willingly grant that many applications and exercises of the primitive and still undeveloped water-cure were more suited to a muscular and strong-limbed horse than to a human being covered with soft flesh and stringed with tender nerves.
In the life of the celebrated F. Ravignan S. J. the following incident is recorded: "His complaint, a disease of the throat, was increasing on account of too great exertion, (he was a celebrated preacher who practiced his sacred office with apostolic zeal in Paris, London, and many other large towns) and soon became chronical. ––– His windpipe was simply one wound, his voice was entirely gone. He had to spend two whole years (1846 — 48) in a state of inactivity and suffering; and cures tried at several places, change of air in the south, were of no result. In June 1848, F. Ravignan was living with Doctor K. R. .in his country-house in the vale at B. One morning after Mass, the doctor looked anxious and announced to the assembled family that F. Ravignan felt worse and could not come to breakfast. Then he himself disappeared and went to the patient saying: "Arise and follow me!" "But where to?" the latter replied. "I am going to throw you into the water." "Into the water?" said Ravignan, "with my fever and my cough? But never mind, I am in your hands and must obey." A so-called shower-bath was meant, a violent but efficient remedy, as the biographer says. The effect was evident. At dinner time that same day, the doctor triumphantly produced his patient, then remarkably better; and he who was voiceless in the morning, told the tale of his recovery at night.
This, I too, term somewhat of a "horse-cure" which, notwithstanding the good result, I should not like to imitate or to recommend for imitation.
Here I must state that I do not approve of all the applications now in use in the water-cure hospitals; of some of them I even strictly disapprove. They appear to me too strong, and, pardon the expression, too fanatical. Too many things are treated exactly alike, and much too little difference is made, in my opinion, between the various patients, their greater or lesser weakness, their more or less obstinate illness, the more or less advanced devastation and consequences, etc. etc.
It is just in the variety of the applications and in their proper choice, that the master-hand will and must be recognized.
Patients of the different hospitals came to me complaining bitterly: "It is beyond endurance, it is killing me." But thus it ought not to be. Once a healthy man presented himself to me, asserting that he had been injured by washing himself in the morning. "How did you do that?" I asked him. "I put my head under the pump and let the icy water run over it for a quarter of an hour!" It would certainly be a miracle, if such an unreasonable man did not entirely ruin himself. We mock and deride such a foolish proceeding, and yet, how many who must he supposed to know how to apply the water reasonably, have acted just as foolishly, in my opinion even more foolishly, and thereby prejudiced the patients against the water forever. I could give numerous instances which would be just as many proofs of my assertion.
I warn against every too strong or too frequent application of water, for that which otherwise would be an advantage of the curing element, is thereby turned to injury, and the hopeful confidence of the patient is changed into fear and horror. For 30 years, I have tried every single application upon myself. Three times — this I acknowledge openly — I found myself induced to change my system, to loosen the strings, to descend from strictness to mildness, from great to still greater mildness. According to my present conviction, now fixed for 17 years and tested by innumerable cures, he who knows how to apply tin water in the plainest, easiest and most simple way. will produce the most profitable effects and the safest results. The various modes in which I use the water as a remedy, are told in the third part of this book, treating of the different diseases. In the second part (see the particular preface), I have given, especially for country people, some remedies to make a family herb tea chest, which herbs, applied interiorly, tend to the same purposes as the water; either to dissolve, to evacuate, or to strengthen.
To every patient consulting me I put some questions so as not to act too hastily and to his disadvantage.
In like manner this little book is bound to answer shortly the following questions:
1. What is sickness, and what is the common source of all sickness?
The human body is one of the most marvelous structures of God's creative hand. Every joint agrees to joint, every accurately measured limb to the harmonious whole, combined to an astonishing unity. More remarkable still is the conjunction of the organs, and their activity within the body. Even the most disbelieving physician and naturalist, who "has not found a soul with his lancet and his dissecting knife," cannot refuse his most just and highest admiration to the inimitable wisdom displayed in the structure of the human body. — This euphony and harmony, called good health, is disturbed by different causes, which we call "diseases." Such diseases of the body, interior and exterior, belong to the daily bread which most human creatures must eat, willingly or unwillingly. All these diseases whatever their names may be, have their cause, origin, root and their germ in the blood, or rather in disturbances of the blood, whether it be only disturbed in its circulation, or corrupted in its ingredients by humors not belonging to it. The net of blood-vessels spreads its red vital spirit through the whole body, in its suitable way. Order consists in proportion; every too much or too little in the tempo of the circulation of the blood, every penetration of foreign elements, disturbs the peace, the concord, causes discord, changes health to sickness.
2. How is the healing to be effected?
By the tracks in the snow the expert hunter discerns the game; he follows these tracks according as he wishes to hunt a deer, a chamois, or a fox. An able physician soon knows where the disease is, in what it has originated, what progress it has made. The symptoms show him the disease, the latter indicates the remedies to be chosen. Home would say: This procedure is most plain. Yes, sometimes it is, but sometimes it is not. If someone comes to me with frozen ears, I directly know that this has been caused by severe cold; if a person sitting at the millstone suddenly screams, having his finger crushed, I need not ask what is the matter with him. But it is not so easy even with ordinary headache or with diseases of the stomach, of the nerves, or of the heart, which originate not only in several or manifold causes, but very often in diseases" of the neighboring organs, which diseases injure the action of the stomach, the heart, or the kidneys. A straw stops the pendulum of the largest clock; a mere trifle is able to disturb the heart most painfully. But it is precisely in finding this trifle that the difficulty consists, for the examination is often very complicated and mistakes of many kinds are likely to occur. Many of such instances are to be found in the third part of this book.
If I strike the trunk of a young oak-tree with my foot or an axe, it will tremble; every branch, every leaf moves. How mistaken I should be, if I were to conclude that because the leaf trembles, it must have been attacked directly, or touched by something. No, it is because the whole trunk trembles, that the branch and the leaf, as a part and particle of the trunk, do the same. The nerves are such branches of the trunk of our body. "He suffers with his nerves; the nerves are attacked." What does this mean? No, the whole organism has received a shock, has been weakened, therefore the nerves are trembling too.
Cut one thread of the skillful cobweb of a spider, running from the center to the outline, very cautiously, and the whole net shrinks, and the quadrangles and triangles, spun with a wonderful accuracy and seeming to be measured out with compasses, suddenly form the most irregular and disordered figures. How foolish it would be to think that this time the spider must have made important mistakes in weaving its silken house. Tut the little thread in its place again, and instantly the former wonderful order is restored. The art consists in finding out this single small thread; to fumble about in the cobweb, would be to destroy it entirely. I leave it to everyone to make the application himself, and conclude with the true answer to our question: How plain, uncomplicated and easy the cure is, how it almost excludes every possibility of mistake, as soon as I know that every disease is caused by disturbances of the blood. The work of healing can only consist in one of the two tasks: either to lead the irregularly circulating blood to its normal course, or to endeavor to evacuate the bad juices, the morbid matter, which disturbs the right combination and condition of the blood. There is no further work to be done except the strengthening of the enfeebled organism.
3. In what way does