The Story of our Health Message

Active Opposition to Priessnitz

There was active opposition to Priessnitz by contemporary physicians. He was repeatedly brought before the courts and charged with practicing medicine without qualifications or government license; but he had popular support, and the judges freed him upon his defense that he used no other means than pure water. One writer, who visited the place and viewed the proceedings with a prejudiced eye, says: SHM 32.2

“It is by no means agreeable to be roused from a comfortable sleep in the depth of winter, morning after morning, by candlelight, to be enveloped in a piercing cold moist sheet, and afterwards rubbed in a tub of cold water until nearly every particle of warmth is abstracted from the body; and then to repeat this in the afternoon, or to alternate it with a sweat in a blanket for two or three tedious hours—well may it be said, therefore, that the ‘water cure’ requires much enduring fortitude and strength of constitution, both to overcome the repugnance naturally felt, and to resist the congestion likely to ensue.”—Robert Hay Graham, M.D., Graefenberg: A True Report of the Water Cure, 34. London: Longmans, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1844. SHM 32.3