[Life at the Water-Cure; or, a Month at Malvern. A Diary. By Richard J. Lane. London: 1846.]

In the biographies of the Seven Sages of Greece, some interesting incidents have escaped even the discursive and vigilant erudition of Bayle. All of these worthies, in fact, being original members and perpetual vice-presidents of the Fogie Club, they were, naturally, as prosy octogenarians as the amber of history ever preserved for the admiration of posterity. But Thales of Miletus we imagine to have easily outstripped his six compeers in soporific garrulity; because an author whose name, while it would be Greek to the illiterate, is sufficiently familiar, without being mentioned, to the scholar, and who flourished long enough after the people of whom he speaks to give weight to his statements, has particularly recorded, that the Ionic philosopher was universally called by his friends, behind his back, “Old Hygrostroma.” This euphonical and distinctive epithet we have discovered, by dint of deep study, to mean, very literally, “Old Wet-Blanket.” Assigning an equal value to ancient and modern phraseology, the portrait of the Milesian, so characterised, wears an ugly aspect. Our own martyrdom, under the relentless persecutions of his legitimate successors, concentrates, by an instinctive process of mental association, all their worst features in the single physiognomy of their prototype. How many luxuriant posies of fancy and humour, ready to burst into brilliant blossom, have irrecoverably drooped—how many

of refreshing a laborious day by the evening carnival of nonsense—how many glorious “high jinks,” infandum renovare dolorem, have been stifled—beneath the dank suffocation of this water-kelpy of social enjoyment! It is proper, therefore, in order to be just, to ascertain whether the stigma which Thales carried about with him can be traced to the same causes which hang similar labels round the necks of men in our own day, or whether a term of reproach or of ridicule may not here, as in many other instances, have been widely diverted from, or excessively aggravated in, its original signification.

Now, it happened that the mind of the wise man was filled by a crotchet, which absorbed all other ideas. He announced to the world that water is the primal element, the essence, the seed, the embryo of all matter. Every thing, throughout the whole area of the universe, however ponderous or substantial, however complex or varied, was not merely evolved from the liquid laboratory, but was actually part and parcel of the radical fluid itself. Earth and fire, the azure heaven and the golden stars, marble and brass, birds and beasts, fruits and flowers, ay, men and women, were dew-drops, in different phases of configuration, and different stages of condensation. Such a doctrine, inculcated with endless iteration and intolerable prolixity, could not but exhaust the patience of the gay and dissipated Ionians, whose habits, we know, were far from being circumscribed by the rules and regulations of a total abstinence society. And although, even when the topic had become nauseously stale, a little hilarity might be excited by the old gentleman falling easily into the trap, and answering in harmony with his favourite theory, when tauntingly asked, if the glowing forms before him, whose witchery of grace had passed into a proverb, were indeed emanations from the muddy MÆander; or if the neighbouring Latmus, where

was no more than a pitcherful of the Ægean; or if the pyramids, whose altitude he had measured for the wondering priests of Isis, were but bubbles of the Nile. Still the echo of the merriment thus provoked was faint and feeble beside the vociferous uproar which shook the voluptuous chambers when young Anaximander, in whom Thales fondly thought he saw a disciple, ere yet the shadow of his deluded master had glided over the threshold, filled a ruddy bumper to the brim, and dashed down with a shout his libation to Bacchus, in thankfulness that at last they were rid of “Hygrostroma.” Flesh and blood could not bear for ever “the dreadful noise of water in their ears;” and so, most deservedly and fitly, Thales got the name of “Wet-Blanket,” and bequeathed it, we regret to acknowledge, to an infinite line of descendants, who, in dealing with other themes, daily and hourly, after their own fashion, stabilitate and eclipse his renown.

