's article on Hydropathy has already "made its mark," and provoked a deal of controversial criticism. It is included in this volume for the reason that it is perhaps the most thorough and satisfactory demonstration of the real merits and true province of the Water-Treatment yet offered to the public by any one member of the medical profession. Indeed, no compilation of the kind contemplated by the editor would be complete without this calm, able, and searching paper.

The succeeding article embraces a couple of chapters from a most excellent Treatise on Healthy Skin, by Erasmus Wilson, JI.D., F.R.S., Consulting Surgeon to the St. Pancras Infirmary, Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology in Middlesex Hospital, author of a favorite text-book on Anatomy, etc. Of these two chapters the one first given is the ninth in the order of the Treatise '(the tenth, which is appended, being especially devoted to the consideration of the Water-Treatment), and follows a series of admirable expositions of the distribution of the skin; its division into two layers, the external and internal ; the nature of the perspiratory apparatus, the oil-glands, and the hairs ; and the influence of diet, clothing, and exercise upon the health of the skin generally. [This explanation will render perfectly clear to the mind of the reader Dr. Wilson's allusion at the outset to several " preceding chapters."]

The fourth article consists of » careful abridgment of Sir Charles Scudamore's elegantly-written account of his Medical Visit to Graefenberg, in April and May, 1843. The results of his inquiries are here transcribed, in preference to the narrative part and the details of cases ; the latter having already been circulated to a wide extent in this country, in some of the American reprints on the subject of Hydropathy. The editor takes leave to invite the particular attention of his readers to the remarks of Sir Charles Scudamore — a writer and practitioner so generally and deservedly honored both in England and America as to need no formal introduction or eulogy.

PREFACE. Vll

The fifth paper in the compilation is an abridgment of a very able work entitled, The Cold-Water Cure: its Use and Misuse Examined, by Herbert Mayo, M.D., F.R.S., formerly Surgeon of Middlesex Hospital, London, and latterly Physician to the Hydropathic establishment at MUhlbad, Boppard-on-the-Rhine. Dr. Mayo had, previously to his taking up his> residence upon the Continent, suffered severely from chronic rheumatism, insomuch that he was persuaded to " try the Water-Cure" as a last resort, though at the expense of "relinquishing a professional career in London, which was full of interest and promise of success." Dr. Mayo's amendment was so striking, that gratitude for his improvement immediately prompted him to impart to others his sense of the merits of Rational Hydropathy.

The editor has preferred to reprint these papers without notes or material abridgment, rather than run the risk of doing injustice to their authors, and at the same time interrupting the attention of the careful reader. There may be some few points of a minor nature on which his opinions are at variance, to a greater or less extent, with those set forth in these papers with such brilliancy and force ; but the occasion does not call for any detailed notice of them here. His own " position" the editor has felt it to be most proper to " define" in a separate paper at the close of the volume. To this he respectfully refers the reader.

Contents

I. CONFESSIONS OF A WATER PATIENT: by Sir

Edward Bui/yver Lytton, author of "Harold," "The Last Days of Pompeii," " Rienzi," etc., etc., 13-49

Introductory observations— The melancholy hits of Campbell, Hook, and Hood — The cant or the times about the education of the mind, to the neglect of physical education — The author's own experience — Hygienic treatment insufficient for his case — Contemplates placing; himself unii^r the care of Dr. James Wilson, at Malvern, to undergo the water treatment — Sifts some of the cases of Water-Cure cited by Dr. Wilson with satisfactory results — Resolves upon going; to Malvern, in spite of the vehement denunciations of "the faculty," who recommend in preference " a course ot prussic acid !" — Innocence of the Water-Cure in skilful hands — Good habits easily acquired under the new system — Water in itself a powerful anodyne, as well as stimulant and excitant — The water-processes agreeable rather than repulsive — Chronic cases require a long cure, as a general rule — The author continues the treatment under Dr. Weiss, at Petersham, in order to be near London — Experiences a constitutional disturbance of his system — Emerges blanched and emaciated, but with muscles as hard as iron — Visits Germany — Seized with a severe cold while travelling, which turned into high fever — Proceeds to Dr. Schmitz's establishment, at Boppart — Cured of the fever in twenty-four hours, and resumes his journey on the third day — Continues to improve steadily — Passes the winter agreeably at Malvern — bums up his own case — Had gained an immense accumulation of the capital of health — Ultra and exclusive Water-Cure notions absurd and chimerical — The Water-Cure least effectual in neuralgic pains, paralysis in the case of aged persons, and tubercular consumption ; most effectual in rheumatism, gout, dyspepsia, drug diseases, intemperance, scrofula, etc., etc. — Wonderful benefits of the Water-Cure in acute complaints — Theory of the wet sheet— The Water-Cure not a desperate remedy — Infinitely more agreeable than any course ot medicine — Three weeks at Malvern more beneficial than three months at Brighton or Boulogne — Author's advice to his literary brethren — Farewell address.

