THE COLD-WATER DOCTORS & THEIR VAUNTED NEW REMEDIES.

394 fluence of bathing, adds, that a man newly come out of the bath appears taller and larger than before, and has acquired something of the nature of the gods. Hippocrates recommends the abdomen and lower extremities to be bathed with a sponge, or cloths dipped in cold water, as a revulsive in menorrhagia and flooding. (" De Morb. Mulier," lib. ii.) Galen ridicules those who refuse to give to patients suffering from fever their fill of cold water, and calls them " waterfliers." These, says he, put a slight on Nature, who has provided this useful remedy against the most fatal distemper. In fevers, Hippocrates recommends the drinking of water warm and cold, honey and water, as well as sweatings by bathing with oil, warm bathing, and the use of the bagnio or sweating-chair. Celsus, in speaking on this subject, mentions two ways of producing perspiration :-" Sudor duobus modis elicitur; aut sicco calore aut balneo." Bathing by the Romans RnliPVa me vmira &c. was perfected to a science: the seven-hilled city herself had J. Y. SIMPSON. eight hundred and fifty baths in daily operation. These Edinburgh, September 23rd, bathing establishments, adds Ammianus Marcellinus, were built, in modzcm provinciarum, as large as provinces. (" MaTHE COLD-WATER DOCTORS & THEIR VAUNTED homed, Hist. of the Bath.") The Romans also used bandages NEW REMEDIES. and frictions by the currycomb or flesh-brush—thus Martial, 1’0 the Editor of THE LANCET. epig. x. 145-°° Let Pergamusee gift thy person scrub, is the misfortune of medical in men the SIR,—It residing Thy clothes the scourer shall more rarely rub." neighbourhood of cold-water establishments to be eternally The modern cold-water institutions can never pretend to a bored about the miraculous virtues of cold water and wet with the magnificent baths of the Emperors Diocomparison I been induced to make have the rebandages. following clesian and Antonius Caracalla, of Paulus Æmilius, and those marks from the appearance of a letter in the Leeds Mercury of In more modern times, we on the Palatine Hill. and the Bradford Observer from Dr. Macleod, the newly- findLivy, water used in every possible form, as a febrifuge; so early installed conductor of the cold-water establishment at Ben as 1562, Jodocus Lommius, of Brussels, published "FebriRhydding, Ilkley. This gentleman being apprized of the fugium or cold-water cure. In the year 1722, prevalence of typhus fever in Leeds and the neighbouring Vander Magnum," at Ghent, his " Anthritifugium, or published Heyden and his bowels with for his fellowtowns, yearning compassion the Wonderful Virtues of Cold Water," in which he strongly men, points out to the public " that neither medicine nor the the of cold-water bandages to the affected materia medica possess a remedy for the disease; that you urges in application and rheumatism, (page 15;) he recommends the joints gout or stimulate with may bleed, blister, drug, purge, calomelize, same remedies in wrenches and sprains of the feet and hands, brandy, wine, or whisky; and that, after all, the number of (p. 25:) should local means fail, he says the injured parts are deaths is very nearly the same in each mode of treatment." to be into a pail of cold water. In pains of the head, plunged to As a clincher this little preface, the erudite doctor, for Sommius recommends pumpings and dashings of cold water the especial benefit of the medical profession and society in on the Vander Heyden (pages 33 and 40) highly scalp. introduces a and new method of treatment, general, potent the application of cold bandages to external cuts and " under which the average number of deaths is not more praises as well as in skin diseases, which, he adds, are the wounds, than four per cent., provided it is tried in the earlier stages scandal of surgery. Water in cloths, says our author, acts as of the complaint." a revulsive, by giving a sudden shock to the constitution; by The following is the proposed remedy:The patient is to this is given a smart call or rousing of the animal faculties; be folded in a cold wet sheet, and placed upon a mattrass, At a still later period, immediately after the cold-water mania covered with a blanket, which latter is to be tightly wrapped of 1725, ive find a gentleman