Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1847-07-09
The Water Cure.

LIE wafer JuIt.
We have read various sober, methodical,
matier-of-fact descriptions ofthe way in which
people are washed clean from disease at the
e water cure" establishments; but here is
one, supplied by a victim at Drattleboro' for
the New Haven Herald, which does up the
process in a vivid, graphic. humorous kind
Of way, highly effective, but probably not a
whit less truthful than the dullest of the
others.-Mass. SPY.
"a feeble young man leaves his home and
the nursing cares OF a doating mother or fond
wife, and comes here away North among the
hills, to seek the will U'wisp angel of health
in other words, to get his stomach washed
out and his liver put in order. After nights
balmy repose, or rather in the midst of a
nights SAUNDERS, in which he dreams Of fire.
side and home and the maternal coffee and
toast that await his awakening, the door Of
his chamber opens, and in walks a figure
with shaggy hair and bare and brawny arms,
who shakes the slumberer and ruuses him
with the hollow spoken words, "your ted is
ready" Your Laih is ready, he means, with
out the polileness Of asking, " Are you ready
for your bed :" As memorable as fate he
stands, while the miserable victim rises and
denudes himself till no covering but his skin
shields his shrinking nerves from the chill
air through the open window.
The tormentor then strips the bed and
speads first a blanket and then over ii a thick
sheet just wet in water at 4Go Fdhrenheit.-
Upon this the shivering, shrinking patient,
with lis whole surface in a state of goose
nesEiness, extends his length, and feels him
self instantly enveloped in its folds. Then
blanket after blanket is laid over and tucked
in, till he takes the form and has somewh hat
the feelings of an Egyptian mummy, just
dead and cold, bound hand and foot, and
wrapped up for the tomb. lie is then left to
his own reflections and the active powers Of
nature. He considers that if the building
should take fire, he would probably, in his
helpless condition, be roasted alive; and
makes up his mind that he Mould not mind
a roasting much provided it were IN a warm
FIRE. Soon, however, nature rallies her forces,
and the blood vessels are in eXcit. d action
First, the surface of the body becomes warm,
then the sheet, then every thing is heated to
the steaming point and there ensues a most
soothing, sweet, and heari-softcning sensa-
ton, in which he again falls asleep, and
dreams Of paradise and a bed Of rose-Ieaves.
"Ah. whence is that spectre that pulls of
his clothes,
All, whence is that splash that now 'larums
his earl"
1t is the same kiud-hearted villain as be-
fore, who, without deigning a single word,
throws off blanket after blanket, aud COM
Portable after comfortable, ill only one envg-
lope is left, when he seizes him by the shout
ders, lifts him upright in the bed, uncovers
his feet, puts on a pair of slippers, throws a
blanket over the head, and says, "foIlow
me-" With one eye open, as docile as a
lainb led to sacrifice, feeling like IA fool, and
looking just like Lazarus coming out Of the
grave, he goes slirshod down stairs, seats
himself in a tub Of water at 72o where a buck
ct full is p%ounced over him, aud two rough
hands rub him well, "But that is nothing
that amt"
Before him is the terrible plunge bath, II
feet by 20, and 4 or 13 deep. It's surface is
so clear that it seems oHly a tank of air with
a slight emerald tinge. Vain Imagination
That liquid is as real as rock, and cold as the
double extract Of icehergs, and into that
wretched mortal-must you plunge. So here
goes one splash, and he rises to the top, feel
ing an icicie thrust through his heart. Ou'
he scrambles and back again to the half bath.
which now feels like hot water, to be agar
rubbed. Then a dry rubbing with a shee
and he is clothed quickly for a walk, and he
struts forth to meet the sun, with nerve:
braced up to such a pitch that he cares no
what he meets.
Over hill and through dell he stumps i
with vigor, till presently the reaction is com
plele, and he feels as if he had snapped him
self away for another man. If he has ever
the humblest knowledge of whistling, h,
puts it in practice, or speeds along meditat
ing, the first half of the walk, upon the beau
ties of nature, and the latter half on the pro
: bable quantity of breakfast required to salts
fly an appetite that has become more shark
like than human.