I. Btjlwer's Letter

CONFESSIONS AND OBSERVATIONS OF A WATER PATIENT,

IN A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THIS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

Dear Mr. Editor :

I am truly glad to see so worthily filled the presidency in one of the many chairs which our republic permits to criticism and letters — a dignity in which I had the honor to precede you, sub consule Planco, in the good days of William IV. I feel as if there were something ghostlike in my momentary return to my ancient haunts, no longer in the editorial robe and purple, but addressing a new chief, and in great part a new assembly : for the reading public is a creature of rapid growth — every five years a fresh generation pours forth from our institutes, our colleges, our schools, demanding and filled with fresh ideas, fresh principles, and hopes. And the seas wash the place where Canute parleyed with the waves. All that interested the world, when to me (then Mr. Editor, now your humble servant,) contributors addressed their articles, hot and seasoned for the month, and like all good articles to a periodical, "warranted not to keep," have passed away into the lumber room, where those old maids, History and Criticism, hoard their scraps and relics, and where, amidst dust and silence, things old-fashioned ripen into things antique. The roar of the Reform Bill is still, Fanny Kemble acts no more, the " Hunchback" awaits upon our shelves the resuscitation of a new Julia, poets of promise have become mute, Rubini sings no more, Macready is in the provinces, " Punch" frisks it on the jocund throne of Sidney Smith, and over a domain once parcelled amongst many, reigns " Boz." Scattered and voiceless the old contributors — a new hum betrays the changing Babel of a new multitude. Gliding thus, I say ghostlike, amidst the present race, busy and sanguine as the past, I feel that it best suits with a ghost's dignity to appear but for an admonitory purpose ; not with the light and careless step of an ordinary visitor, but with meaning stride, and finger upon lip. Ghosts, we know, have appeared to predict death — more gentle I, my apparition would only promise healing, and beckon not to graves and charnels, but to the Hygeian spring.

And now that I am fairly on the ground, let us call to mind, Mr. Editor, the illustrious names which still overshadow it at once with melancholy and fame. Your post has been filled with men whose fate precludes the envy which their genius might excite : by Campbell, the high-souled and silver-toned, and by Hook, from whom jest, and whim, and humor flowed btjlwer's letter. 15

in so free and so riotous a wave, that books confined and narrowed away the stream ; to read Hook is to wrong him. Nor can we think of your predecessors without thinking of your rival, Hood, who, as the tree puts forth its most exuberant blossoms the year before its decay, showed the bloom and promise of his genius most when the worm was at the trunk. To us behind the scenes, to us who knew the men, how melancholy the contrast between the fresh and youthful intellect and the worn-out and broken frame ; for, despite what I have seen written, Campbell, when taken at the right moment, was Campbell ever. Not capable indeed, towards the last, of the same exertion, if manifested by those poor evidences of what is in us, that books parade, but still as powerful in his great and noble thoughts, in the oral poetry revealed by flashes and winged words, though unrounded into form. And Hook jested on the bed of death as none but he could jest. And Hood ! who remembers not the tender pathos, the exquisite humanity, which spoke forth from his darkened room 1 Alas ! what prolonged pangs, what heavy lassitude, what death in life, did these men endure !

Here we are, Mr. Editor, in these days of cant and jargon, preaching up the education of the mind, forcing our children under melon-frames, and babbling to the laborer and mechanic, " Read, and read, and read," as if God had not given us muscles, and nerves, and bodies subjected to exquisite pains as pleasures — as if the body were not be cared for and cultivated as well as the mind ; as if health were no blessing, instead of that capital good, without which all other blessings — save the hope of health eternal — grow flat and joyless ; as if the enjoyment of the world in which we are was not far more closely linked with our physical than our mental selves ; as if we were better than maimed and imperfect men so long as our nerves are jaded and prostrate, our senses dim and heavy, our relationship with nature abridged and thwarted by the jaundiced eye, and failing limb, and trembling hand — the apothecary's shop between us and the sun ! For the mind, we admit that to render it strong and clear, habit and discipline are required ; how deal we (especially we, Mr. Editor, of the London world — we of the literary craft — we of the restless, striving brotherhood) — how deal we with the body 1 We carry it on with us, as a post-horse, from stage to stage — does it flag 1 no rest ! give it ale or the spur. We begin to* feel the frame break under us ; we administer a drug, gain a temporary relief, shift the disorder from one part to another — forget our ailments in our excitements, and when we pause at last, thoroughly shattered, with complaints grown chronic, diseases fastening to the organs, send for the doctors in good earnest, and die as your predecessors and your rival died, under combinations of long-neglected maladies, which could never have been known had we done for the body what we do for the mind — mads it strong by discipline, and maintained it firm by habit.

