Part 6

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. 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 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 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.”

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.” 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 poison 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 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, 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 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; 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!!”

THE TURKISH BATH.

“Come hither, ye that press your beds of down And sleep not, see him sweating o’er his bread Before he eats it.—’Tis the primal curse, But softened into mercy, made the pledge Of cheerful days, and nights without a groan.”—Cowper.

“Melancholy is overcome by a free perspiration; and cheerfulness, without any evident cause, proceeds from it.”—Sanctorius.

What is a Turkish bath? Should this question be asked by any of our readers, we would answer, that it is a bath differing from all other hot baths in this important particular, viz., that the heated medium is AIR instead of water; and that all parts of the body, when in the bath, are subjected to an even and equal temperature. The result of which is, that inasmuch as man was constituted to breathe AIR instead of vapour, the Turkish bath may be enjoyed for hours at a time, without inconvenience; whereas in the vapour-bath the patient is unable to remain in it for more than about a quarter of an hour, in consequence of a feeling of suffocation, from want of a sufficient supply of air to the lungs. And further, there is this difference between the two baths, that in the case both of the vapour-bath and the vapour-box the pulse is materially raised, whilst in the Turkish bath the pulse seldom rises above its normal state, which shows that the circulation is very little affected by it—an all-important fact, which is thus accounted for:—The normal temperature of the human body, when in a state of health, is about 98° Faht., a temperature which cannot be much augmented or diminished without producing injurious results in the system; but as it is impossible always to maintain so low temperature about us, Nature has provided, by means of perspiration, a safety valve, by which the human body is protected from the evil consequences which would arise from its exposure to a high temperature—the principle on which she acts being as follows:—It is a physical law that whenever evaporation takes place a considerable amount of latent heat, (i.e. heat not sensible to the thermometer), is absorbed, by which abstraction of heat the temperature of the body from which the evaporation proceeds is greatly lowered; but as evaporation consists in the absorption of vapour by the surrounding air, it is evident that no evaporation can take place where that air is already saturated with moisture, and it is also evident that the amount of evaporation will depend on the dryness of that air. Accordingly, in the Turkish bath, the air being almost dry, when perspiration takes place it is followed by a rapid evaporation which cools the body, and prevents its temperature from rising above a healthful limit; whereas, in the vapour-bath and vapour-box, the air being saturated, with moisture, evaporation cannot take place, and consequently as no means for reducing the high temperature of the body exist, the heat is thrown in upon the system, raising the pulse, producing feverish headache, and other symptoms of a highly deranged circulation; whilst a further derangement arises from an insufficient supply of air to the surface of the body. In the Turkish bath, again, the system, feeling that it has an ample supply of air, is not called upon to quicken the circulation through the lungs in order to obtain an increased supply, and thus another source of feverish excitement is obviated. These and other considerations give the Turkish bath the pre-eminence, longo intevallo, over all other artificial modes yet invented for acting on the skin by perspiration.

It may be observed that, cæteris paribus, the strength of each person’s constitution is directly proportional to the quantity of oxygen which his system is capable of imbibing, for on this the vitality of his system and the purity of his blood, and therefore his health, depends. Hence arises the importance of supplying the system with an abundance of pure air, and the absolute necessity, when the lungs are by nature small and deficient, of increasing that supply of air through the only other medium open to us, viz., the skin —(the great supplementary organ to the lungs)—the necessity for improving and developing the absorptive powers of which is in exact proportion to the lungs’ diminished capacity. It is in this lies the great therapeutic value of the Turkish bath, viz., in its opening the pores of the skin , and so improving that medium for the access of oxygen to the blood. Let two individuals, one with large lungs, the other with small, pursue the same habits of living; the individual with large lungs indulging himself to the furthest extent, consistent with the continuance of his health, and it will be found, that his small-lunged companion, in trying to keep pace with him, will utterly break down, his blood becoming diseased, and his health failing him from want of a sufficient supply of oxygen to purify his blood by burning off the carbonaceous matter which poisons it and depresses his vitality. The individual with large lungs will indulge in alcoholic beverages with impunity, to an extent which would entail consumption or some other miserable disease on his narrow-chested companion; it was the great exercise, constant exposure to, and rapid passage through, the air, (by which a large quantity of oxygen was supplied to the system through the lungs) that enabled our fox-hunting ancestors of old to live a life which their more sedentary descendants of the present day dare not attempt to practise.

Having premised thus far, we now proceed to a description of the principal features of the Turkish, or more correctly speaking, the Roman bath: at the same time strongly recommending to our readers the perusal of Mr. Urquhart’s pamphlet, for an historic and detailed account of this interesting remnant of Roman civilization.

The bath consists of three apartments, communicating with each other, each being dedicated to a special purpose. The first, or cooling-chamber, consists of a good-sized room, which may or may not be open to the heavens; but this condition is essential to it, that it be well ventilated, with a free current of cool air passing through it. In this room are placed sofas and reclining couches; and here the bather divests himself of his clothes, and places his feet in wooden clogs, previous to his entering the bath, the first act of which is enacted in the second or middle chamber.

This middle chamber consists of a room fitted with marble slabs, and mattresses to recline on; the ceiling being arched, and light transmitted from above through stars of stained glass, spreading a tinted gloom through the apartment, which effectually cuts off the mind from all communication with the outer world, disposing it to rest or quiet meditation—a frame of mind peculiarly desirable for those who medicinally seek the bath. After reclining in the apartment for about half-an-hour or three quarters, according to the temperature, which varies from 90° to 100° Faht., until the surface of the body becomes soft and moist, and the pores slightly excited, you enter the third, or heated apartment, the Sudatorium of the Romans. Under a roof similar to the one already described, are arranged seats of marble, together with a large platform of the same material, which is placed in the centre of the apartment, whilst along the walls are ranged marble basins, supplied by pipes with hot and cold water. In this chamber, the temperature of which varies from 130° to 150° Faht., shampooing, an essential part of the bath, is performed, a description of which process we will borrow from Mr. Urquhart’s interesting pamphlet. Having placed the bather on the marble platform, he thus describes the process:—

“The cloths are taken from your head and shoulders; one is spread for you to lie on, the other is rolled for your head. You lie down on your back, the tellak (bath attendant) kneels at your side, and bending over, gripes and presses your chest, arms, and legs, passing from part to part like a bird shifting its place on a perch. He brings his whole weight on you with a jerk; follows the line of muscle with anatomical thumb; draws the open hand strongly over the surface, particularly round the shoulder, turning you half up in so doing; stands with his feet on the thighs and on the chest, and slips down the ribs; then up again three times, and, lastly, doubling your arms, one after the other, on the chest, pushes with both hands down, beginning at the elbow, and then putting an arm under the back and applying his chest to your crossed elbows, rolls on you across till you crack.”