Practical hydropathy : including plans of baths and remarks on diet, clothing, and habits of life

Introduction

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS

ON SEEING THE TUIXCirLES OF HYDROPATHY CARRIED OUT AT AN ESTABLISHMENT.

I have had medical practitioners, and amongst thein several physicians, who have come, without prejudice, to see for themselves upon what principles Hydropathic practitioners profess to act. "Within a short period two physicians and several surgeons have heen successfully treated at my estahlishment for ill health they had not heen able to cure by their own prescriptions.

The medical profession generally look with contempt on Hydropathy, believing we have no sound principles for the basis of our action, such as they suppose they have in their counter-irritants, setons, issues, mercurial ointment, their soothing narcotics, stimulating quinine, steel mixtures, colchicum, for causing changes in the components of the blood and the tissue ; they have little idea we can overcome the most obstinate and long-standing constipation of the bowels by our simple means. They cannot believe mere water can have either the powerful or curative effects of their severer applications, or produce such quick results. In all these points they are in error. "\\re can lower the pulse and subdue inflammation far more rapidly than they can by any of their applications, and without lowering the vitality of the body. Surgeons are well aware of the vital importance of procuring immediate perspiration in many cases: now, by a fomenting pack, or cold wet sheet envelope, or spirit lamp, ,tce never fail to produce it at once. Their James's powder, &c. has to enter the blood, and go through an elaborate process before they can have effect : the effect is uncertain, and depends a good deal on the ljrxaoDxrcTioK.

power of the stomach to act. We leave the stomach at rest, and, by drawing the secretions through the skin, relieve it, instead of burdening it with what the surgeon knows is likely to cause nausea, and which is very often the result : the medicine then, instead of being beneficial, is highly injurious.

"When medical men come without prejudice to examine into our mode of practice, they soon see we have a basis and principle to act upon, and that we do not give this or that bath or wash over, hit or miss, to produce some result as likely to do harm as good. No ! Every man of good principle will take care lie has a clear conviction in his own mind, and the truth of it confirmed by known results, before he will practise. If he has no clear, defined principles upon which he can act with confidence, then he is guilty of a great social sin in acting at all.

My medical visitors have often questioned me on the principles 1 act upon. I gladly answer their questions, that they may judge for themselves. I never shun questions, having nothing to conceal. If a case comes before me that I cannot see my way in, I am ready and feel bound in principle to acknowledge it ; but these are rare indeed. The grand starting-point is to ascertain what Hie life oftl» organic oody consists of, and where it is. Every medically-educated man will say at once it is not in the blood, it is not in the muscle, nor in the bones, nor in the matter of the brain, nor in any organic matter of the body ; but it is in the vis vitse, the power of life developed in the nervous system. Cut certain nerves, and the gastric juice will no longer be secreted to dissolve the food. Lower the vitality of the organic nerves of the stomach, and the healthy assimilation of its contents is stopped. The same by the liver, it is no longer able to draw impurities out of the blood, or manufacture its saccharine matter and red corpuscles. Destroy those nerves, or lower thenvitality, and the vital power that holds all in order and gives life is wanting; and so, as I hereafter remark, the nervous fluid, or electricity, or whatever it may be designated, is the life of the body. Without it the substance of the body soon dissolves and decays ; with it in full power, all is life and vigour. Now, when we have disease to contend with in whatever degree, this vital power is unaer par, our aim is to raise it, and that can only be accomplished through the means of the stomach and the blood. No practitioner can cure any ailment, or any wound, or any disease, but by making better blood, and better

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V blood cannot be made but by the influence of these nerves of nutrition. Now, by applying as we do to the surface of the body, we set the most powerful apparatus for purification at work in the whole frame. The skin, with its seven to eight millions of pores, and its miles of corkscrew sebaceous and sudorific glands — we purge through these, and thus relieve the frame of morbid matter which is oppressing the delicate organic nerves ; we take away quickly the offensive matter which is sickening the whole frame. The Allopaths, to accomplish this, must put stuff" into the stomach they know is an outrage upon its structure and functions. They have to trust to its bearing this trial in order to reach other organs or parts diseased ; they give opiates to give sleep and allay pain ; they dare not leave the patient without a purgative to endeavour to rouse the nerves they have partly paralysed. Thus in the physician's prescriptions, pil. hydrarg. is always associated with opiates, one to counteract the mischief the other causes, and for this end the doctor always gives them together.

