The Opinion of Dr. Gully.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume 3, Issue 143, 18 March 1848, Page 4

The Opinion of Dr. Gully.

" I confess that the accumulated experience of thirteen years of not very limited practice in London had gradually paved the way for my ready reception of some such remedial means as the Water Cure. From the earliest of these years I never treated a case of disease, acute or chronic, accord* ing to the received methods without some concomitant dissatisfaction with myself ; and this even when B uccess attended the treatment ; for I almost invariably found that such success was most transitory, the patient soon falling back into the self-same malady,— nay, in very many instances, becoming actually more liable to it. This was more especially the case of persons who were subject to acute indigestion, biliary derangements, stomach cough, attacks of catarrh, rheumatism, gout, and, lust not least, constipation of the bowels ;— in all these instauces relief wa* speedily obtaiaed by medicinal means, but relapse gradually became also more speedy. In another series of morbid phenomena, generally grouped under the term ' nervousness,' the usual means usually failed, or were still more . transient, in their remits than in the diseases above named. u Referring to foreign medical writers. I thought I saw in the doctrines and treatment of Bt ouesias a more rational expose of disease and a less objectionable plan of managing it, than any that had been presented, to me. It left more to nature and meddled less with her restorative efforts, than that violent system of medication which is in so much favour in this country ; and, in so far, was less of a mask to disease and more of a cure ; relapse was neither so speedy nor so severe as in the latter plan. Some years' trial of this treatment baaed these conclusions on experience ; at the end of which I endeavoured to bring the doctrines and practice of Brouasais more immediately before the British medical world by a translation of his ' Lectures on General Pathology and Therapeutics,' which was published in the pases of the London Medical and Surgical Journal in 1835 —6, during the time I wa» co-editor of that periodical. Still, though the delicate internal organs were, in this treatment, more delicately used, though the employment of hot fomentations over those organs did wonders, and local bleeding with leeches far exceeded in effect the emptying of the system by venesection, there was not in all this a genuine backing— so to call it— of nature in her imlutary efforts ; and, although relapses were not so frequent, convalescence was much too loug : which I felt was owing to the want of the true aiding agency which it is the office of art to afford to nature. What that true agent was I baU

1 not genim enough to discover ; and, accordingly, all I couid do was to modify the Broussaian plan to v.rying cases. Simplicity in remedies, however, I ever mide a rule, and numerous are the cases of fever of all descriptions, which, during the last si\ years, I have successfully treated with nothing more than hot fomentations externally, copious draughts of cold water and occasional doses of castor oil internally, with perfect rest of body, withdrawal of light, noise, &c. ; — means, a mume of which I published in the early part of 1842, in a work entitled ' The Simple Tieitment of Disease.' " When, therefore, very shortly after the publication of this work, you returned to England and laid before me the details of the Water Cure, I was well prepared, by previous thought upon the legitimate aim of the physician in treating disease, to see in those details the most potent means of fulfilling that aim, — which is simply to aid nature ; for it is nature, and not the physician, who cures disease. Assimilating too, as we did, in our physiological and pathological notions, there was the less difficulty in your communication, and in my appreciation, of the facts connected with this truly philosophical mode of treating disease. The experience which, as your colleague in the prac'ice of tbe Water Cure, I have since had, confirms fully the justice of your views concerning it f as propounded to me previous to your establishment at Malvern ; they were such as only a well-educated physiologist could take, or a close observer of disease entertain. Backed, therefore, by the tacts related by you, and by the rationale of them which presented itself tome, I had no hesitation in giving in my adhesion to a system of medical treatment which comprehends all the esspn tials of philosophical medicine, and is so utterly devoid of the unmeaning, though ofttimes dangerous, paraphernalia which have been heaped on the art of healing since the lime of Galen, and which, accumulating as that art passed through the hands of the Arabian physicians, the Chemical Mechaaical« and Vital schools, present in these latter days a mass of conflicting theory and contradictory practice that bets all reasoning on disease at defiance, and renders all oneness of aim in its treatment impossible. "That aim being to assist Nature in her efforts toward the restoration of the vital organs of the body, I hold the Water Cure to be the preferable mode of treatment yet discovered, for the following reasons. '•It insists, first and foremost, on the cessation of the morbific causes, which, in the very great majority of cases, consist of irritants applied to the digestive organs, the brain, and the akin. "It forbids the application of irritating agents to the internal organ 3, inasmuch as such agents not only augment their actual malady, but also interfere with the efforts they are making to rid themselves of it. "As 'hose efforts are always towards some organ less immediately important to life, and more especially towards the skin, it, by its various applications to the latter, powerfully assists in the transfer which is to bring health. In cases of acute febrile disorder, it carries off all morbid heat as fast aa it is generated, and thereby encourages a still more vehement tendency of blood to the surface; a fact which, whilst it relieves the oppression of the internal organs, augments the circulation oh the skin up to the point of perspiration — the most salutary termination of such disorder. This is beautilully illustrated in the operation of the wet sheet frequently changed, and the cold shallow bath succeeding it : the body breaking into sweat after the repeated application of these means. "It acts as a powerful derivative; as when the cold hip bath is employed for a long time together in congestion of the he*d or in constipation of the bowels, the secondary effect being to draw blood towards, and fix it in, the lower part of the digestive canal. "It acts as a stimu'ant and tonic to distant parts, through the action of the nervous system ; as when foot and hand baths are employed for the relieve of nervous headache, tic. toothac, &c. And the same may be said of short hip baths. "In chronic diseases, where more or less obstruction of some organ exists, or where the vital power of some organ is prostrate, it removes the one and rouses the other, by tbe operation of sweating succeeded by the cold bath, by long continued friction of the surface with cold water, by the action of tbe doucbe, and, last not least, by the copious drinking of cold water : this last facilitating and hastening the changes of the matter of the body, in which the functions of life consist. In this manner the whole mass of diseased blood in a body is changed, whilst a better digestion is forming new blood of a better quality. "The various operations of the medical systems in old usage are all attainable by employment of the processes of the Water Cure, without the risk of damaging the delicate and highly sympathising internal parts wherein the great acts of life are carried on. Reduction of irritation, whether local or general, depletion, stimulation, and the addition of permanent tone, are all as manageable by the process in question as by medicinal means ; their certainty of action is to the full as great, and the uncertainty as to the subsequent condition of the body, when the immediate end it gamed, which distin<mi,heB pharmaceutical treatment, does not attend the treatment by water. All this I predicated on theoretical grounds, and incessant and close observation of very numerous cases during eighteen months has convinced me on practical grounds. "Were I to enter into details, I could offer abundant reasons drawn from the operation of the individual processes of cure on individual maladies. J But as your demand was for very general reasons , for adopting the system of treatment by water, the above recital will be sufficient answer, and not overload your pages." j