SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen):

As suggested by the title, this short summary of the most important arguments in favor of the water-cure is organized as a series of questions followed by answers. The text explicitly links happiness to health, and proposes “pure nutrition” as one of the conditions of good health (5). Pure nutrition is, in turn, “[t]he result of a proper diet, a good digestion, pure respiration, an active circulation, and healthy secretions.” A proper diet consists of “farinacea – as wheat, corn, rice, oats, rye, barley, &c.; fruit – as apples, pears, peaches, plums, grapes, berries, &c.; and vegetables – as beans, peas, potatoes, turnips, tomatoes, squashes, &c.” (5). In other words, the proper diet is a fully vegan diet. Such a diet is superior to a diet containing animal products, because it is more nourishing and “best adapted to the anatomical structure, physiological condition, and natural tastes of man” (5). An “impure or excessive diet” is to be avoided, particularly the use of “poisons of every kind, such as tea, coffee, tobacco, brandy, opium, drugs taken as medicines, and all abuses of the generative function [i.e., sex]” (6). Meat “is always impure, from the presence of excrementitious matter” and “is often diseased” (5). In all its aspects and practices, particularly in its varied internal and external applications of cold water, but also in its dietary prescriptions, the aim of the water-cure is “purification” so that “[g]eneral health, prosperity and happiness” may be attained (6).