Hydrotherapy, or Hydropathy as it was previously known, being the therapeutic use of water of various temperatures to support health, has a long history, much of which is not recorded. The use of hydrotherapy is thought to date back to ancient times and there are records of hydrotherapy being used in the ancient Indian tradition of Ayurveda as well as by the Greeks and Romans. Hippocrates referred to the effects of different temperatures of the body in his writings (Kellogg,1903), stating that a “cold bath warms the body by reaction and a warm bath cools it”. While hydrotherapy has fallen out of popular therapeutic usage in the modern world, beyond the traditional use of saunas and similar applications, at various points in the 19th and 20th century it was being used to successfully treat a huge number of people, particularly in Austria, Germany and the United States. In this article, I will briefly review the most important figures in the recent history and development of hydrotherapy.
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The more recent history of the development of hydrotherapy can be traced back to the publication of “The History of Cold Bathing” by Sir John Floyer in England in 1679. This was later translated into German and became the catalyst for some significant developments in hydrotherapy in Germany and Austria in the 18th century. Within the UK, hydrotherapy continued to be in use, most notably written about by the founder of the Methodist church, John Wesley, who penned “Primitive Physick” in 1747, a work which included the usage of herbs and folk remedies alongside water treatments (Sharma, 2019).
Moving across into Austria, where the family of medical doctors, the Hahns (Johann Hahn (1696-1773) alongside his father and brother), are assumed to have been influenced by the translation of Floyer’s work. They began to introduce various hydrotherapy techniques into their practice with success in the treatment of both acute and chronic cases (Sharma, 2019, Boyle, 1988). It wasn’t until the next century, however, that hydrotherapy begun to become much more widely known. This was thanks to the work of Vincent Priessnitz (1799-1852), also based in the same region of Austria, Silesia. Despite not being medically trained, Priessnitz became so famous from his therapeutic use of water that the Austrian government built new roads in order to facilitate the huge numbers of people visiting his clinic. Such was Priessnitz’s success with hydrotherapy that the government even gave a special authorisation fr this untrained practitioner to carry out his treatments. Priessnitz’s approach relied upon the use of cold water, in combination with adjustments to the diet, as well as an emphasis on rest and exercise, but he did also utilise the combination of sweating treatments with cold water (Boyle, 1988). Priessnitz trained many practitioners in his water treatment, the most notable being J. H. Rausse (1805-1848) who published “The Water Cure Applied to Every Known Disease”. Rausse later wrote another work under a pseudonym where he respectfully criticised Priessnitz, emphasising the importance of personalised treatment taking the individual into account (Boyle, 1988).
After Priessnitz, the next most influential figure in the development of hydrotherapy was Father Sebastian Kneipp (1821-1897). Kneipp was initially not permitted to join the priesthood due to his poor health (due to tuberculosis). However, after finding a book about water cure by Dr Johann Hahn, he successfully cured himself through the use of water treatments, primarily through swimming in the Danube daily and adjustments to his diet. While his progress was initially slow, he did succeed in restoring his health and was permitted to train as a priest (Sharma, 2019). Upon becoming a priest, he begun to instruct his congregation on his nature cure methods and rapidly became well-known, eventually even internationally. His methods were based upon hydrotherapy techniques, but he also integrated the use of herbs, exercise, nutrition and diet (Sharma, 2019). Kneipp treated nobility and even Pope Leo XIII. People travelled to see him to get well and learn about his methods from all over the globe and in this way, Kneipp became one of the most influential practitioners in the development of not just hydrotherapy but the wider practice of naturopathy too. To this day, the Kneipp spa still runs in Bad Worishofen in Germany, but as we will see below, his influence soon extended outside of Germany and across the globe (Sharma, 2019).
Kneipp’s students were amongst some of the most influential and important figures in the development of naturopathy and the spreading of hydrotherapy knowledge into the United States and other countries. Some of the most notable include Henry Lindlahr (1852-1925), who Kneipp cured of diabetes, Benedict Lust (1872-1943), who Kneipp authorised to spread his water cure to the United States (Lust went on to found the American Naturopathic Association). Also Henry Lahn, whose student, O. G. Carroll (1879-1962), continued the development of hydrotherapy to a new level with his constitutional treatment (Sharma, 2019).
Before discussing the work of O. G. Carroll, we must also mention Wilhelm Winternitz (1834-1912), who wrote over 200 articles and book about hydrotherapy and its applications. Winternitz is credited as being the man who established that hydrotherapy techniques affect the body through the action of the central nervous system (Sharma, 2019). The research of Wilhelm Winternitz is thought to have influenced his friend, famous naturopath, John Harvey Kellogg, who credited Winternitz as being the “greatest living authority on hydrotherapy” (Kellogg, 1903).
O. G. Carroll (1879-1962) was initially cured of rheumatic fever and juvenile arthritis and later trained by Alex LeDoux, a student of Kneipp. He went on to develop his own technique which he called Constitutional Hydrotherapy. During the 1930s and 1940s, he was the busiest health practitioner of any kind in the United States, likely due to the efficacy of his hydrotherapy methods which he established in 1923 and did not change again for the remainder of his life (Boyle, 1988). He also treated Lust, Lindlahr and Kellogg’s wife at various points in his practice. One of the most famous naturopaths of the 20th century, Dr John Bastyr, who also established the famous Bastyr University, also studied with Dr Carroll after Carroll was able to cure many of the patients that he could not (Boyle, 1988).
Are you interested in a holistic approach to health and nutrition that incorporates naturopathic hydrotherapy? Read about my programs here.
While I have only mentioned a small number of people in this short article, the history of the development of hydrotherapy has been influenced by a great number of practitioners, both lay and medical. At its height, this practice included a wide range of internal and external applications of different water temperatures and pressures to specific parts of the body, and even the additional use of herbs and sine wave electric treatments in Carroll’s Constitutional Hydrotherapy. More details on the specifics and mechanisms of action of hydrotherapy are covered in the next article, here.
References and further reading
Boyle, W, Saine, A, 1988, Lectures in Naturopathic Hydrotherapy, Eclectic Medical
Publications, Oregon, USA
Kellogg, J, 1903, Rational Hydrotherapy, F. A. Davis Co. Philadelphia, USA
Kniepp, Sebastian, My Water Cure
Sharma, Mary, 2019, Naturopathy Course Notes: Module 9 Hydrotherapy, School of
Health, Stroud, UK
