MR. EARLE'S " ADJUVANTIA." 121 in this state some weeks, when the drugs were changed for others equally disgusting, but less poisonous. This was, I have no doubt, medically speaking, a very “gentlemanlike mode” of treatment; but, whether the "true principle" of its gentility lay in the purging, the fetid breath, the loosened teeth, or the continuous expectoration; or whether these " can only be regarded as adjuvantia," or delectantia, I will not anticipate Mr. Earle by deciding. But with what grace can a man who holds in one hand the sanguinary lancet, while with the other he dispenses assafoetida, and ammonia, alberm græcum, and castoreum; with what grace, I say, can such a man speak of the cure of diseases by pure water, as coarse and ungentlemanlike? Mr. Earle goes on to say the vapour bath will effect the same object as hydropathic sweating;-what, then, will the operation of warm vapour upon the surface of the body, for a quarter of an hour, be precisely the same with regard to the internal organs, as a gradual process of self-generated perspiration, continued from two to four hours? I venture to believe, in spite of the dictum of Mr. Earle, that the results might be as different as those of the sweating blanket are to those of the cold bath. In conclusion, I beg to suggest to Mr. Earle, that the next time his mind is, as he says, "in a fertile state" on this subject, he should sow the seeds of experience before he can hope to produce a crop of wisdom; and that he should himself witness the great and beneficent results which the water cure daily produces; after that he will not venture to assert that all its benefits "may be obtained in any town where a proper establishment of baths is maintained." I would also recommend that he should himself experience the practice of hydropathy, in his own person, before he again attempts to explain its theory; a piece of advice very appositely enforced by Ben Jonson in the passage "He who would write a living line must sweat." Lansdown, Oct. 31, 1842. Your most obedient servant, To these well-framed remarks, for which I really do not know whom to thank, I would add two or three of my own, to fill up the gap which the com 122 66 GENTLEMANLIKE” SWEATING. plaisant humour of the writer has caused him to make. I intend them as private and valuable hints to Mr. Earle, (or, as he would call them, adjuvantia,) for a forthcoming water establishment. Whilst one may agree with Mr. Earle, as to the ungentlemanlike process of sweating in a blanket, and the gentlemanlike and recherche mode he recommends of sweating in steam, does he not think it would be a very great improvement in the same direction to add a little pink champagne to the boiling water, with a small quantity of tincture of heartsease, a dash of millefleurs, and a twang of bouquet de rose? With these he might commence an establishment with every certainty of success: for even supposing the disease of the patient not to be any better, the patient and the doctor would have the vast consolation that the sweating had been conducted on an undeniably "gentlemanlike" principle, without any remorse at having undergone the "coarse and German method" of sweating in blankets.* may * It be as well to state in this place, that it is necessary for each patient to provide himself with a pair of large blankets and a pair of linen sheets; and the best for the purpose are those called strong servant's sheeting, the length of which should be not more than six feet: otherwise, they prove an incumbrance. The patient, having once gone through the PHYSIC AND WATER INCOMPATIBLE. 123 As Mr. Earle may, par hazard, purpose to practise some kind of Water-cure, and as you have been nibbling at it, and as it is possible you may yet form a partnership concern, which I certainly would advise you to do, let me give you a serious hint on the subject of adjuvantia, on which you both harp. Let drug-giving and drugtaking be good, bad, or indifferent per se, of one thing be assured, they will not bear mixing with water or the Water-cure. As well might you try to mix fire and water as physic and water, -they are incompatible; for imagine for a moment the fearful effect of continued internal irritation by drugs, and external stimulation by water going on at the same time in a diseased body, disturbing every effort which nature is attempting to make, for her own restoration, and keeping up a state of conflict and anarchy in every function of that body. To bring it within the range and scope of your deeply physiological understanding, I would merely picture to you the state of a patient who should take a cold bath Water-cure, and having more or less learned its mode of application to himself, will find these articles always useful as a species of medicine-chest, not much more cumbersome, and far less expensive, than the mahogany boxes in common usage. 124 GENERAL LAW OF THE WATER-CURE. after sweating, whilst " mercury and chalk," calomel and jalap, senna and salts, croton oil and cubebs, castor oil and colocynth, were causing an internal torrent from the sensitive mucous membrane: or who should vainly endeavour to reduce the feverish condition of the external surface, and tranquillize the excited nervous system by any of the operations of the Water-cure, whilst the scalding spirits of wine of the stimulating tinctures of the pharmacopoeia-the laudanum, the hartshorn, the valerian, castor, gentian, iron, &c. &c.— were maintaining an internal flame. Woe to the patient who should permit himself to be the victim of such unphilosophical and unsafe practice as this, under the specious and unfounded notion that water can be made merely one of the "adjuvantia!"; as all of your "tribe" would naturally desire it should be considered. FOR IT IS A LAW WHICH GOVERNS THE OPERA TIONS OF WATER, TO BRING ALL MORBID ACTION ON THE GOVERNS THE OPERATION OF INTERNAL DRUG RE MEDIES TO CONCENTRATE ALL DISEASED ACTION ON THOSE ORGANS, MAKING ONE SUFFER FOR ANOTHER, OR, IF ALL BE IN A MORBID TUMULT, AUGMENTING THAT TUMULT, AND PARALYSING OR THWARTING EVERY EFFORT OF NATURE TO RETURN TO THE HARMONY OF HEALTH. And now methinks, learned doctor, I have opened your eyes to a variety of facts, which the wilful obliquity of your mental vision has hitherto prevented you from fully observing and appreciating. Whilst I have condescended (being indeed forced to it) to employ some of the weapons which you have so profusely drawn from the armoury of scurrility and ridicule, I will not conclude without an expression of regret that the opinion I had once been induced to form of you as a dignified member of an honourable profession, should have been so wofullly overthrown by the uncalled for, unprovoked, undignified and unprofessional manner in which you have stepped out of your path of utility-such as it is-to enact the part of an unfair and unscrupulous defamer of myself and the Water-cure. JAMES WILSON. Malvern, Nov. 4th, 1842. |