Not alone calling to recollection our departed friends, but looking over the vast field of suffering which those acquainted with the lives of men who think and labor cannot fail to behold around them, I confess, though I have something of Canning's disdain of professed philanthropists, and do not love every knife-grinder as much as if he were my brother — I confess, nevertheless, that I am filled with an earnest pity ; and an anxious desire seizes me to communicate to others that simple process of healing and well-being which has passed under my own experience, and to which I gratefully owe days no longer weary of the sun, and nights which no longer yearn for and yet dread the morrow.

And now, Mr. Editor, I may be pardoned, I trust, if I illustrate by my own case the system I commend to others.

I have been a workman in my day. I began to write, and to toil, and to win some kind of a name, which I had the ambition to improve while yet little more than a boy. With strong love for study in books — with yet greater desire to accomplish myself in the knowledge of men, for sixteen years I can conceive no life to have been more filled by occupation than mine. What time was not given to action was given to study ; what time not given to study, to action — labor in both ! To a constitution naturally far from strong, I allowed no pause or respite. The wear and tear went on without intermission — the whirl of the wheel never ceased. Sometimes, indeed, thoroughly overpowered and exhausted, I sought for escape. The physicians said, " Travel," and I travelled ; " Go into the country,"

and I went. But in such attempts at repose all my ailments gathered round me — made themselves far more palpable and felt. I had no resource but to fly from myself — to fly into the other world of books, or thought, or reverie — to live in some state of being less painful than my own. As long as I was always at work it seemed that I had no leisure to be ill. Quiet was my hell.

At length the frame thus long neglected — patched up for a while by drugs and doctors — put off and trifled with as an intrusive dun — like a dun who is in his rights — brought in its arrears — crushing and terrible, accumulated through long years. Worn out and wasted, the constitution seemed wholly inadequate to meet the demand. The exhaustion of toil and study had been completed by great anxiety and grief. I had watched with alternate hope and fear the lingering and mournful death-bed of my nearest relation and dearest friend — of the person around whom was entwined the strongest affection my life had known — and when all was over I seemed scarcely to live myself.

At this time, about the January of 1844, I was thoroughly shattered. The least attempt at exercise exhausted me. The nerves gave way at the most ordinary excitement — a chronic irritation of that vast surface we call the mucous membrane, which had defied for years all medical skill, rendered me continually liable to acute attacks, which from their repetition, and the increased feebleness of my frame, might at any time be fatal. Though free from any organic disease of the heart, its action was morbidly restless and painful. My sleep was without refreshment. At morning I rose more weary than I lay down to rest.

Without fatiguing you and your readers further with the longa cohors of my complaints, I pass on to record my struggle to resist them. I have always had a great belief in the power of will. What a man determines to do — that in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred I hold that he succeeds in doing. I determined to have some insight into a knowledge I had never attained since manhood — the knowledge of health.

I resolutely put away books and study, sought the airs which the physicians esteemed the most healthful, and adopted the strict regimen on which all the children of TEsculapius so wisely insist. In short, I maintained the same general habits as to hours, diet (with the exception of wine, which in moderate quantities seemed to me indispensable), and, so far as my strength would allow, of exercise, as I found afterwards instituted at hydropathic establishments. I dwell on this to forestall in some manner the common remark of persons not well acquainted with the medical agencies of water — that it is to the regular life which water-patients lead, and not to the element itself, that they owe their recovery. Nevertheless I found that these changes, however salutary in theory, produced little, if any, practical amelioration in my health. All invalids know, perhaps, how difficult, under ordinary circumstances, is the alteration of habits from bad to good. The early rising, the walk before breakfast, so delicious in the feelings of freshness and vigor which they bestow upon the strong, often become punishments to the valetudinarian. Headache, languor, a sense of weariness over the eyes, a sinking of the whole system toward noon, which seemed imperiously to demand the dangerous aid of stimulants, was all that I obtained by the morning breeze and the languid stroll by the sea-shore. The suspension from study only afflicted with intolerable ennui, and added to the profound dejection of the spirits. The brain, so long accustomed to morbid activity, was but withdrawn from its usual occupations to invent horrors and chimeras. Over the pillow, vainly sought two hours before midnight, hovered no golden sleep. The absence of excitement, however unhealthy, only aggravated the symptoms of ill health.

