OF

Malvern, Sept. 1843.

TO DR. HASTINGS.

SIR,-Your recently published attack on the Water Cure and on myself is a sufficient inducement to address you as a medium of conveying to the reader the evidence in defence of both, contained in these pages.

Your position as physician to a public hospital, where you are entrusted with the lives and physical well-being of a number of your poorer fellow creatures, makes me also anxious that you should be induced to investigate and adopt a system of treatment by which you might effect incalculable good, -a system that can easily be proved to be the safest, and the most successful that has yet been discovered for the cure and relief of an endless variety of diseases.

66

39 66

a

I have another important purpose in publishing this defence. You know that the prevailing prejudices of the community have been stimulated and encouraged by great exertions on the part of many ill-informed and unscrupulous opponents of the Water Cure; that they have been taught to look upon it as a passing innovation," quackery," and a "dangerous delusion," and that its advocates are, to all intents and purposes, to be regarded as " Hydromaniacs." You will allow that in this state of feeling it is but natural that there should be but little curiosity in the many to inquire into its merits by reading a learned or lengthened dissertation. I think you will therefore agree with me that a pamphlet like the present one is more likely to attract a little attention. Should such prove to be the case, and should any impressed by the evidence and important facts it contains, acquire a disposition to inquire further, they have you to thank for it. It was your persevering opposition that gave me the idea, and pointed out the probable utility of such a production.

For the accomplishment of the desired object in view, I shall lay before you many interesting cases cured by the Water treatment, and in a separate division the recently published opinions of several English medical practitioners, who have witnessed the results of the Water Cure on some hundreds of patients.

us.

I have placed the attack I have mentioned and my reply at the end of the pamphlet, that the reader may judge between You may remember that about twelve months ago, I addressed you in two long letters, which I published with a purpose similar to the present one. Since that period to the present time, there have been nearly eight hundred patients who have gone through the water cure treatment here, and I may mention, as this is also a fact in favour of "the Cure," that the representations of these patients have induced as many more to visit Malvern, as my colleague Dr. Gully and myself can find time to attend to. Out of this number there has been only one death amongst our patients at Malvern -that of Lady Hartopp, an account of which you will find in the Appendix.

66

Now, I have only further to add, and I trust you will credit me, that I have no personal feeling whatever towards yourself. I feel only as an advocate of Water Cure, which it must be confessed has not had "fair play" at your hands, and those of your party; personal feelings and grievances, however, are a bagatelle barely worth alluding to when so vitally important a subject as the Water Cure claims our attention; I shall not detain you longer, but at once lay before you the cases, opinions, &c., which I trust you will read with patience, candour, and a christian spirit. I remain,

Sir,

Your obedient servant, JAMES WILSON.

B

AUTHENTICATED CASES

OF

RECOVERY BY THE

WATER CURE TREATMENT.

I have now sufficient materials by me to fill a moderately-sized volume with cases like the present ones. Similar results may be found recorded by many other physicians of great reputation. There are here, however, a sufficient number to show that the patients write like very rational persons, and that the subject is worthy of grave reflection and investigation.

SUPPOSED CONSUMPTION, &c.

The writer of the following letter, the Rev. Mr. Marshall, had suffered for a long time many of the symptoms preceding rapid decline, and it was expected that he would have been obliged to retire from the duties of the Church.

Cases of this kind are frequently met with on the Continent, where the subjects of them go in search of health. At Rome and in other parts of Italy, I saw many such, and amongst them a number of clergymen going on from bad to worse, the appetite decreasing, the strength lapsing, the tone of the skin becoming less and less. These cases often commencing in mental work and irritation, lead on to derangement of the stomach and bowels, are accompanied with stomach cough and extreme readiness to take cold, and not unfrequently terminate in substantial disease of the lungs :-a conclusion which is seldom prevented by the system of remedying they too often go through, which, on the contrary, leads to hotter rooms, warmer clothing, more stimulating drinks, and additional chilliness and debility. It is really quite melancholy to see many of them in Italy-far from their friends and their occupation-shivering at the bare thought of the bracing and healthy winter of their native isle, and feeling actually more cold than their countrymen on the banks of the Thames.

lic duties, and seek refuge in a warmer climate. Since I left Malvern, I have been in perfect health, and have not had an hour's illness, a thing I had not known for several years previously.

I feel it due to the system and to yourself, to state that your treatment has fully realized all you promised; for the last twelve months I have been more equal to my public duties than at any other former period of my life. During the winter I went out in all weathers, and at all hours, and never once took cold. I have not taken medicine of any sort or kind since I saw you. I never can be too thankful for the benefit 1 have derived from the treatment. With best wishes, I remain, My dear Sir, Very truly yours,

W. K. MARSHALL.

As I am firmly convinced that I owe my present state of health, and even my existence, to your instrumentality, it becomes a pleasing duty to me to record by letter, as my friend Mr. Marsh has done, the benefit I have experienced from the system of treatment you adopted in my late illness. This duty is further pressed upon me by the knowledge 1 have, that many are deterred from trying the Water treatment in consequence of fears regarding its dangers,

fears which my case amply shows to be totally without foundation, when it is scientifically applied. Previous to coming to Malvern, I was considered by some of the most eminent of the faculty to be in a hopeless state. I mention this in evidence that it was not my fears for myself which exaggerated the gravity of my sufferings; what these were I need not detail. Suffice it to say, that when I came under your care I was nearly reduced to a skeleton,-that the spasms of the stomach, and the spasms about the heart, seemed to threaten me with sudden death, and that only a few nights after I reached Malvern, and before I commenced the Water Cure, I was for several hours in a state of insensibility. In short, I did not consider my life safe from hour to hour. At this time, after nearly three months of treatment, my body is well