The blue pill over night, which so lowers the power of the nerves, and stimulates the liver to make every effort to expel it again, is followed next morning by a black draught, to whip the poor bowels to expel their contents, without any consideration of their structure and natural office ; and so it is with setons, blisters, and issues, and the rest of the inventions for forcing nature to do what the doctor wishes, but in which the poor patient always comes off a loser, present or future. All is war against the frame and its functions. All our treatment, on the contrary, is immediately comforting to the body, with the exceptions of mustard plaisters, and those never produce any after evil results. "We produce counter-irritation by our fomentations, our bandages, and our hand-rubbing. The bandages and fomentations comfort and soothe the nerves ; the wet body bandages determine blood to any part affected, to give life and action, and so by all our appliances. This system must succeed eventually, because it is founded on principles of reason and truth, which Allopathy is not, by the showiug of its own professors.

The organ of the Allopathists, the Lancet, of 19th Sept. 1857 nays, " It is indisputable that the records of legitimate medicine, so far as treatment is concerned, contain such a heterogeneous assemblage of different and often conflicting views, as to give rise, in some quarters, to the conclusion, which is not unnatural, that the principles of medicine are really unsettled, and that the art itself ia

VI

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purely an arbitrary one, depending ou the caprice of the practitioner." There are numberless works defending some new theory of medicine, yefc Sir John Forbes, M.D., is compelled to write, "Things have arrived at such a pitch, they cannot be worse: they must mend or end."

Hooper, in his Medical Lexicon, a work of standard authority, repeatedly contradicts his own stated principles. He says, what ever lowers the vital power of the organic nervous system, or, in other words, prevents the due supply of nervous fluid descending from the brain, tends to paralysis ; yet, as will be seen by my quotation farther on, he prescribes bleeding, calomel, blistering, &c.,in cases of paralysis, trying to cure by aggravating the mischief already caused by the lowered vitality of these nerves ! I have recently shown some cases of crisis to a surgeon ; one was a case of congested liver of long standing, the right side weak, and the knee, and especially the leg below, cold. This was caused by the obstructed venous circulation from the extremities. For many years this patient had been under Allopathic treatment without any material relief, and latterly was decidedly worse, which made him lose confidence in his doctor's prescriptions ; he came to me to try Hydropathy. By application to the skin we soon got free perspiration. Then by our fomentations to the liver and bowels, and our wet bandages, we soon set the stomach, liver, and bowels to work healthily. Now our object was to draw the morbid matter in the liver and the other viscera tma.yi but not by purging the bowels. A\re got a good deal through the skin, but this was not sufficient to cleanse the system. Nature had pointed out another place for effectual relief in the lame leg, and here we followed her hint by wet and dry bandages, and by steaming and hot mustard leg baths, which shortly brought out a crisis, and laid the patient up in bed with legs apparently highly inflamed and swollen, discharging fetid matter. The appetite was little, under this disturbance of the frame, and consequently apparent sinking. Our surgeon was alarmed with the case, and said if it was his he should have little hope of the man's life, and, moreover, would at once give generous diet and some stimulants. I have named this case to illustrate the difference of our practice. I replied to the doctor, I was quite certain the patient would not only survive, but would become entirely sound in every part of his frame. We let nature work her own way, with a little assistance to cool any feverish

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YU feelings ; stopped all animal food, gave only water, or weak black tea to drink ; and -when nature bad ba'd time to perform ber work tbe patient became perfectly well, and bas enjoyed excellent bealtb ever since, now several years ago. I never knew this natural crisis do anything but good. The many deaths of apparently stout persons we hear of from inflammation, or fever, is owing to the inefficiency of any Allopathic means to throw off any inflammation or morbid matter, on to the non-vital parts, or to the surface of the body. Purgatives and blistering, &c, only further lower the nervous vitality, and tonics only stimulate to cause further loss of power by reaction. Tbe mischief is sometimes warded off, but always at the expense of the constitution. The seeds of disease can never be eradicated but in nature's own way, and that must be done without violence to the frame, and only by increasing the nutritive powers.

While saying so much on the evil effects of the Allopathic practice, I do not denounce its practitioners as men destitute of good principle, intelligence, or philanthropy. I wish to point to the mischief caused by adhering to a code of practice which modern discoveries have shown has no foundation in truth. No class of men perform more services gratuitously than medical men. I do not know any who have to earn a living by their labour who do so much.

The inconsistencies of some cold-water disciples tend greatly to prejudice medical men against the system : medical men well know that in cases of great debility, and in consumptive cases especially, exciting the skin, by frequent ablutions, will stimulate for a time, but the reaction leaving the body prostrate. In all inflammatory or very weak subjects, we are very cautious how we apply stimulating treatment or much ablutions to the whole body ; indeed, we often get patients far on in recovery before we give them what would be considered a bath, and a whole immersion, never.

