The principles and practice of hydrotherapy : a guide to the application of water in disease, for students and practitioners of medicine / by Simon Baruch.

  • Baruch, Simon, 1840-1921.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The principles and practice of hydrotherapy : a guide to the application of water in disease, for students and practitioners of medicine / by Simon Baruch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    distinctly its coarse of impact. This experiment explained that we have a la Me of twenty-five pounds in this hospital apparatus (others fur- nish moi^^^ ^1^^^^ Te strula'ng effecLf the .tream upon the sensory cutaneous nerve pndinffs and the cutaneous vessels. r • i. When the same strean^ of water, ^hich was applied to the fairly robust syphilitic, was directed upon an emaciated, phthisical patien whom Dr Frese had also placed at our disposal, and who had p t emerged from a hot-air bath, which facilitates reaction very lit le eL'ss was evoked, because the circulation of the patrent was feeble This illustrates that all water applications may be graded also acGOvdms to the conditio7i of the mdwichcal. 3. Ih«u^i....-Another important mode of grading or dosing water appHcations is by the duration of the procedure. If we dip one hand into a bucket of water at 40° F. for one second, remove it and dry it the skin will assume a ruddy hue, grow warm, and feel comfortable. It we dip the other hand into the same water for/*;6 77iimites, considerable pain will be produced; the skin will become mottled, cyanotic, and, after it is dried, a considerable time will elapse ere warmth and comfort are restored. The effect of duration when the temperature and the sub- ject are the same is made evident by this simple experiment. The duration of a water application offers, therefore, by judicious gradua- tion, an excellent mode of dosing the remedial action of water. 4. Technique.—The various modes of applying water afford another method of dosing it, viz., making the effect feeble or intense. An ablution, for instance, at 60°, is a mild application, because it attacks only portions of the body successively, while a full bath at the same temperature would be obviously so intense that it must be used with great caution; a half-bath of the same temperature and duration would be less intense, etc. It follows from this complicated nature of hydrotherapy that exact precision must be observed in prescribing it and in executing the pre- scription. Errors Commonly Committed.—In order more earnestly to impress this necessity of correct technique, some of the errors often committed by otherwise well-informed men will be pointed out, and thus some useful, practical lessons for the guidance of the reader may be incul- cated by example. The history of the remedial use of water demonstrates that no other remedy in our entire therapeutic armamentarium has experienced so many changes in the estimation of physicians. At one time lauded to the skies, it appears at another period entirely neglected; so that, despite its antiquity, water has not obtained a firm footing in therti- peutics; despite its marked clinical results, it still requires to be brought