It was at this time that I met by chance, in the library at St. Leonard's, with Captain Claridge's work on the " Water-Cure," as practised by Priessnitz at Graefenberg. Making allowance for certain exaggerations therein, which appeared evident to my common sense, enough still remained not only to captivate the imagination and flatter the hopes of an invalid, but to appeal with favor to his sober judgment. Till then, perfectly ignorant of the subject and the system, except by some such vague stories and good jests as had reached my ears in Germany, I resolved at least to read what more could be said in favor of the apiaVov Wup, and examine dispassionately into its merits as a medicament. I was then under the advice of one of the first physibuxwer's letter. 21

cians of our age. I had consulted half the faculty. I had every reason to be grateful for the attention, and to be confident in the skill, of those whose prescriptions had, from time to time, flattered my hopes and enriched the chemist. But the truth must be spoken — far from being better, I was sinking fast. Little remained to me to try in the great volume of the herbal. Seek what I would next, even if a quackery, it certainly might expedite my grave, but it could scarcely render life — at least the external life — more unjoyous. Accordingly I examined, with such grave thought as a sick man brings to bear upon his case, all the grounds upon which to justify to myself — an excursion to the snows of Silesia. But I own that in proportion as I found my faith in the system strengthen, I shrunk from the terrors of this long journey to the rugged region in which the probable lodging would be a laborer's cottage,* and in which the Babel of a hundred languages (so agreeable to the healthful delight in novelty — so appalling to the sickly despondency of a hypochondriac) would murmur and growl over a public table spread with no tempting condiments. Could I hope to find healing in my own land, and not too far from my own doctors in case of failure, I might indeed solicit the

* Let me not disparage the fountain-head of the Water-Cure, the parent institution of the great Priessnitz. I believe many of the earlier hardships complained of at Graefenberg have been removed or amended ; and such as remain are no doubt well compensated by the vast experience and extraordinary tact of a man who will rank hereafter among the most illustrious discoverers who have ever benefited the human race.

■watery gods — but the journey ! I who scarcely lived through a clay without leech or potion — the long — gelid journey to Graefenberg — I should be sure to fall ill by the way — to be clutched and mismanaged by some German doctor — to deposit my bones in some dismal churchyard on the banks of the Father Rhine.

While thus perplexed, I fell in with one of the pamphlets written by Dr. Wilson, of Malvern, and my doubts were solved. Here was an English doctor, who had himself known more than my own sufferings, who, like myself, had found the pharmacopoeia in vain — who had spent ten months at Graefenberg, and left all his complaints behind him — who, fraught with the experience he had acquired, not only in his own person, but from scientific examination of cases under his eye, had transported the system to our native shores, and who proffered the proverbial salubrity of Malvern air and its holy springs to those who, like me, had ranged in vain, from simple to mineral, and who had become bold by despair — bold enough to try if health, like truth, lay at the bottom of a well.

I was not then aware that other institutions had been established in England of more or less fame. I saw in Dr. Wilson the first transporter — at least as a physician — of the Silesian system, and did not pause to look out for other and later pupils of this innovating German school.

I resolved then to betake myself to Malvern. On my way through town I paused, in the innocence of my heart, to inquire of the faculty if they thought the Water-Cure would suit my case. With one exception, they were unanimous in the vehemence of their denunciations. Granting even that in some cases, especially of rheumatism, hydropathy had produced a cure — to my complaints it was worse than inapplicable — it was highly dangerous — it would probably be fatal. I had not stamina for the treatment — it would fix chronic ailments into organic disease — surely it would be much better to try what I had not yet tried. What had I not yet tried 1 A course of prussic acid ! Nothing was better for gastric irritation, which was no doubt the main cause of my suffering ! If, however, I were obstinately bent upon so mad an experiment, Dr. Wilson was the last person I should go to. I was not deterred by all these intimidations, nor seduced by the salubrious allurements of the prussic acid under its scientific appellation of hydrocyanic. A little reflection taught me that the members of a learned profession are naturally the very persons least disposed to favor 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 a Silesian peasant will cure with water the diseases which resist an armament of phials. And with regard to the peculiar objections to Dr. Wilson, I had read in his own pamphlet attacks upon the orthodox practice sufficient to account for — perhaps to justify — the disposition to depreciate him in return.