Time will prove the truth of the Hydropathic principles of practice ; and I cannot doubt educated and scientific men, as the medical profession generally are, will adopt true principles, if the public will allow them to break into their superstitious belief in the efficacy of physic, blistering, &c.

JOHN SMEDLET.

MATXOCK EATH, FROM THE WILD CAT TOR.

PEEEACE.

Having, about five years ago, printed (mostly for gratuitous distribution) an edition of 30,000 of a pamphlet on " Hydropathy, and its Application to the Cure and Prevention of Disease," I have frequently since been asked to publish another edition, giving the improved methods discovered and the experience we have had in the treatment of the many hundreds of cases which have passed through our hands, since that pamphlet was published. I have long been desirous of doing this, but the iucessant calls upon my time have put it out of my power, and now I can only accomplish my work bv using that time which should be allowed to the repose of the body. The many very gratifying testimonies which I have received, both from this country and from other parts of the world, to the usefulness of my former pamphlet, and the valuable improvements we have been enabled to make in the application of Hydropathic treatment, have induced me, now that we have removed to our summer retreat, at Kiber Hall, on Eiber Hill, within view of the Hydropathic Establishment at Matlock Bank, to devote some of the early hours of the morning in endeavouring, by God's guidance, to make this pinopblefc more generally useful. Here— where the sun at this

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season lias risen high in the heavens at five o'clock, and the chorus of the hirds has commenced still earlier, — where there is a very extensive and beautifully-varied landscape of mountain, valley, and wood, — there is every inducement to throw oft' drowsy feelings, and rise to work for the glory of God, and the benefit of mankind. Yet sometimes, even in this charming spot, melancholy thoughts will cross the mind, especially when I reflect that many of the former inhabitants of this ancient and beautiful Hall may not have been wise, in the day of their pilgrimage, in securing the salvation of their immortal souls, by being "born again of water and the Spirit," without which none who have heard the Gospel tidiugs, the Scriptures say, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. Should there have been such, I sometimes think, when viewing the grand panorama of mountains around, how dreadful must be their remorse and selfreproach now they have discovered that they might have had, by a life of faith and obedience, the blessings of this life and the fruition of that which is eternal ; for all the treasures of earth, aud all its beauties and its pleasures, are but shadows of happiness in comparison with the great realities to be enjoyed in the regions of the blest. May such thoughts of such possibilities quicken the living to a lively sense of the realities of the same ! Here also is the site of a Druidical temple, the remains of which, standing on the summit of the hill overlooking Darley Dale, were, by barbarous hands, removed but a few years since. It was, indeed, a commanding spot for such a purpose. The mind is led back to the time (probably more than two thousand years ago) when the inhabitants of the surrounding district, far and near, might be seen on the first day of November ascending the steep mountain side from the surrounding district, bringing their offerings to the priests, and carrying back the sacred fire, to relight their family hearths, which had all been extinguished by the priests' command the evening before ; and no doubt also often to witness human sacrifices. This worship was put an end to by the Romans, who came into this country B.C. 55 ; and who, on this hill, in after-times, made large fires, when the south wind blew, not for sacrifices, but to smelt the lead ore so abundantly found in this locality.

Very frequently my patients have requested me to print my personal experience of Hydropathy, and the reasons which induced me to have a Hydropathic Establishment. I promised to do that when I brought my new pamphlet out, and, at the risk of incurring criticism, I now perform my promise.

It may seem to some persons presumptuous in me, having had no regular medical education, to write on the curative principles of any treatment ; but very gratifying success of our efforts, however, for the benefit of our fellow-creatures, has emboldened me to go on with my work. We may truly say, we have seen so many hundreds restored or relieved, without any serious errors, that we cannot

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doubt we are in the path God designs us to pursue. Our time, health, aud strength, and all the means of a not inconsiderable property, are by us willingly, and even thankfully, devoted to our work, with a single eye to live to the glory of God and for the welfare of mankind. My wish is to encourage others to work and stand by the true principles of the Gospel, and leave the result to God, without any fear of the consequences.