writing as follows:" Some round him; afterwards he is to be covered with more blankets, months ago, it would havebeen thought very absurd to have or a small feather-bed. The patient is to remain in this posioffered any arguments prejudicial to the almighty potency of tion until his skin becomes soft and prone to perspiration, and cold water in the cure ofdiseases even of the most inflexible the fever entirely subsides. The envelope is to be removed kind. Such is our unhappy frailty, when our passions are and renewed every time the patient becomes restless or unwhatever is predominant becomes suasive and precomfortable, even should its repetition be necessary every hoisted; hoodwinks our reason, so as to deprive it of exertion, vailing, each ten minutes. Immediately after envelope, the patient or to cramp its power. But when heat and prepossession must be well washed in a slipper-bath, at 75° Fahrenheit. we recover our judgment, and stand have had time to During this process, the patient is to drink plentifully of perfectly amazed atcool, our past fury and folly." (Sedgwick on cold water. The fever, by this means," says our oracle,is preface, page 1, Stratford-le-Bow, 1725.) Huxam, in usually overcome in twenty-four hours." In looking at the Liquors, fevers, recommends the daily application of cold intermitting we are to it a give proposed remedy, puzzled proper name,- water and the flesh brush. (Essay on Fevers, p. 24.) On cold whether it should be called the cold water, the blanket, or remarks:—"Nothing so effectually baths he has the following the feather-bed cure, we are at a loss to decide. But let us the weak, as cold bathing; by this, flabby, rickety examine into the merits and originality of this powerful strengthens children become invigorated as by a miracle. Indeed, in the of the human novelty in the treatment of one the scourges of and superstition, when priests were knaves, times of family. Brave men lived before Agamemnon, and it may be and the ignorance people fools, many a well was sanctified for nothing a fact that both medicine and the materia medica had, in but pure cold water, the virtues of which the miracle-mongers their category of remedies, cold sheets and wet bandages attributed to a saint of their own niaking." (pp. 30 long before the advent of Dr. Macleod to the cold-water Pan- wholly in his "Dispensatory," recommends "wrapdemonium at Ilkley. Medical history informs us that The- and 32.) Quincy, a patient in a cold wet sheet, to produce sweating; bemison had as facile a nosology and as concise a materia ping adds he, " it infallibly gives such an universal shock medica as the hydropathists themselves could desire; the cause," as to drive and impel the thinner fluids former comprehended two or three diseases, and the latter to the constitution, through the cutaneous glands." In the Philosophical Transwas made up of purgatives and cold water; indeed, Themison actions, No. 410, p. 142, a Dr. Cyrillus, writing " On the Use seems to have been a type of his class, and, according to of Cold Water in Fevers," says, " The use of cold water in Juvenal, had a somewhat dubious fame. fevers is no modern practice, but was employed by the most Themison Quot ægros autumno occiderit uno. ancient physicians, in the hot stages of the disease, to throw The custom of general bathing and partial ablutions formed the patient into a critical sweat. In the employment of cold a leading feature in the Mosaic institutes—precepts evidently affusion, as used by Dr. Currie, the patient’s head being inculcated to promote cleanliness among a people particu- shaven, he is stripped naked, and being seated in a bath or larly liable to cutaneous diseases. (Levit. xv.) " Indeed, it is tub, four or five gallons of water, at from 40 to 60, should be probable that the famous pool of Bethesda, in which so thrown over him; and this should be repeated two or three many lame, sick, and infirm people were healed, was simply times, after which he should be removed to bed. The diaa natural warm bath. (Edinburgh Encyclopædia.) In the phoresis which follows should be maintained by drinking days of David and Solomon, bathing had become a luxury warm fluids." (A. T. Thomson, " Materia Medica," pp. 941, with the Jews. Horned, in speaking of the revivifying in- 942.)

