SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited by Deborah Madsen):

This is primarily a compilation of extant writings on hydropathy or the water-cure. Much of the content is drawn from the work of Vincenz Priessnitz. Early in the Preface to the First Edition, which is included in the four subsequent editions, Shew notes some of the water-cure's most important principles and practices. In addition to the various applications of water, these include: abstention from all “vile narcotics and stimulants” (iv), exercise, and fresh air. The Preface to the Second Edition, also included in later editions, adds proper “diet” and “clothing” (ix). Shew defends the water-cure method against accusations of quackery (iv-vii), and in twenty chapters he provides a short history of the applications of water in medical treatment, the theory, principle, and processes of the water-cure, and a large number of case studies.

Regarding diet, Shew advocates abstention from all animal foods as the best possible therapy. However, he quotes the advice of John Floyer, an early practitioner of the water-cure avant la lettre, that a gradualist approach would “abstain from excess in animal food [... and] not to use hot things, high sauces, brandy, spirits, fermented liquors, salt, meat, spices, tea, coffee, and chocolate” (25-26). The gradualist approach to cases of illness, requires abstention from “animal food, other than preparations of milk, or cream, which is generally better and less feverish than flesh” though he underlines the fact that “in many cases, it is believed, [these] are better omitted – for they are more feverish and exciting than the mild preparations of farinaceous food” (318). Frugality and simplicity are important; thus, fasting is often an aspect of the treatments described in the book.