The Kneipp Cure. Sebastian Kneipp Kneipp

       1. The hand and arm-bath.

      The name itself explains sufficiently, and with the complaints concerning them, it will be said when and in which cases these baths are to be applied, if cold or warm, for how long a time, if 2 or 3 minutes or a quarter of an hour; how often they are to be repeated, with which decoction of herbs etc.

      One remark about the application will suffice. Someone has, for example, a bad finger. I do not operate on the finger only, but also on the hand, then the whole body. The bad finger is only a bad fruit of a bad sprig, a bad branch, a bad trunk. If the trunk is in good order, it will supply sufficient and good sap, and consequently the fruit must be good.

      The applications, or the improvements of the sprigs and branches, i.e. of hand and arm, are to be accomplished by the hand and arm baths, together with the bandages.

      It has repeatedly been said in different places, that the head ought not to be wetted. The reason is that country people in particular are not careful enough about the drying, and are therefore likely to injure themselves. As for the rest, it is just the head that is one of the most hardened parts of the body, particularly with men on account of its being posed to every weather.

       2. The head-bath

      The head-bath belongs to the most important part-baths. It is best taken, cold or warm, in the following way:

      Fig. 6.

      A vessel with water is put on a chair, and the upper part of the head (see fig. 6), the proper soil of the hair, is put into the cold water for about one minute, but if it is taken in warm water, for 5 to 7 minutes. Where the water does not reach the hair, it may be supplied with the hand, in order to wet all the hair.

      After the bath, the hair must be very carefully dried. And this should never be omitted whether the hair has become wet through the shower or through the vapor. Great care and exactness should be observed: otherwise serious complaints of the head, such as rheumatism, would likely ensue. After the drying one remains in the room, or puts on a cap or bonnet large enough to cover the whole of the wet hair, until the skin of the head and the hair are perfectly dry.

      Many, especially young country people, do it in a shorter way. They simply dip their head several times into the trough of a pump, like a duck on a pond, or they hold their head under the water-pipe. It does them good. Quite right! Only do not go to any excess (too long or too often) and keep to the rules of thorough drying!

      This bath is very good for those with short hair. With long hair, the water cannot penetrate to the skin so easily, which is the real purpose of the bath, and the drying takes more time. To such persons I advise the warm head-bath on account of its longer duration.

      Sometimes I order the head-baths against complaints of the head, but then always cold and short ones, yet mostly to such people with whom the roots of the hair are the wrestling - place of all possible smaller or larger ulcers, tetters and dry pimples, a real mine of scurf and dust, if not of worse things, which, indeed, ought better to be concealed under the cloak of night, but by no means under the hair.

      To such I also give warm head-baths occasionally of longer duration, concluded by cold ablutions.

      I wish to draw special attention to these head-baths. If in the country, in a small house and in a still smaller room, the little holes for light and air called windows, are never opened the whole winter long, the air must become at last so thick that it could be cut through, and every stranger coming into the room starts back with horror.

      And if a room is never cleaned, never scoured, what an appearance must the floor have at last?

      Can it be otherwise with the soil of the hair, if the long hair or the two or threefold wrappers on the head for half a year or more, never allow a breeze or a sunbeam to penetrate to the skin of the head, which apart from this, is naturally concealed?

      And if water or soap never do their work there thoroughly, very thoroughly, what must it become like at last? There also can arise a morass of crusts etc., a rottenness, and many a mother could relate the consequences of it.

      It is only too true, alas! that the care of the head is often much neglected. The face is washed every morning the whole year long, and many people think that nothing else is required. But it is by no means all. I particularly recommend the care of the head, both to young and old, but more especially to mothers, for the sake of cleanliness and health.

       3. The eye-bath.

      This may be taken either warm or cold. In both cases it is applied as follows:

      The face is dipped into the water, the eyes opened, as it were, bathed for a quarter of a minute.

      After a pause of ¼ to ½ to minute, forehead and eyes are dipped in again. This may be repeated 4 or 5 times. The warm eye-bath (24° to 26° R.) should always be concluded with cold, either by taking the last bath with cold water, or by washing the eyes with fresh water. The bathing water ought not to be warm water alone, but mixed with herbs; half a spoonful of ground fennel or a decoction of eyebright has always served me well.

      a. The cold eye-bath has an excellent effect on healthy, but weak eyes; it strengthens and refreshes the whole seeing-apparatus in its interior and exterior parts.

      b. The warm (lukewarm) eye-bath is applied to moisten tumors on the exterior eye, and to dissolve and draw out all kinds of thick, purulent fluids of the interior eye.