you state your total disconnexion with their production; and I rejoice in it as much for your sake ns for mine; for I have been assured, from professional friends in London, that there you are looked upon as one of the writers, and I regretted that a pen of so much true talent and ability as yours should be prostituted to such a work as anonymous attacks and misrepresentations. And this, indeed, is, I think, not one of the least evils which the secret system of THE LANCET entails upon the profession. Men thus come to be improperly looked upon with blame and suspicion, while "The Silent Friend" of the journal, who has manufactured the misstatement, may chance for the time altogether to escape exposure. You quote a passage from a report of a discussion on etherization, at the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical Society. I did not furnish that report to the journal which you cite, and am in no way answerable for its statements.

1847.

395 ciently educated to correctly appreciate the wholesome effects frequent general ablutions, no one attempts to deny. No man of understanding for a moment doubts the benefits to strength was roused, and I no longer drooped or looked back." be derived from a good wash-"a capito ad calcem." From Most nations, civilized what has been written, it will be perceived that the medical ("Incidents of Travel in Egypt &c.") and savage, have their bathing establishments. " Through all profession have nothing to learn from the cold-water doctors, Finland," says Dr. Davy, " Lapland, Norway, and the vast or their cure, in its present resuscitated form, decorated and northern empire, there is no hut so destitute as not to possess blandished forth with all the trumpery and disgusting paraits family vapour-bath, whither the family resort every phernalia of quackery. After all, this great fever cure is not Saturday, at least, and every day in case of sickness." The so astonishing in its dimensions, when we come to look into Indians of North and South America employ the vapour-bath its history. According to the poet, it is merely Baths are used as a medicine and a luxury by the Egyptians. The traveller, Stephens, after bathing at Minyeh, says, ’Ileft the bath a different man; all my moral and physical

