Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Water Cure

  • Practical hydrotherapy

    Water in the form of bathing and other techniques has been used since antiquity to relieve pain and promote healing. Also called water cure, it is now regarded as part of alternative medicine, often combined with massage, relaxation, and physiotherapy. It was particularly promoted in the early 1900s by Dr. Curran Pope, who claimed it…

  • Charles Darwin’s illness and the ‘wondrous water cure’

    John Hayman Melbourne, Australia   Fig. 1 Diagram of a douche, from John Smedley, Practical Hydropathy. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) suffered from a relapsing, incapacitating illness for most of his adult life with a bewildering array of symptoms.1 The first symptoms appeared when he was a medical student in Edinburgh (1825-1827), where he was unable to…