After devoting many years to a manufacturing business, and having accumulated more than sufficient for ordinary wants, it was my intention to manage my business principally by deputy, and retiring from it to see foreign countries, making England occasionally my home. The idea of repose and leisure, after labour which few, in my circle, have gone through, was the bright time I had in anticipation viewed with pleasure ; and many a dark fatiguing day has that pleasant prospect helped to cheer. A regular attendant at the Established Church and the sacrament of the Lord's supper, on terms of close intimacy with those ministers and such persons as had the reputation of being evangelical in their doctrine and practice, self-satisfied with obeying the outward forms of religion, and having the reputation of being both religious and charitable, I believed I was quite justified in looking forward to enjoy the fruits of my labour in ease and self-gratification. " Man proposes, and God disposes." We took a journey through France, Germany, and Switzerland; and on our return I was seized with typhus fever. The great varieties of temperature I had gone through, the fatigue, and more than all, the unwholesome food, and worse, the wine and malaria met with in some parts, had caused that fever which brought me to the brink of the grave. My doctor visited me on my arrival home ; said I was in a bad state ; gave me medicines, and told me a short time would develope my complaint, which indeed that short time soon did. Instead of our soothing wet-sheet envelope, to relieve the parched hot skin, I had only an aggravation in the shape of drugs. Soon the fever rose to madness and delirium ; I entreated the doctor to give me something to cool my parched mouth, but all his accumulated knowledge of the London Pharmacopoeia, with his certificate of qualification for the treatment of disease, given to him by the examiners of Surgeons' and Apothecaries' Halls, availed not for my relief: the overruling hand of God, and a healthy constitution, carried me through that fiery ordeal. Once the servant bathing my arrr.3 in cold water, I exclaimed, " What a relief!" It was the only agreeable relief I experienced ; but of course only being done locaily, it had no control over the fever, which was burning throughout my whole body. I was exhorted to look to Christ for the repose of my mind. I replied, I had no hope. My time of trial was come, and I found no witness in my own heart that I had ever been anything but a formal, professing Christian. I soon became insensible to all outward and bodily sensations; but my mind was often exqui-

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sitely alive to the whole course of my past life. I saw my character clearly, and it was that of a hypocrite. I believed 1 was shut out from the presence of God for ever; and felt the justice of my doom. God mercifully brought me back to outward consciousness, but I was long in arriving even at a low state of convalescence. My raind, however, was fully awakened to the awful folly of living for the gratifications of this life ; but how to find peace, I saw not.

In a very few months after, being somewhat convalescent, I, with my vvife, left home to seek for repose of mind in travel and change of scene. Some good, sincere Christian workmen in my employ pointed out to me the simple means of gaining peace; I tried it, and failed, because. I was yet unacquainted with my own unchanged heart. There was yet disappointed ambition, and love of this world's good opinion, ruling in it. I found it was indeed a strong man armed keeping the house, and holding me in an iron cage of misery. Travel again brought no relief; and in a condition hopeless of life, I was advised to go to a Hydropathic Establishment, which my state of desperation only would have induced me to try. There, in November, worn as I was to a skeleton, and distracted in mind, the bitter cold-water treatment aggravated my sufferings at first considerably ; had I but commenced with our mild system instead until the body had somewhat recovered its tone, I should have been saved much unnecessary suffering. I had not slept above an hour or so at once for months. However, after a few weeks at the establishment, I slept pretty well, I got tolerably good functionary action of the stomach, &c, and after nine weeks returned home. Here, however, old recollections soon threw me clown again, I had not yet learned to count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. In nine months I returned again to the Water Establishment for three months, and regained bodily health, but no relief to my mind. We set out on a tour to Cheltenham, the coast of Devonshire ; then to Dover, and crossed over to Erance; came back to England, and returned to Malvern, and thence to Cheltenham, where I took No. 11, Suffolksquare, for the winter. I purchased the estate of Rose Hill, near Pitville, then the residence of Admiral King. Shortly after this, ! found peace in believing. I had been labouring a good deal in visiting the poor and schools, and practising self-denial in those things I formerly rejoiced in ; determining to seek for happiness in the favour of God, through the merits of my Redeemer, and knocking in humble sincerity, the door was at length opened to me. I entered the fold of the great Shepherd, and experienced unbounded joy and confidence. My wife, I was thankful indeed to find, heartily reciprocated my feelings. We then determined to return amongst our work-people, and try to live that life of usefulness God had so graciously laid out tor us, but which I had formerly neglected to realise for the vanities and unsatisfying things of this world. I immediately went by London to Ren Rhyddiug, near Leeds, purposely to kneel down in the room in

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w hich I had suffered so much from bodily ailment aud despair of mind, to thank God for all his goodness to me, and to dedicate myself and all I possessed to His service.