Still my friends were anxious and fearful ; to please them I continued to inquire, though not of physicians, but of patients. I sought out some of those who had gone through the process. I sifted some of the cases of cure cited by Dr. Wilson. I found the account of the patients so encouraging, the cases quoted so authentic, that I grew impatient of delay. I threw physic to the dogs, and went to Malvern.

It is not my intention, Mr. Editor, to detail the course I underwent. The different resources of water as a medicament are to be found in many works easily to be obtained, and well worth the study. In this letter I suppose myself to be addressing those as thoroughly unacquainted with the system as myself was at the first, and I deal therefore only in generals.

The first point which impressed and struck me was the extreme and utter innocence of the Water-Cure in skilful hands — in any hands, indeed, not thoroughly new to the sysr%m. Certainly when I went, I believed it to be a kill-or-cure system. I fancied it must be a very violent remedy — that it doubtless might effect great and magical cures — but that if it failed it might be fatal. Now, I speak not alone of my own case, but of the immense number of cases I have seen — patients of all ages — all species and genera of disease — all kinds and conditions of constitution, when I declare, upon my honor, that I never witnessed one dangerous symptom produced by the Water-Cure, whether at Dr. Wilson's or the other hydropathic institutions which I afterwards visited. And though unquestionably fatal consequences might occur from gross mismanagement, and as unquestionably have so occurred at various establishments, I am yet convinced that water in itself is so friendly to the human body, that it requires a very extraordinary degree of bungling, of ignorance, and presumption to produce results really dangerous, that a regular practitioner does more frequent mischief from the misapplication of even the «implest drugs than a ■water-doctor of very moderate experience does, or can do, by the misapplication of his baths and friction. And here I must observe, that those portions of the treatment which appear to the uninitiated as the most perilous, are really the safest, such as the wet-sheet packing, and can be applied'with the most impunity to the weakest constitutions ; whereas those which appear, from our greater familiarity with them, the least startling and most innocuous — the plunge-bath, the douche — are those which require the greatest knowledge of general pathology and tbe individual constitution. I shall revert to this part of my subject before I conclude.

The next thing that struck me was the extraordinary ease with which, under this system, good habits are acquired and bad habits relinquished. The difficulty with which, under orthodox medical treatment, stimulants are abandoned, is here not witnessed. Patients accustomed for half a century to live hard and high, winedrinkers, spirit-bibbers, whom the regular physician has sought in vain to reduce to a daily pint of sherry, here voluntarily resign all strong potations, after a day or two cease to feel the want of them, and reconcile themselves to water as if they had drunk nothing else 2 all their lives. Others who have had recourse for years and years to medicine — their potion in the morning, their cordial at noon, their pill before dinner, their narcotic at bed-time — cease to require these aids to life, as if by a charm. Nor is this alone. Men to -whom mental labor has been a necessity — who have existed on the excitement of the passions and the stir of the intellect — who have felt, these withdrawn, the prostration of the whole system — the lock to the wheel of the entire machine — return at once to the careless spirits of the boy in his first holiday. #

Here lies a great secret ; water thus skilfully administered is in itself a wonderful excitement ; it Supplies the place of all others — it operates powerfully and rapidly upon the nerves, sometimes to calm them, sometimes to irritate, but always to occupy. Hence follows a consequence which all patients have remarked — the complete repose of the passions during the early stages of the cure ; they seem laid asleep as if by enchantment. The intellect shares the same rest ; after a short time, mental exertion becomes impossible ; even the memory grows far less tenacious of its painful impressions ; cares and griefs are forgotten ; the sense of the present absorbs the past and future ; there is a certain freshness and youth which pervade the spirits, and live upon the enjoyment of the actual hour. Thus the great agents of our mortal wear and tear — the passions and the mind — calmed into strange rest — nature seems to leave the body to its instinctive tendency, which is always towards recovery. All that interests and amuses is of a healthful character ; exercise, instead of being an unwilling drudgery, becomes the inevitable impulse of the frame braced and invigorated by the element. A series of reactions is always going on — the willing exercise produces refreshing rest, and refreshing rest willing exercise. The extraordinary effect which water taken early in the morning produces on the appetite is well known among those who have tried it, even before the Water- Cure was thought of — an appetite it should be the care of the skilful doctor to check into moderate gratification ; the powers of nutrition become singularly strengthened, the blood grows rich and pure — the constitution is not only amentled — it undergoes a change.*