The hand book of hydropathy; for professional and domestic use: with an appendix, on the best mode of forming hydropathic establishments. Being the result of twelve years' experience at Grafenberg and Freywaldau / [Josef Weiss].

  • Weiss, Josef, 1797-1847.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hand book of hydropathy; for professional and domestic use: with an appendix, on the best mode of forming hydropathic establishments. Being the result of twelve years' experience at Grafenberg and Freywaldau / [Josef Weiss]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and it is always better that these domestic offices be detached from the house. The selection of the site of a hydropathic establishment is by no means unimportant ina hygienic point of view. Moun- tainous districts are preferable to plains, but steep or bleak hills are to be avoided. The climate should be mild. We should, on no account, build the house in a low, damp situa- tion, or in a valley excluded from light and air. Hills of mo- deraté height, with a southern aspect, and protected from bleak north-easterly winds, deserve the preference; or they should be covered with firs or other trees. Extensive luxurious val- leys, however, may be selected in some instances. The vicinity of towns should be avoided, inasmuch as the patients too fre- quently return to their homes, and thus interrupt the treat- ment; but it is more especially objectionable, because the patients then meet with temptations and opportunities of in- dulging. The direction of hydropathic establishments must be in- trusted only to medical men, who are thoroughly acquainted with this system of treatment, and are possessed of the neces- sary capacity. The whole body of attendants should not only be subjected to the hydropathic practitioner, but the total management of the institution must also be under his control, and he must exert his authority over all the patients in every point that refers to health. ~The duty of a director of an institution, as regards the management of the establishment is as follows : Inspection of the patients’ apartments with a view to in- ternal arrangements, cleanliness, situation, distance from the bathing-rooms, fitness of the apartments for residence in general, and for single patients in particular. In the assign- ment of sleeping apartments to individual patients he must attend to the nature of the disease, and to the sex of the patient. The male wards and baths must be separated from the apartments and bathing places of the females ; there should also be separate chambers, &c., for those affected with con- tagious disease. Where it is necessary for patients to take a