I returned to Lea Bridge (seventy miles), and sat up part of the same night burning my foolish ballads and light books, upon which even clergymen had with me often wasted precious time. I locked up my extravagant plate, ornaments, equipage, &c, untd I could give them away or sell them for the benefit of religious societies, which I did shortly after. I then brought my wife from Cheltenham, and we commenced our new and better work. Soon, however, we found that we had crosses to take up, when we would no longer comply with the customs of our former circle, in giving or attending dinner or evening parties, and in keeping our house exclusive for a certain class. "We found instead ample consolation in the peace within, and in the communion of humble and sincere Christians. I built six chapels and two school-rooms in different parts of the country, some, where I had work-people. I assisted many poor societies, and worshipped with our own people in one of the chapels I had built here, imposing nothing but the simple word of God on the congregation. It is now about seven years since we embarked on this course, and we have found every year to bring more solid peace and joy ; and we know it will be thus with us until God shall take us to serve him in a brighter sphere.

On returning home, I took in a few men, upon whom to try the Hydropathic remedies, which proved successful; and many more making application, I made a place for the free board, lodging, and baths of a certain number of males and females : and hundreds since have here found restoration to health of body, and peace of mind, through the renewal of the Spirit. Persons in our own station then applied for advice, seeing such wonderful effects being produced, sometimes on their own servants. ~We did not know where to recommend them to go, as we had little confidence in the mode of treatment pursued at some establishments, which is often indeed the " cold water" practice. Some could not afford the expense (which at all the principal establishments is about £18 for the first month) ; so we made our house a free hospital, until we found we could not afford room enough. I then bought a small house at Matlock Bank for six patients, board, lodgings, and treatment at 3s. per day. Uniform success in the treatment soon brought more ; the place was enlarged. Soon again we had to refuse applicants ; and thus lias it grown until we have had one hundred and ten at one time under treatment. Although I have not had a reguiar medical eaucarion. human pnysiology has long been a pursuit of much interest to me, and I now find the benefit of my early studies of these subjects. The feeling of responsibility, from the great number who have been at our establishment and the free hospitals, has also induced me to labour hard, and spare no expense, in the acquirement of physiological knowledge;

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aud the actual practice, in seeing the application of Hydropathic treatment to so many hundreds during the last six years, has given us confidence in our plan of treatment, from the great success in so many cases of persons who had tried medicine and even Hydropathy before, without good effect. Our system of mild treatment, with the application of bandages, not used in the same way elsewhere, and some newly invented baths, have gained such celebrity, that we are now compelled to limit our admissions. I could refer to physicians, surgeons, homoeopathic practitioners, clergyman, dissenting ministers, military and naval officers, merchants, manufacturers, &c, from whom I have often received testimony, acknowledging the benefits derived from our mild practice. In the case of females especially, this treatment has done wonders.

The charge at the establishment is fixed with au intention to make it neither a source of pecuniary emolument nor of loss. A large sum of money has now been invested ; and the baths are models for Hydropathic Establishments or Public Baths, aud I am very desirous of calling the attention of the patrons of the latter to their superiority over the ordinarily-constructed baths, which not unfrequently cause irreparable injury to the body. No person can use a plunge bath without risk. We could refer to patients who have come to the establishment for relief, whose maladies have been caused by plunging into a cold bath, or into the sea. Many escape injury by such bathing, but none practise it without the risk of being invalids for the rest of their lives, from congestion of the brain, asthma, or internal tumours, caused by the blood being suddenly driven on the internal organs and certain weak parts which are not able to return it. Females, especially, are liable to danger from plunge baths.

One of the principal objects I have in view in this work is to teach Hydropathic remedies for self-application, and to show the labouring classes how to manage many of the processes by the simple means within their reach, which, if acted upon, would often stay the progress of fever, consumption, and inflammation, or prevent their proceeding beyond the first symptoms. Eesolution, aud not sparing trouble, alone are necessary.

MATLOCK. HIGH TOR.

HANDBOOK OF HYDEOPATHY.

DIVISION I.

THE HUMAN BODY ; ITS STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS.

The limited space I shall take in this book will not allow me to quote the standard works on physiology to the extent I wish. I shall, however, endeavour to give ordinary inquirers a pretty general idea of the subject of which I treat, and add a list of works for those who wish to enter more minutely into the study of these matters.

Having no professional character at stake, as I have not "qualified" at Surgeons' or Apothecaries' Hall, I can make use of terms that otherwise would expose me to ridicule. There is in this an advantage to my readers, unlearned in the scientific language of the medical schools, as it enables me to speak in terms they will understand.

We read in God's book, the Bible, that man's body was made out of the dust of the ground, and we find in this earthy compound from eight to nine-tenths of gas and water, the remainder silica or flint