four hours the damping process has to be renewed, so as to keep up a constant system of fomentation over the stomach, liver, and other abdominal organs, together with the spine and some of the most important nerves of animal life. This being continued throughout the whole day, and combined with almost incessant active exercise, the chances of a chill, or "cold-catching," are precluded; whilst amongst its common results is, eventually, the appearance of a small eruption, indicating sufficiently that the application is somewhat of a stimulant to the skin. Such counter-irritation, accompanied, as it generally is, by the tonic employment of cold water in other forms, is probably much more effective, in a great variety of cases, than the once so celebrated turpentine-and-acid liniment of St. John Long.

After passing a few scattered houses of humbler pretensions on the opposite side of the steep little valley up which the road winds, I came at length within sight of the huge, white, uncomfortable-looking, barrack-like house, stuck up high against the side of the hill, in which Priessnitz resides, and where he can lodge, feed, and bathe a whole regiment of patients. On ascending a flight of steps to the principal door one enters a waste, uninviting-looking hall, with a vast steaming kitchen in perspective at the end of it, whence issues a heat and vapour which conveyed, at least to the uninitiated, the idea of a hundred hot baths in preparation. And, indeed, although cold water is the staple here, yet, for very susceptible invalids and neophytes in the aqueous ceremonies, a proportion of tepid water, "just enough to take the cold off it," is permitted in many instances, or what is very expressively called here "abgeschrecktes wasser”"water with the terror taken out of it."

Some uncouth-looking servant-girls, who would have done honour to the wilds of Connemara, were rushing about in confusion; and, in reply to my inquiries, declared their ignorance of the present whereabouts of the great highpriest of the water-mysteries, of whom I was in search; but at length some one recollected that he had recently been seen not far off, and kindly undertook to make him out and bring him to me. He was eventually discovered busied, I believe, in inspecting some bathing

operations, and made his appearance in a kind of linen undress, with all the look and manner of a hurried, hardworked man.

At first sight he strikes one as harsh, reserved, and unprepossessing in a high degree. He is little above the middle size, has an upright, stiff, and somewhat military carriage, and is spare, but muscular and active-looking. He has a rigid cast of features; a firmlycompressed, determined mouth, intelligent eye, and well-formed forehead. His weather-beaten, yellowish complexion, and numerous and deep wrinkles, make him look old for his actual time of life, which is little above fifty.

After introducing myself and mentioning my object in coming hither, I spoke a few words with him, in order to ascertain whether his experience led him to think that a case of debility in a person in whom I was deeply interested, and whose symptoms I described to him as well as I could, was likely to derive benefit from the peculiar mode of treatment pursued at this place. But he very frankly replied, after a few practical inquiries which seemed to me to imply a knowledge of the nature of the case, that he had great doubts as to its applicability; and, moreover, declared his conviction that the present season (the beginning of October) was, at any rate, quite too advanced, and the weather already too cool for any person of weak circulation, and little reactive power in their constitution, to attempt commencing "the water-cure." Those who have made a beginning in summer, and already added materially to the general strength of their system by the process, may go on with it during the winter; for this watering-place is, in a more remarkable degree than any of the other baths of Germany, independent of season; some convalescents prolonging their stay throughout the whole course of the cold weather with safety and advantage.

Having thus gratified the desire I had so long felt to see this remarkable man, and obtained the opinion I came to seek, I felt nowise prompted to prolong the interview. Priessnitz was too much the man of business in his manner, looked too expressly the Atlas of the place, with endless heavy work on his shoulders, for my venturing needlessly on the dangerous ground of a protracted conversation. Nor was there in his reception aught which in

vited familiarity or confidence. Though he is without anything of what is called manner or address, he seems, by mere force of character, quite at ease. Abrupt and unceremonious, he appears to be totally indifferent to pleasing; and, doubtless, finds in his "brusque," short, decided manner, a potent means of awing his patients, ensuring their obedience to his directions, and hus. banding his own time; for with such a medical adviser few consultants would venture, I apprehend, on unnecessary prolixity. Indeed, from what I afterwards heard of him, he seemed to be by no means a general favourite with those who apply for his advice, though they have every confidence in his skill and sincerity, and faith in the generally successful result of his treatment.

