The water-cure in chronic disease : an exposition of the causes, progress and terminations of various chronic diseases of the digestive organs ... and of their treatment by water, and other hygienic means / by James Manby Gully.

  • Gully, James Manby, 1808-1883.
Date:
[1847?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The water-cure in chronic disease : an exposition of the causes, progress and terminations of various chronic diseases of the digestive organs ... and of their treatment by water, and other hygienic means / by James Manby Gully. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    66/476 (page 48)
    Such is the mode in which the ordinary medicinal treat- ment becomes a cause, and maintainer and aggravater of chronic disease in the internal central organs of life— wlience the mischief is propagated to any other organs of the body. And this is the case when disorder is originally in some external part. Thus some violence is applied to objection applies that the body is not allowed to throw off its own dis- ease ; without which cure is unattainable. There is still the forced change of action in the diseased part, on the permanency of which reliance cannot be placed. There is still also the employment of the stomach for all medicines, and therefore its fictitious stimulation by all. And, with these objections, although I might be induced to try to sub- due a passing, but troublesome symjjtovi, I could not trust to remove the essential nature of a chronic malady by homoeopathic means. But 1 speak of the whole subject with diffidence, mj’^ experience being as yet limited. Not so with allopathy, the insufficiency of which has been proved to me by sixteen years’ practice. How far might the homoeo- pathic come in aid of tbie water-treatment? For some time before this question was put in the last edition of this work, and since that time, my attention has been given to its practical solution. The answer, so far as I have gone, is corroborative of the aid which homoeopathic treatment, general or occasional, gives to the water treatment in chronic disease. In obstinate constipation of the bowels, the employment of homoeopathic remedies materiall}’' assists : nor is the action of the bowels consequent on their use and the water cure ever followed by relapse of the bowels into torpor, as is the case after allopathic means. In fact, cases abound in which homoeopathic /reatment alone has effectually and permanently cured habitual cos- tiveness. Again, in the course of water-treatment, and notun frequently as a necessary concomitant of its operation on the living body, nervous headache is apt to distress the patient. To alleviate this symptom without interfering with the general curative process is great gain, both to patient and practitioner; and it is readily effected by homoeo- l)atbic means. In these and many other cognate instances I hold the aiii)lication of homoeopathy in the course of water-treatment, to be not only justifiable but desirable ; although I shoul(J by no means employ it in all cases. Still, there can be little doubt that he who is able to use both wea])ons, water cure and homoeopathy, against disease, has the best pros])ect of all men of curing it. Indolence, or bigotry, or low quackery may induce, men to swear by one remedial plan only; but the physician of enlarged mind and conscience knows that his art is not so certain an one as to warrant the indolence which sleeps, the bigotry which closes the eyes, and the charlatanism which refuses to see anything but sordid interest. Homoeopathic practitioners have observed that patients under the water cure are more susceptible to the action of their remedies than other persons, and that therefore the results may be more accurately calculated. I have found this assertion to be substantially correct; and it confirms the vivifying influence of the water cure over the bodily functions.