The Kneipp Cure

A Health Reform For Your Body

Sebastian Kneipp

• Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9783849660499
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Alternative & Complementary Medicine

Scarcely ever has a book found its way through Europe and the whole civilized world in so incredibly short a time as the little volume of which this is a translation. Finding help nowhere and lacking both physical and mental strength due to his failing health, the young author was left to spend his time in the royal library. Here one day an old little book attracts his curiosity, he opens it, it treats of water-cures. This moment was to be a turning-point in his life. The contents of the small unsightly volume were to be the rough outline of a plan which, in its completion, has become a blessing for numbers of his fellow-creatures who, laboring under more or less grievous disease, were restored to the full possession of bodily health and mental vigor; for as soon as the author in this early period of his life had experienced the salutary effects of water, it seemed but natural to his noble heart to make as many as possible partakers of the benefit he then enjoyed in the sense of undisturbed health. Since his endeavors in this respect had for their sole objects the glory of God and the good of poor sufferers, since he sought neither honor nor any other earthly reward, he was well armed against the temptation to give up a work which, besides adding considerably to the exertions imposed on him by his sacred office, earned for him much contradiction and ingratitude."The Kneipp-Cure" is not only a fantastic read, but for many sick people a way into a much brighter and healthier future. This book is illustrated.

PART I. WATER APPLICATIONS.

GENERAL REMARKS.

THE applications of water used in my establishment and described in this first part, are divided into:

Wet sheets,

Baths,

Vapor baths,

Gushes,

Ablutions,

Wet bandages (packages),

Drinking of water.

The subdivisions of each application are given in the first index. The name and the meaning of strange sounding practices are explained in their proper place. The applications of water tend to the triple aim:

1) To dissolve,

2) to evacuate the morbid matters, and

3) to strengthen the organism.

In general it may be said that the dissolving is brought about by the vapors and the hot baths of medicinal herbs; the evacuation by the water packages and partly by the gushes and wet sheets; the strengthening by the cold baths, gushes, partly by the ablutions, and finally by the entire system of hardening.

I cannot and will net give particulars here in order to avoid misunderstanding.

As every disease originates as previously stated in disorders of the blood, it is evident that in every ease of dis ease all the respective applications must be used more or less dissolving, evacuating and strengthening; further, that not only the suffering part, foot, or hand, or head, as the case may be, is to be treated, but always the whole body through every part of which the bad blood is flowing: of course the diseased part with preference, the rest of the body only as fellow-sufferer. It would be partial and wrong to act otherwise with regard to these two important points. Many instances in the third part of this book will justify my statement.

Whoever uses the water as a remedy, according to my ideas and wishes, will never think the applications to be for his own whims, i.e. he never will use an application just because he likes to do so; he will never, like a fool, take pleasure in being able to "handle, and boast of, and to rave about many things, about vapors and gushes and packages." To a sensible man the applications will always be only the means for the purpose, and if he attain it by the mildest water-application, he will be happy; for his task is only this: to help nature struggling for health, i.e. for her own and independent activity; to obtain this activity, to loosen the fetters of illness, the chains of suffering, and to enable nature to do the work herself again, unprevented, gaily and cheerfully. Is this task finished, the treatment must cease. This remark is important, more important still to observe it. For there is nothing which so greatly brings the water as healing element into miscredit and bad reputation, as to make applications in an indiscreet way without measure and reason, a sharp, strict, rugged proceeding. Those, and only those, I cannot repeat it enough, who consider themselves to be competent in the system of water-cures, but frighten every patient by their endless packages, their vapors almost driving out the blood, etc., are causing the greatest harm, which it is very difficult to mend. I do not call this using the water for healing, but such outrages — I beg pardon for the expression — I call putting the water to shame.

Whoever has a knowledge of the effects of water, and knows how to use it in its extremely manifold ways, is in possession of a remedy which cannot he surpassed by any other, whatever its name may be. There is no remedy more manifold in its effects, or as it were, more elastic than the water. In creation it begins in the invisible globule of air or steam, continues in the drop, and finally forms the ocean tilling up the greater part of the globe.

This ought to serve as a hint to every water-curist to show him that every application of water can lie raised from the gentlest to the highest degree, and that in each case it is not the patient who ought to accommodate himself to the package, the vapor, etc., but every application is to be accommodated to the patient.

It is in the selection of the applications to be used that the master-hand shows itself. The one who undertakes the cure will carefully examine the patient, but not in a startling way. At first the subordinate sufferings will come under his notice, i.e. those diseases which like toadstools, spring up from the interior ground of disease. By them one can, in most cases, easily conclude, where the roots of the disease, the principal evil, is to be found. By means of questioning and searching he will find what progress the disease has already made, what mischief it has done; then it must be taken into consideration, whether the patient is old or young, weak or strong, thin or stout, poor of blood, nervous, etc. All these points, and others besides, give to the mind of him who undertakes the cure, the right picture of the disease; and it is only then, when this is clear and complete, that he goes to the water-apotheca and prescribes according to the principle: The gentler and more sparing, — the better and more effective.

A few general remarks may be given here, regarding the whole of the water-applications. —

No application whatever can cause the least harm, if it is made according to the directions given.

Most of them are to be made with cold water, either from the spring, well, or river. In all cases where warm water is not expressly prescribed, the word "water" stands for and means cold water. I follow my principle founded on experience; The colder, the better. In wintertime I mix snow with the water for gushes when they arc for healthy people. Do not accuse me of ruggedness; for, think of the very short duration of my cold-water-applications. He who has once ventured to make a trial has conquered forever; all his prejudices are entirely removed.

But I am not, nevertheless, inexorable. To beginners in the water-cure, to weak persons, especially very young or very old ones, to sick people who are afraid of a cold, to such as have not much warmth in their blood, whose blood is poor, or who are nervous, I gladly allow, especially in winter-time, a warm room for their baths and pushes (65 degrees) for the beginning, and lukewarm water for every application. Flies are to be attracted not by salt and vinegar, hut by honey.

There are special prescriptions for every warm-water application respecting the degree of warmth, the time, etc.

Regarding the cold-water applications, we must briefly give some hints for regulating the course of action observed before, during and after the application. (In the third part this point is often dwelt upon.)

No one should venture to make any cold application, whatever, when feeling; cold, shivering, etc., unless it is expressly allowed in the prescription relating to his case. The applications are to be made as quickly as possible, but without agitation and haste; also with dressing and undressing no delay should be cause...

Table of contents

• PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
• TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
• PREFACE TO THE FIRST GERMAN EDITION.
• PREFACE TO THE FIFTIETH GERMAN EDITION.
• INTRODUCTION.
• PART I. WATER APPLICATIONS.
• PART II. APOTHECA.
• CONTENTS OF A LITTLE HOME-APOTHECA.
• PART III. DISEASES
• THE GUSHES