His table d'hôte is on a grand scale in respect to the number of guests, the viands simple and substantial, and if not of the best school of culinary art, still sufficiently inviting for appetites previously sharpened by incessant exercise, mountain air, and the bracing influence of frequent draughts of the pure element. The two hotel keepers below at Freiwaldau, and the numerous lodging-houses, absorb the overflow from his establishment, and may even be preferred by those who would rather be in lower and more sheltered quarters, as well as by such timid souls as would dread being constantly at meal times, &c., under the Argus eye of the great hygienic autocrat of Gräfenberg. A severe, nay absolute, gastronomic code is, however, no peculiar characteristic of this place. The wholesome tyranny of the bath doctors over the stomachs of their patients at the various watering-places in Germany is notorious, at the Austrian ones in particular-Carlsbad for example; and resistance, or even remonstrance, is unheard of (unless, perhaps, on the part of a discontented Briton-an animal everywhere privileged to grumble). At least this was the established order of things prior to the "freiheit" movement, and if any relaxation of it was perhaps effected in the memorable year 1848, it has doubtless proved but momentary, and gone the way of all the other extorted liberties of that delusive period. What an advantage this absolute sway over the cooks must give to the German "Brunnen-Arzt,' obvious, and every one can see how much better chances of successful

is

results in their practice it must secure to them, than any of their brethren in English watering-places could pretend to, with our free notions, and indisputable right to injure ourselves.

In Priessnitz's rules of diet there is, as already hinted, much resemblance to those of the homœopathic, school, which are of admitted excellence, and nearly what every judicious_physician of the present day would, I suppose, approve, with the single exception, perhaps, of the exaggerated terror of stimulants, which are objected to here even in the most moderate quantities and least exceptionable forms. Thus

On

tea, coffee, beer, and wine, and all fermented liquors, are prohibited by Priessnitz, as likewise pepper, and all other spices, with our food, and even warm soups are disapproved of. the contrary, milk in all its forms is highly recommended, whether sweet or sour and clotted, creamy or skimmed, according to the taste of the palate, and the existing capabilities of the stomach. But sour milk, against which we have a groundless prejudice, is reckoned, on account of its cooling and light nature, peculiarly suitable in a great majority of cases. It is, indeed, a favourite family supper, eaten with sugar and toasted crumbs of bread, all through Germany, and one of the wholesomeness and palatableness of which I can, from frequent trials, give the most favourable account. Coarse rye bread, containing nearly all the bran, is strongly enjoined for daily use, both on account of its nutritious and of its highly aperient qualities; and so important does he consider its forming a part of our habitual food, that in places where coarse unsifted flour is not procurable, he advises his patients to manufacture it for themselves in a large coffee mill. And of all dietetic directions this is, I apprehend, the most valuable, having witnessed the wonderfully beneficial effects produced on the digestive organs of dyspeptic Londoners by a similar bread made of coarsely ground husky wheaten flour, such as that sold under the name of "unfermented brown bread," by Dodson, a well-known baker in Blackman-street, in the Borough, and which is generally accompanied by a printed recommendation bearing the signature of upwards of two hundred of the first medical names in the metropolis. If we could but be content to eat our

corn more nearly in the compound form in which nature presents it to us, as other animals are fain to do, in place of separating for use, with misplaced ingenuity, the finer, fairer looking, and more astringent portion, we should find the bread made of it not only more cooling, and wholesome, and conducive to muscular strength, but even more sapid and agreeable. It is in France, perhaps, that the fancy for an artificial bread of snowy whiteness is carried to the greatest extreme; and can anything be more tasteless than the saltless clubs of bread which flank our plates at a Parisian table d'hote, or the still more exquisitely fair petits pains which form the staple of a French breakfast? Where there is great debility, or irritability of the stomach, of course the very brown, coarse bread alluded to is inapplicable, and Priessnitz then substitutes that of a lighter quality, enjoining great sparingness of diet, and allowing a very little flesh meat, or in some cases only rice and similar unirritating foods, with water alone for drink.

I have already mentioned what stress he lays on the enjoyment of fresh air and abundant bodily exercise, especially walking. In some instances, where persons are unable or unwilling to remain long a-foot, the cleaving or sawing of wood is substituted as a means of getting much exercise in a short period! In order that all visiters, whether resident in the upper or the lower regions, may have equally easy access to his advice, he stations himself daily, at a given hour in the morning, in the market-place of Freiwaldau, and is ready there to be consulted by all

comers.

