HYDROPATHIC TREATMENT AT THE HOSPITAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9023, 9 April 1888, Page 3

HYDROPATHIC TREATMENT AT THE HOSPITAL.

TO THE EDITOR. Sip.,—Those who believe in the water cure Would like to know a little more about the alleged hydropathic treatment in thd Hospital. There is all the difference between the way in which a practice is carried out by those who believe in it and understand it and those who do not. Watercure establishments abound in Scotland and England. Those at Malvern and Matlock are attended by thousands, of whom many are medical men, and a large number Bent there by the advice of their doctors, who could do no more for them. Were they as unsuccessful in the treating their patient® as the doctors in the Auckland Hospital there would be plenty of "St. Legers" to trumpet the fact. They would soon be discredited One unfortunate result of this objection to that mode of treatment is that now in. our Hospital not a drop of cold water is put on the burning skin of the fever patients. The delirium that would be relieved by the use of the cold sponge on the head is unchecked. Recently a patient, a man Ax feet three inches in height, seized a nurse by the throat, and four women had to pull him off. Another kicked the doctor and three nurses. If the fever wards are to be like lunatic asylums there should be some male warders in them, or we shall hear of some serious accident. I have for 30 years been an nt believer in the water cure. I have pi v " i-'ed it, recommended it, and seen it ait vl in the water-cure establishments, and s« > far have never known it to fail. 1 can quite understand that in hospitals people have to be treated who are already too far gone from neglect, and others come there the victims of drink and vice, and who have no recuperative power, but that will not account for 40 per cent.—l am, &c. C. P. Newcombe.