From the days of Thales, which may be fixed, according to the nicest calculations, about four-and-twenty hundred years ago, water was generally understood to have found its level. Occasionally, no doubt, it made vigorous spurts to revindicate its prominency, but never mounted to the alarming flood-mark which it had reached in the Ionic philosophy. It certainly has had little reason to complain of the position from which it cannot be displaced. Covering entirely three-fifths of the surface of the globe, few are the specks of land, and these few shunned by man, where its influence is not paramount. Permeating the vast economy of nature through its grandest and its minutest ramifications; nursing from its myriad fountains and reservoirs the vitality of creation; affecting and controlling the salubrity of climates, the purity and temperature of atmospheres, the fertility of soils; moistening the parched lips, and requickening the energies of vegetation; bearing all the necessaries and all the luxuries of life, all that industry can furnish or opulence procure, into the centre of immense continents, and up to the doors of populous cities; generating, with the help of a strong ally, the most gigantic power which human ingenuity has ever tamed to the uses, and comforts, and improvements of mankind; rolling the rampart of its sleepless tides round the shores and the independence of mighty empires, and stretching out its broad waters as the highway of amicable intercourse between all nations, this colossal and beneficent element needs not to aspire higher than the eminence where it must be raised by such a contemplation of its virtues and its strength. Regarding it, however, with a homelier eye, we cannot conceal our opinion that too many men, women, and children, have underrated its serviceable qualities in connexion with their personal and domestic welfare. Nor shall our observations, desultory as they may be, conclude without some serious reflections on this subject, applicable to our own country and our own times; for even in the relaxing warmth and idlesse of autumn, when nothing very grave is very palatable, we must coax our friends to swallow a thin slice of instruction along with our jests and their grouse. But in the mean time, casting a rapid glance from the Ionian era, whence we started, downwards to the present century, over the aquatic propensities which have distinguished successive generations in the intervening ages, it can scarcely be affirmed with truth that the efficacy of water, as an useful, agreeable, and a sanative boon from Providence to man, has been neglected and despised. The Greeks, the Romans, and the Orientals require no justification. Their bathing, shampooing, and anointing have survived the downfall of thrones and the extinction of dynasties. And if the inhabitants of less benign regions, who must sometimes smash the ice in their tubs before commencing a lavation, do not evince the same headlong predilection for continual immersion and ceaseless ablution as do their kindred of the genial South and blazing East, we confess that their apology seems to us to be remarkably clear and satisfactory. What do we think of Scotland?—is a query from which a sensitive patriotism, perhaps, might shrink. It does not abash us at all. All ducklings do not plunge into the pond or the stream exactly at the same age—one exhibiting, in this respect, a rash precocity, while another will for a long time obstinately refuse to acknowledge that

Had Caledonia been as tardy as she is alleged to have been in the practice of scrupulous cleanliness, we should easily have found good reasons for defending and palliating her procrastination. But the charge against her is absolutely a vulgar error—a popular delusion—a senseless clamour. Take the country. Is it likely that the national poet, who knew the customs and dispositions of our peasantry, being one of them himself, intimately and practically, would have enumerated among the dearest reminiscences of childhood, that

if such an occupation were not the delight of the whole rural population? Take the town. Does there ever come down a torrent of rain, making the streets the channels of mighty rivers, that there is not seen instantly a colony of young Argonauts emerging, like flies from the Tweed, out of the very water, and exploring the unknown profundities of the gutter, as from lamp-post to lamp-post they go, “sounding on their dim and perilous way?” Take every well-regulated family on Saturday night. Where is the fortunate urchin who shall escape the rude purgation of the Girzy, nor be sent to bed red as a lobster, and clean as a whistle? Take the far-reaching seabeach from Newhaven to Joppa. Are those tremendous scenes which have lately riveted the gaze of a whole country on the sands of Portobello characteristic of a people animated by a feline antipathy to moisture? The verdict is so unquestionably for us, that we decline to adduce any further evidence.

In short, Europe continued to maintain most amicable relations, while Asia cultivated the closest intimacy with water, hot and cold, fresh and salt. America is too young yet to be included in the argument; and as for Africa, crocodiles, hippopotami, and sharks, usurp a monopoly of the favourite pools so exclusively, that the returns of its bathing statistics are most uncertain. In this course, matters ran on smoothly for cycles and cycles of years, races of men following races, as waves follow waves. Any perceptible alteration in the relative positions of man and water, at the same time, was in the direction of stricter and more frequent communication between them. Cleanliness became fashionable—an event which, without snapping the connexion somewhat loosely subsisting between the purifying element and the inferior grades of society, rapidly and widely diffused a knowledge of its capabilities and its amiabilities among the higher circles. Well, on the dawn of a glorious morning, when the sun, and all the seas, lakes, and rivers of the globe were playing at battledore and shuttle-cock with the beams of the orb of day, water suddenly found itself, at a bound, lifted to a pinnacle only a little beneath the summit on which Thales of yore enthroned it. Matter, on this occasion, it was not announced to be—but the cure of all the afflictions with which matter could be visited. Ten thousand aromatic herbs gracefully adjusted their petals, ere they fell, and withered into rank and noisome weeds; ten thousand apothecaries were petrified in the act of braying poison in their mortars, and in that attitude remain, stony remembrances of their own villanies; physicians melted away by faculties and colleges;

walked once more emancipated, as Milton sings,

Numerous are the blunders under which humanity has reposed in incurious apathy. The sun gamboled round the earth so long, that, when they changed places and motions, the denizens at that moment of our planet were cheated out of several days in their sublunary or circumsolar career. What was that mistake in comparison with the disastrous error of having for centuries obdurately turned their backs on the inexhaustible laboratory in which alone health could be bought, and perversely purchased destruction from a series of quacks, whose infinite retails had caused more wholsale ruin than the pernicious wrath of Pelides? “Look here upon this picture and on this.” Declining to accede to the unpleasant request we hurry to another phenomenon. The inestimable discovery of the Water-Cure has proved the posthumous triumph of Old Hygrostroma. Instead of being a damper to good-fellowship, the wet-blanket is synonimous with, and symbolical, and productive of all that is vivacious, hilarious, obstreperous, and jolly. A dozen of champagne is not an equivalent for the “Sheet;” and when you are once properly “packed,” by the mere flow of your animal spirits, and a tumbler of pure spring water, you shall “sew up” the most potential toper and wit, whose facetiousness grows with the consumption of his wine.