of

in all cases of illness. (See Uloa and Catlin.) The Ilon. Basil a flourish of trumpets, And an entrance of Tom Thumb." Cochrane, on his return from India, had a severe illness relieved or cured by the vapour-bath; and so impressed was he Cold, applied either by the bath or wet bandages, is but with the benefits of bathing generally, that he had an estaband that no new remedy in the materia medica, as its one, for the use of the lishment at his residence, Portman-square, 2000 years easily proves. Notwithsick poor. In favour of the efficacy of these baths, the faculty employment for above this fact, medical men, in the ages of day-dreams and standing to the affixed which were names of a nearly gave testimonial, superstition, never dared to vaunt it up as an universal remedy, a hundred of the most eminent medical men, including Mr. no more than they would have ventured to erect universal Chine, Dr. Hooper, Sir Martin Tupper, Dr. Farre, Sir Astley cathartic institutions, or have sent forth missionaries to proCooper, Dr. Carpue, Sir Charles Bell. the absurdities of Perkins, or the mysteries of the royal pound will be that From the foregoing sketch, it easily perceived " touch. writes Gideon Harvey, " is the tail end of Quackery," the medical profession has preserved and employed, amongst and bears the same relation to civilization that the other remedies, that brought forward by Dr. Macleod, for progression, the does to men swallow the former, goose giblets-sensible 2000 of Dr. that the whole Macleod’s above years. Concluding whilst the latter is the dish of ignorant menials and satrans." febrifuge consists in diaphoresis, and premising that cold JOHN MILLIGAN. water, when used with this intention, either by affusion, or the of is cold much sheets, application bathing, sponging, the same, except that the latter is the most imperfect modification of the remedy, we leave to the Doctor the delicate MEDICAL FEES AT INQUESTS. . task of deciding what is the relative value of a diaphoresis by To the Editor of THE LANCET. each, to a good sweating by a scruple of Dover’s powder. the Doctor’s was worth a it is trial, Supposing SIR,—Upon learning, for the first time, from your journal, plan highly impracticable. The people who suffer from fever are generally that I had a legal claim against Mr. Payne, the coroner to the of the poorest class, and would consequently come under the City of London, I addressed a letter on the 15th instant to that care of the Union surgeons. Supposing one of these hard- gentleman, referring him to your journal, and informing him of worked gentlemen had twenty fever cases, scattered over a my resolve to enforce the payment of my claim of one guinea. circumference of twenty miles, I ask, how is he to administer Notwithstanding this, he does not grapple with any material the cold.sheet remedy to one half of them, especially if the point of my letter, but addresses himself solely to your obsersheet requires renewing every ten minutes, which the Doctor vations. Mr. Payne commences his letter by complimenting you on says is very probable ? I anticipate the answer, the application of the remedy must be left to others, to assistants, or "the judicious manner in which you have remarked on the friends of the patient. The former, the Poor-law Commis- Mr. Maybury’sComplaint against a Coroner."’" Despite this sioners do not furnish, and as regards the latter, nine years’ compliment, Mr. Payne has not acted upon your remarks, as, Union practice enables me to give Dr. Macleod an answer- if he did he would have sent me my fee; for if 1 understand viz., they would not do it. your observations rightly, they pronounce my claim against All popular remedies are liable to vicissitudes; to become him to be legal, if the summons I received be not " a verbal discarded and obsolete from their indiscriminate use. The notice," nor an " informal" one, but one as " required by law." Mr. Payne’s letter contains these words,—" I immediately late Dr. Cheyne on this subject has the following remarks :" If people bathe indifferently, without advice, without any asked why Mr. Maybury had been troubled to attend, and distinct knowledge of their case, their strength, the proper the officer stated he had summoned him by the desire of the season, or the time that they ought to remain in the water, deceased’s master, who said, that if the coroner did not pay unlucky accidents must needs happen, and the parties them- him, he would." This conversation between Mr. Payne and selves be subjected to injury and painful disappointment," the officer I never heard, and therefore can know nothing (" Essay on Gout.") Dr. Strother adds, " It was such indis- about it. From the avowal of Mr. Payne, it appears that his cretion which at the reviving of the cold bath brought a sortt officer, at the suggestion of a deceased person’s master, has it in of disgrace upon it; many sought the remedy out of curiosity; his power to summon any medical man to appear at a coroner’s some, out of hopes of recovery, ventured into the bath at all inquest; and when the medical man expects the just remunehazards, and suffered the penalty of aggravated afniction or ration for his lost time,—the consequence of this summons,death: it was cried up as a panacea, and no disease could with- the coroner coolly tells him to seek it from the deceased’s stand its power. At last, being instructed by many failures; master, at whose bidding the officer issued his mandate. If the people abandoned it in disgust. So it follows with popular the master, however, was the responsible party, why did not remedies as with our clothes; they take new shapes according the summons run thus:By virtue of a warrant under the to the dictates of fashion, as if mode was only to be followed, hand and seal of" Farley, Esq., instead of "William and indications or symptoms to pass for nothing," (" Essay on Payne, Esq." ? The third paragraph of Mr. Payne’s letter contains a misSickness and Health," pp. 319, 320. London, 1725.) In the British and Foreign Medical Review for October, 1846, there representation. It is not true that Mr. Payne " immediately appeared an article on the water cure, wherein it is stated told me he should not require my evidence." My name was that Priessnitz, in investigating the suitableness of a case for not mentioned at all, directly or indirectly, until after the the cure, subjects the patient to an initiatory sprinkling, or examination of the medical man, who was the second witness. witnessed the effect of a cold bath, in order to ascertain the So much for Mr. Payne’s words,-" He, however, stayed till amount of reaction. If this be considerable, he pronounces the other medical gentleman had been examined." It is the case appropriate for his treatment; if not, the patient is equally not correct that I "persisted in urging my claim to recommended to forego all hydropathic intentions. give evidence;" because, as I had been summoned, I felt, and This, adds the reviewer, is a mode of ascertaining the do feel, I was entitled to my fee, whether or not my testimony powers of the constitution quite original, and cannot be said was required. to be unscientific. How far it is original we may learn from I must also say that Mr. Payne is in error in ascribing to Galen, in the third book of his " De Sanitate Fuenda," wheree me an " impression" so foolish as that of " confusing a claim he says, if the persons bathing coming out of the water be- for attendance on the deceased with my claim to be a witness." come soon high-coloured by friction, it is a sign that they have No such absurd inference is deducible from my published stayed in a moderate space; but if their colour is long in letter, or from my letter to him. What has the payment for coming, and returns slowly by friction, they have stayed in attendance upon a deceased to do with the fee which a protoo long, wherefore you may always tell the measure of bathing fessional man is undoubtedly entitled to, when summoned, under the hand of a coroner, to attend an inquest? Payment by the skin. That the great mass of the people at present are insuffi, for attendance during life, by the friends or master of the "

Keighley, September, 1847.