The Sun.
London, England, 1845-09-01 00:00:00

COLBURN'S NEW MONTHLY.

The most valuable article in this Number, perhaps we
should not be far wrong in saying, the most valuable
Magazine article of the month, is the one entitled " Con.
fessions of a Water Patient, by Sir Edward Bulwer
Lytton, Bart." It appears that sixteen years of wear
and tear in the literary, political, and fashionable world,
had completely upset the physical well being of Sir Ed-
ward—that for years he never had passed twelve hours
without pain or illness--that his constitution was, in
fa.. .3t, completely shattered. Various physicians pre-
scribed various remedies—he tried them all. He tra-
velled, he retired to the seaside and lived quiet, still his
rendered his life wretched. At length he was induced
sufferings continued unalleviated, and gastric irritation
to try the cold water cure, and went to Malvern, where
he placed himself under the care of Dr. Wilson, of whom
and of his establishment he speaks in the highest terms.
A two months' course of hydropathy nearly restored
him to health. He was called away to Germany. On
his journey he took cold, fever came on. Fortunately
he was near the hydropathic establishment of De Schmidt,
at Boppart, to which he was conveyed, and under cold
water treatment he recovered in two days. He is now
in better health thin he has been for years, and he at-
tributes his recovery entirely to cold water. The use of
the wet sheet has always been represented by anti•hy-
dropathists as most dangerous ; according to Sir Ed-
ward's account, it must be the mildest of remedies. It is
in fact a very gentle continuous vapour bath, not attended
with the danger of the cold allusion so strenuously
recommended by the late Dr. Currie in cases of fever,
and infinitely more efficacious, as its action may with
safety be kept up for any length of time. Every new
remedy suffers, perhaps, more from the exaggerations of
unreasoning bel'evers than from the attacks of the
sceptical. It is therefore no small advantage to have
the opinion of such a man as Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton
on the capabilities of hydropathy, more especially when
that opinion is founded on personal experience and
close observation. The subject is one of such vast im
portance that we offer no apology for the length of the
following extract.

"It remains for me to say, merely as an observer, and solely
with such authority as an observer altogether disinterested, but
without the least pretence to professional science, may fairly
claim, what class of diseases 1 have seen least, and what most,
tractable to the operations of the water cure, and how far en-
thusiasts appear to me to have over-estimated, how far sceptics
have under-valued, the effects of water as a medicament.
There are those (most of the water doctors especially) who
contend that all medicine by drugs is unnecessary—that water
internally and outwardly applied suffices in skilful management
for all complaints—that the time will come when the drug
doctor will cease to receive a fee, when the apothecary will
close his shop, and the water cure be adopted in every hospital
sad by every family. Dreams and
absurdities! Even grant-
ing that the water cure were capable of all the wonders
in chronic cases—it usually
requiresascribed
such
iht ,
completeit s pro process
is s
o abstractionslo
from care and business---it
takes the active man so thoroughly out of his course of life,
that a vast proportion of those engaged in worldly pursuits
cannot hope to find the requisite leisure. There are also a
large number of complaints (perhaps the majority) which yield
sounder a moderately compe-
tenetarairlay to a sparing use
etitioner,thatthoef
convenient plan of sending to the
next chemist for your pill or potion can never be superseded,
nor can I think it desirable that it should be. Moreover, as
plaints curable by medicine
appears to me to be
far
riachs Ithheavweasteeernc'urtehuerteteralyrefacil°s'nto reach.
lea's'tpains, especially the monster
pain of the tic doloreux. Not one instance of a cure in the
Theeeffectual
ui disorders
first wherein
neuralgic hydropathy
latter by hydropathy has come under my own observation, and
I he
case of recovery from it by
that
,paralysis of a grave character in per-
bens v
of only
an e s
advanced heard.
Secondly,
Thirdly, in tubercular consump-
tion.b a
p rc
As s
one
age.
this stage of that melancholy
disease,
t mayhe b
water
ate ex e r
fails to restore, but I have
known it even here prolong life, beyond all reasonable calcula-
tion, and astonishingly relieve the more oppressive symptoms.
In all cases where the nervous exhaustion is great and of long
standing, and is accompanied with obstinate hypochondria,
hydropathy, if successful at all, is very slow in its benefits, and
cPuercetet( utterly teir in this
the patience of the sufferer is too often worn out before the
favourable turn takes place. I have also noticed that obstinate
and deep-rooted maladies, in Persons of very athletic frames,
seem to yield much more tardily' to the water cure than similar
complaints in more delicate constitutions, so that you will
often see of two persons afflicted by the same genera of com-
plaints. the feeble anti fragile one recover before the stout
man with Atlantic shoulders evinces one symptom of
amelioration.

"'Those cises, on the other hand, in which the
water
cure
seems an absolute panacea, and in which the patient may coin-
rococo with the most sanguiw, hopes, are, first, rheuniAtism,
hplicated. In this the cure is
usually ;,ermanent. Secondly, gout.
however
rapid—nearly iirol,,nge,l, howeverai
viayu''
Here its effi::acy is little less startling to appearance than in the
former case ; it seem:, to take up the disease by the routs; it
extracts the peculiar acid, often appears in discolors-
thms upon the sheets used in the application, or is ejected in
ether modes. But here, judging always from cases subjected
to my personal knowledge. 1 have not seen instances to justify
the assertion of some water doctors, that returns of the disease
do not occur. The predispoi,ition—the tendency, has ap-
peared to me to remain. The patient is liable to relapses—but
1 have invariably found them far less frequent, less lengthened,
and readily susceptible of simple and speedy cure, especially if
the habits remain temperate.
.‘ Thirdly, that wide and grisly family of affliction classed
under the common name of dyspepsia. All derangements of
the digestive organs, imperfect powers of nutrition—the
malaise of an injured stomach, appear precisely the complaints