HYDEOPATHY 125 Fio. 4. Hare's HydroinettT. very valuable instrument, but one which has not been much employed, acts upon the principle of the barometer, and yields directly results of definite comparison ; it is represented in fig. 4. A n -shaped tube has its legs, of equal length, placed in shallow ves- sels, one containing the liquid to be tested, and the other a liquid taken as a standard, as water. A partial vacuum is then produced in the tube by exhausting the air by means of an air pump, the mouth, or oth- erwise, making use of the stop- cock to facilitate the opera- tion. It is evident that the height of the liquid column will be in the exact inverse propor- tion to the specific gravity of the liquids. Hydrometers have various names, according to the purpose for which they are used: as lactometers, for estimating the amount of cream in milk, or the quantity of sugar of milk in the whey; vinometers, for estimating the percentage of alcohol in wine or cider ; and there are acidometers and sac- charometers. HYDROPATHY (Gr. Map, water, and nadof, affection or disease), a system of treatment of diseases mainly or exclusively by the use of water and of the known hygienic agencies. Hygienic management in some form, as a re- sort to exercise, or, in diseases induced by luxurious living, to abstemiousness, dates from the earliest conception of a healing art ; and it has kept pace with the growth of physiological science, until within the present century the laws and claims of hygiene have become ap- preciated as never before. The physicians of very early times seem also to have employed water as a remedy in certain febrile, inflamma- tory, and surgical maladies; a usage recom- mended, among other early medical writers, by Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna. In the 18th century Sir John Floyer and Dr. Bay- nard, in England, resorted to bathing almost exclusively in chronic diseases ; as did F. Hoff- mann and Hahn on the continent. Dr. James Currie in 1797 published highly favorable re- ports of the effects of water, chiefly by affusion, in many diseases. But the distinctive " water cure," or hydropathy, owes its origin to the fertility of invention of a Silesian peasant, Vincenz Priessnitz. Having at the age of 13 sprained his wrist, young Priessnitz intuitively applied it to the pump ; and afterward, to con- tinue the relief thus obtained, he bound upon it an Umschlag, or wet bandage. Rewetting this as it became dry, he reduced the inflam- mation, but excited a rash on the surface of the part. Soon after, having crushed his thumb, he again applied the bandage, and the pain once more subsided, but the rash reap- peared, lie inferred that the rash indicated an impure blood ; and this conclusion was strengthened by the result of experiments which he was induced to try upon injuries and ulcers in the case of some of his neigh- bors, since the rash in some instances appeared after the treatment, and in others did not. Thus he was led to frame for himself a hu- moral pathology of all diseases, and a doctrine of the elimination of morbific matters by " crisis." According to this view, the cure of disease is to be effected by favoring the activity of those organs through which the purification of the system is carried on, and, through a regulated and pure dietary and correct regi- men, preventing further morbid accumulations. In his 19th year, being run over by a cart, Priessnitz had some ribs broken and received severe bruises ; on learning that the physicians pronounced his case hopeless, he tore off their bandages, and recovered under the renewed application of the Umschlay, and replaced his ribs by inflating the lungs while pressing the abdomen against a window sill. This incident confirmed the idea and initiated the practice of the water cure. In the new practice, its au- thor discovered in rapid succession the means of securing either cooling, heating, or sooth- ing effects by compresses; then, the sponge bath, the wet-sheet packing, the sitz, foot, arm, and other partial baths, the douche, the stream bath, the dripping sheet, the plunge, the tepid shallow bath, dry-blanket packing, &c. The pail douche of Dr. E. Johnson is one of the very few additions since made to this list of measures. Unquestionably, Priessnitz's ear- lier treatment, especially after the opening in 1826 of the famous Grafenberg cure, was too incessant and severe, and often borne only through the vital tenacity, whatever their mal- adies, of the class of invalids with whom he had to deal. Along with this was introduced a rigorous, but in some respects mistaken hy- giene, including the very free use of a plain and peculiar diet, much walking in the open air, and the disuse of flannel undergarments and of soft beds. The water appliances have since been rendered more mild, and in the United States necessarily so. The number of instances, however, of decided restoration to health among the invalids who flocked from all parts of Europe and of the United States to the Grafenberg cure, sufficiently explains the rapid spread of the new system. This wns first distinctly brought to the notice of the English public about the year 1840, by a book put forth by a former patient of Priessnitz, Capt. Claridge, and entitled " Hydropathy, or the Cold Water Cure." In Germany, under Francke, Weiss, Munde, and others, the enthu- siastic treatise of the first of whom did much to spread the system, several new establish- ments had already sprung up. On March 17, 1842, the hydropathic society was organized in London, for the purpose, among others, of cir- culating information in regard to Priessnitz, and the authenticity of the reported cures. Drs. Wilson, Johnson, and Gully were first to em-
