Letters from Graefenberg, in the years 1843, 1844, 1845, & 1846 : with the report, and extracts from the correspondence, of the Enniscorthy Hydropathic Society / by John Gibbs.

Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters from Graefenberg, in the years 1843, 1844, 1845, & 1846 : with the report, and extracts from the correspondence, of the Enniscorthy Hydropathic Society / by John Gibbs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    49/322 (page 15)
    LETTER V. To R. T. Ridge, Esq., etc. [Republished from the Wexford Papers.] Apiaov f.tev i'Cu)p. Grsefenberg, Feb. 24, 1844* My Dear Ejdge,— In my last letter I mentioned that Prince Lichtenstein had brought to the nearest town, Freiwaldau, (about an English mile and a half from this), his only son, a child three years old, to place him under Priessnitz’s care. As, from the rank and youth of the patient, and the nature of the disease, this case has excited more than ordinary interest, I think I cannot better commence this letter than by detailing the particulars. For fifteen months all that medical science could do for him was done, and done in vain. His com- plaint was obstruction of the bowels ; for three weeks he had no relief, and his medical attendants, apprehending the Iliac passion, gave him up, and advised, as a last resource, that Priessnitz should be called in. The child was accordingly placed under Priessnitz’s care. On the twenty-fifth day after commencing treatment the patient bad relief, has since been regular, and for the last fort- night has been playing about—thus adding one more to the many triumphs of water over medicine. The appli- cations in this case were abreibungs and sitzbaths. It is nearly incredible the horror of water, I had almost said the hydrophobia with which some persons seem to be afflicted. A middle aged man came here some weeks since ; when ordered into the bath—he had never been in one—he cast himself at Priessnitz's feet, and besought him, “ not for himself,” he said, but he “prayed him, for the love of heaven, to remember that he had a wife and little ones at home.” Let me give you another illustration : a “ boy,” of about four or five and twenty, and “six feet two without a shoe,” was ordered the cold bath; for an entire fortnight he was