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.

    501/516 (page 485)
    army surgeons to the Hydrotherapeutic Clinic of Professor Winternitz, ^^^ir^^ education of .edi^al -ninphysi^ ° . • ^ur Tivflrnthera-DV, as a serious detect, whicJi ^:Z^k^^^^^> and for which it i.difficult to c^pensate later. He justly holds that hydrotherapy should_ be taugh? its entirety, as Winternitz has done, upon ^ Ptysiologica basfs By lectures and clinical demonstrations it should be brought be ore the student just as other therapeutic agente and methods are offered to him-as obligatory branches of study. When this is done hydrotherapy wul become the general property of all physicians, and not be practised as a special and distinct method. Professor Kussmaul writes in a recent brochui-e:* It cannot be denied that the faith in prescriptions is waning among educated people and that confidence in dietetic remedial methods and in the curative power of water is in the ascendant. Even the lower strata begin to realize how much may be accom- plished with air, water, and proper regulation of habits of life without the use of medicine. A distrust against even the most powerful and indispensable medicinal agents is becoming more pronounced m large circles. Water is the chief agent, which has won steadHy growing confidence as a remedy, because, unlike every other, it may be utilized in varied and changing temperatures and forms of application, for the most varied therapeutic purposes. According to the correct and skil- ful selection of the procedure, it regulates the circulation and distribu- tion of blood, the production of heat and tissue change, and influences the respiration and the nerves. The treatment by water has passed its childhood days, when it still staggered upon feeble limbs, and not infrequently did as much damage as is done by improper medication. Ripened experience and physio- logical knowledge have fortified the treatment and rendered it safe. Hydrotherapy, combined with diet, may undoubtedly bring about, or aid in the cure of mimberless acute and chronic diseases. Of hydrotherapy the young physician knows almost nothing when he leaves the university. Unfortunately he sooner or later may encoun- ter discomfiture when an uneducated water doctor steps in and cures the patient after he has failed. Deeply chagrined and disappointed in his confidence in scientific therapeutics, he may pass into the camp of crude empiricism. Here lies a great gap in the education of our physicians; here lies the real cause of weakness in the contest for the favor of the public * Ueber den commissaiischen Entwurf zur Revision derdeutschen medi- zinischen Priifungsordnung, 1896.