Here we perceive that our readers, by an unmistakeable twitch of the muscles of the face, intimate their suspicions that our fidelity to the water system is impeachable. An explanatory sentence is unavoidable. In the month of August, we are always like Napoleon at Elba, confident of the incorruptible attachment of our adherents, but at a considerable distance from every one of them—certain of re-assuming, in undiminished splendour, and amidst thunders of acclamation, our undisputed sway on the first of September, but much at a loss a week before our return to find a bark, however frail, in which to trust our fortunes—projecting stupendous expeditions with invincible armies, and, in the meanwhile, possessing not even a recruit from the awkward squad to put through his facings. The days were insufferably hot or unmitigably rainy. Nobody cared about news, nor did anybody send us grouse. The Benledi steamboat was stranded with a broken back on a rock of the Fifeshire coast; and harrowing paragraphs represented all the railways in every direction as strewed with the “disjecta membra” of ill-fated travellers. The thunder and lightning deafened and blinded us, while the absence of all companionship reduced us to compulsory dumbness. In this torpor of the soul and confusion of the intellect, looking up with a vacant stare to the cupola, on which the firmament was playing with inimitable rapidity a fierce prelude, we were startled by the appearance of Mr Lane’s elegant and agreeable volume. It found us in no very consecutive or severely logical mood. The engravings were amusing—the writing was pleasant. Having skimmed the contents with our customary velocity, we flung ourselves back upon the downy slopes of our autumn ottoman, and poured forth the rhapsody which has bewildered our friends. It could not well be otherwise. There was such implicit faith in Mr Lane—in union with so much good feeling and good sense—pleading his case so fervently—interesting us so much in himself, his illness and his recovery, his relapses and his mendings, his packing and scrubbing, his company and his talk, his walks and his rides, his digestions and reflections, and leaving us in the end so little convinced of the unquestionable superiority of the treatment which had bettered him, and no doubt many others, that, assured of there being nothing new under the sun, we took our flight back into the olden times to recall, if we could, when water ever aspired so loftily before in popular estimation. Icarus-like, we dropped into the bosom of the Ægean, and were dragged up opportunely by the phantom of Thales at Miletus.

Captivating, we admit, is the notion that water cures all diseases. There is a grandeur in the simplicity, and a rapture in the tastelessness of such a medicine, which its motley competitors cannot approach. Did any one ever see physic, which, by its appearance, infused love for it at first sight, and a vehement longing to swallow it? Revolve how endless in variety of colour and substance are the contents of a medicine-chest, and confess that you have not been able to look at one of them with satisfaction. The mature mind recoils from terrible reminiscences; and at the apparition of some single phial, a hideous congregation of detestable tastes, starting from the crevices of memory, will rush into the palate, and resuscitate the forgotten tortures and trials of infancy and boyhood. To be spared all this were “a consummation devoutly to be wished.” To know that no shock sharper than the douche, and no draught more nauseous than half-a-dozen tumblers of water, should ever, at the doctors hand, visit or wrack the frame might subdue the refractory temper of patients. To throw physic to the dogs, and be cleansed of all perilous stuff by a currycomb and a pail, might reconcile us to be assimilated to the horse. But alas! what do we discern in man, “the paragon of animals,” which will entitle us to conclude that his innumerable bodily frailties can be so overcome or expelled?