It seems not improbable that, in process of time, when the great Priessnitz shall have passed away, Freiwaldau, with its regularly-educated doctors and more accessible situation, may become a formidable rival to the original and more orthodox establishment on the hill above; if, indeed, this valuable remedy, when the influence of novelty and its energetic promulgator shall have ceased to exist, be not consigned once more to the comparative obscurity into which it had fallen, when this remarkable man brought it afresh, and with new modifications, under public attention. I say, "brought it afresh," because the curative agency of water, in more limited forms of application, had long been known, and va◄

riously taken advantage of, long before his time. For, not to go back to clas sical times, nor yet to its universal employment in Mexico, in all kinds of disease, previous to the Spanish conquest by Cortes, it was used, as every one knows, with very happy results, by Dr. Currie, of Liverpool, fifty years ago, in many febrile disorders; and with yet more unvarying success by the late Professor Macartney, of Dublin, as an external appliance in outward local inflammations, in severe lacerated wounds and bruises, and after painful surgical operations; in which latter class of cases German surgeons, too, have been in the habit of having extensive recourse to it since early in the present century. But in referring to these patent facts in the history of "the water-cure," I would on no account be understood as wishing to detract from the high merits of Priessnitz, who, being a mere peasant, without character or any previous access to medical knowledge, worked out for himself the discovery of the value of water as a remedy, by dint of innate genius, and resolute experimenting combined; ascertained the laws of its application in a large class of cases correctly; and by courage under persecution, indomitable energy of character, and deep conviction of the importance of his mission to suffering humanity, made it known and popular in Europe, to an extent hitherto without parallel. Some thirty thousand patients have passed through his hands; and, with his singular shrewdness and fine powers of observation, this immense amount of experience has not failed, in spite of his want of preliminary knowledge, to give him considerable tact in the discrimination of disease, at least in so far as to enable him, with tolerable certainty, to reject such cases as his treatment would be inefficacious or dangerous in, such as diseases of the heart or great blood vessels, pulmonary consumption, and other organic affections. Still this tact is, of course, not unerring; and as many desperate cases obtrude themselves on him, and their fatal tendency may not in every instance be detected by him, deaths do occur at Gräfenberg, as elsewhere; and there is no doubt that a too violent and extremely protracted use of the remedy there, or subsequent to leaving it, has produced sometimes very sad results; and amongst these, as a not

unfrequent one, his German antagonists reckon, I know not how truly, that very formidable affection, softening of the brain and mental derangement, as well as dropsical affections and dangerous over-distention of the blood vessels. But, without meaning to come forward as the advocate of all Priessnitz's proceedings, I need scarcely remind my readers how unfair it would be to conclude, from the abuse of any thing, against its use in the manner and degree sanctioned by a judicious experience..

To give the water cure" an adequate trial it is necessary, as Sir E. Bulwer Lytton has justly remarked, to employ it uninterruptedly for a very considerable period-several months, at the least, in most cases; and during such trial we should entirely abstain from all our usual occupations, give the mind repose, and make the religious observance of all the details of this treatment the chief and almost exclusive object of our existence. By the way, has Sir Edward held steadfast to his first love? Is he still faithful to the "Genie de l'eau pure ?" In Germany there are grave doubts on this point. It is even whispered that he has been seen in the autumn of last year coquetting with the Naiads of Kreuznach, paying his homage to the "allopathic "charms of the water nymphs of the Nahe.

It would be interesting to trace, had we materials that could be relied on for the purpose, the progressive stages by which Vincent Priessnitz attained to his present celebrity and actual skill as a water doctor. It is commonly believed that his first essay was made upon his own person; that having fallen from a high-loaded wain in harvest time, or got a severe kick from a horse (for there are two versions), he had the misfortune to have some of his ribs broken, and that the accident being followed by considerable suffering, which the ordinary village practitioner was unable to alleviate, he had himself, at length, the happy thought to try what effect the continued application of cold water might have towards the relief of his painful symptoms. This he found so strikingly be neficial, that he began forthwith to treat the disorders of his neighbours' cattle with the same remedy, and with the best results; and eventually set to practising on the country people them.

selves in a similar manner, and with such unheard-of success as soon spread his fame into the upper ranks of society, through the remotest districts of Germany, and even into foreign lands. Others, again, say that he got the first hint of the water cure from an old farmer in the neighbourhood, who had long employed it in a quiet way.

The hills around Gräfenberg are on a much bolder scale than I had anticipated from any description I had previously happened to read; and ascents in all kinds and varieties, suited to all tastes and capacities, from the easiest to the most abrupt, from half an hour to half a dozen hours, may be had in the immediate neighbourhood, fitted at once to test, and gradually to develope the locomotive powers and the general strength of the system.

Night having already set in, as I returned from the little temple or summer-house which stands nearly opposite to Priessnitz's abode, and commands a fine view of the town and valley beneath, I was struck and much puzzled by the singular appearance of a bright light right opposite to me, some thirty degrees above the horizon, and looking like a gigantic fiery star. After much "wonderment" I learned at length from a passer-by, that it was the fire of a charcoal-burner at a great altitude on a lofty mountain standing just before me, which mountain was invisible in the general darkness. The "Altvater," one of the highest of the Sudites in this quarter, must have been close at hand; but whether visible from this point I am unable to say.

On returning to the "Crown Hotel" (Gasthoff zur Krone) I found a motley group of gentlemen at their frugal suppers, each having ordered, “à la carte," what he pleased, or rather what he had been told upon authority was most suitable to the precise nature or stage of his individual case-from a modest basin of bread and milk, or a simple "Bouillon," up to the grosser enjoyments of a German cutlet, or a "bif stick a l'Anglaise ;" and all subsequently retired to rest at a very early hour. The society here struck me as being of a better medium quality than one generally meets with at the baths further north and westwards, and some of the Austrian "bonhommie and suavity and polish of manner is recognisable even in such of the middle class as are amongst the visiters at this

place, and contrasts strongly with the harsher outline, supercilious air, and self-satisfied bearing of the cold, intellectual aspiring Prussian, when viewed in their summer resorts.

This same little "head inn," though rather meagre and homely in its furnishing, and very little distinguished by quick, handy, or willing service, is pretty clean, and affords a very fair simple diet, and good Hungarian wine, for those who dare drink it, with excellent bread and unsurpassable water. There was one point which was very characteristic of the place, and which, as I was already suffering from an incipient cold, struck me feelingly here, the total indifference to damp, and to drafts of air. The floor of my bedroom had a moist look, as if just recently mopped out; the stairs were steaming up a cold vapour, after being washed down; and windows were open, and breezes blowing in all directions, and nobody seemed to care, for everybody but myself was hardened, I presume, by the use of the water cure, against humidity, and steeled against cold currents by the incessant exposure to the mountain air.

The next morning was showery, but I found ample occupation for it, by subjecting myself to the bathing discipline of the place. "The Crown" has its own bath establishment, in a house a little to the rere of the hotel; but it was not without considerable difficulty that I could get either the indolent landlord or his gruff headwaiter to understand what I wanted, as they could not conceive how any one who was not about to undertake "the cure should, from mere curiosity, subject himself to so disagreeable a process. Still I persisted against discouragement, and at seven o'clock, after walking about for some time, to make my blood circulate freely, and get up the animal heat, I was popped twice over head and ears in a butt of very cold water, sunk in the basement story of the bath-house, after previously, as directed, rubbing my head, face, and chest very well with the same fluid, as it flowed fresh from the spout by which the bath was supplied. I was then dried rapidly, well rubbed down, had the wet swathe, or "Neptune's Girdle," already described, wound several times firmly around me, and being dressed, was desired o walk vigorously for an hour or

more, drink some four or five glasses of cold water by the way, and then to breakfast with such appetite as I might have acquired.

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As my hours, however, were numbered, and I had to start again by ten o'clock, I begged for permission to undergo, about an hour and a-half later, a bath in another and still more celebrated form, "the wet sheet," or "packing-up" bath (nasse einpackung), which is used in chronic diseases as a stimulant to excite the activity of the vessels of the skin; and in acute or inflammatory ones, to soothe or cool the patient, and relieve internal pain, in which latter case it must be continued for a considerable time, the sheet being left somewhat moister, and changed at short intervals,—as often, in fact, as it gets hot and dry, even to the third time, or more. use is almost always instantly succeeded by a general bath, or, at least, by moistening or washing the skin all over. This, which is, perhaps, one of the most generally applicable, effective, and safe of all the several water applications, was made as follows. In a sheet, which had been dipped in cold water, and afterwards well wrung out, I was rolled up carefully from head to foot, and laid out on a matrass, a very coarse, thick blanket intervening, which last was likewise accurately wound round me twice, and skilfully tucked in around the throat as tightly as was consistent with free respiration, and turned over closely at the other end beneath the feet, and neatly packed up all down along the edge; so as that not a particle of moisture could escape by evaporation, nor yet air enter, during the half-hour that I was playing this mummy part; and thus the two only conceivable risks from this proceeding were fully obviated. The stimulant or exciting nature of the application of the moist sheet soon manifests itself in the increased force and quickness of the pulse, and augmented heat of the surface of the body, which ere long becomes bathed in steam, as well from the conversion of the dampness of the sheet into vapour, by the warmth of the body, as from the incipient perspiration from the skin itself. Thus, in place of lying shivering in the damp sheet, as one would inevitably do if not well thatched in with the great heavy woollen covering all round, I passed the prescribed time of my imprisonment