Happy and painful experiences unite to prove it. It has cost the labour and the zeal, the intense concentration of the undivided energies, and, in memorable instances, the very lives of the erudite and the ingenious, the sagacious and the daring, engaged in an incalculable multiplicity of investigations, experiments, and observations, in all ages and in all countries, to explore, and test, and confirm what is valuable, trustworthy, and stable, in medical science. Even to-day it may be urged that much is still obscure, indefinite, unsteady, and liable to be overturned and dismissed by the clearer illumination of to-morrow. Be it so. But, in spite of all the lengths to which the objection can be pushed, there remain two points irrefragably settled in medicine. First of all, there are certain remedies ascertained, beyond the shadow of a doubt, to act efficaciously on certain diseases. In the second place—and by far the most important truth for us in this discussion—no one specific remedy has ever been discovered which applies efficaciously to all diseases, nor to the overwhelming majority, nay, nor to any majority of all diseases. A period of ten years never elapses without such a panacea being broached, paraded, and extinguished. The “impar congressus Achillei” is made manifest in every case. At the outset, accordingly, an advertisement of the Cold Water-Cure as a specific brands it with a suspicion which has never been false before. To affirm that, from Galen to Abernethy, a veil of impenetrable ignorance shrouded the vision of all physicians, which prevented them from picking up the truth lying at their feet, is not to be more arrogant than Holloway’s ointment, or Morrison’s pills. It is, however, to offer a statement for our acceptation which common sense and the practical testimony of more than two thousand years simultaneously reject. The question truly deserves no argument. The publication of the discovery of a panacea is sufficient. The remedy, whatever it is, cannot be what it pretends to be; although it may be worse or better than it is generally supposed to be. Those who have been restored to convalescence, to buoyancy of spirits, and agility of limbs, by cold water, are at perfect liberty to abjure and denounce all other cures. But the chasm in the reasoning is a yawning one, over which an adventurous leap must be taken, to stand firm on the other side upon the conclusion that what cured Richard of dyspepsia will deliver Thomas from typhus.

It is not incumbent on us to enumerate Mr Lane’s ailments. Blue pill and black draught, taraxacum and galvanism, were successively repelled by the stubborn enemy, whose entrenchments were to be neither sapped nor stormed. In a lucky hour, “an intimate friend of Sir E. Bulwer Lytton detailed, with generous eloquence, the great results of the Water-Cure in many cases; and his own characteristic benevolence prompted him to press upon me, as a duty, the visit of a month to Malvern.” So there he goes. “The drive from Worcester to Malvern is not marked by any particular beauty, except the occasional glimpses of the hills, and the constant succession of rich orchards, at this time luxuriant in apple blossoms.” The trifling exception to the monotony of the landscape, which does not escape his notice, almost suggests the possibility of the patient being a little better already.

“Here I am in the temple dedicated to Dame Nature and the Elixir VitÆ. The Doctor not at home, but a message that we are expected at a pic-nic at St Anne’s Well. Too tired to go, we went to our comfortable double-bedded room, and, being refreshed, waited for the Doctor, who soon returned, and severely scrutinized me. He found my boy in exactly the state which he had expected, and rubbed his hands with delight in anticipation of the change to be wrought in him. To me he boldly said, ‘Give me a month, and I will teach you to manage yourself at home.’ At supper (eight o’clock) we were presented to our fellow patients, all graciously and gracefully welcoming the new-comers. This is the final meal of the day, consisting of bread in many varieties, butter, and biscuits, with bottles of water and jugs of milk. Tea, although allowed in some cases, is not encouraged. The house overlooks the beautiful Abbey church. The monks always knew how to avail themselves of the charms of situation; sheltered by the hills, and yet overlooking the extensive plain, and receiving the first rays of the sun—nothing could be more lovely.

“Doctor examined and asked me divers questions, and then gave his orders to the bath attendant. To bed at ten.”

The compliment to the discrimination of the monks might not be inappropriately transferred to Dr Wilson. There are more things in the Water-Cure than cold water, and more than the body frequently morbid or ill at ease in the visitors to Malvern. Lovely scenery is wholesome food for a depressed mind.

“May 14.—At a little before seven came the bath attendant. He poured about four inches depth of water into a tin bath, five feet long, and directed me to get out of bed and sit in it. He then poured about two gallons of water on my head, and commenced a vigorous rubbing, in which I assisted. This is called THE SHALLOW BATH. After three or four minutes, I got out of the bath, and he enveloped me in a dry sheet, rubbing me thoroughly. All this friction produced an agreeable glow, and the desire to dress quickly and get into the air was uppermost. The same process was repeated with Ned; and, having each taken a tumbler of water, we started to mount the hill. I got as far as St Anne’s Well, with Ned’s help, and, drinking there, sauntered about the exquisite terrace walks on the hill. The fountain of St Anne’s Well is constantly flowing, and though varying in quantity, has never failed. I am told that the water is at nearly the same temperature in summer as in winter. In sparkling brilliancy, as well as purity, it is confessedly unrivalled even at Malvern, except by the water of the ‘Holy Well.’ A cottage, beautifully situated in the hollow of this eminence, encloses the fountain, where it escapes from the rock; the chief apartment of which is free, and open to all who wish to drink; but it is good taste to put down a half-crown upon the first visit, and inscribe a name in the book, which (with a ready pen) is also ‘open to all.’ From this cottage, which is I found a favourite place of rendezvous, paths lead by various routes to the highest hill called the Worcestershire Beacon, and the other commanding heights. We shall see, I trust.

“Another glass of this exquisite water, and home to breakfast at nine. Several sorts of bread (all in perfection) and excellent butter; bottles of the brightest water and tumblers duly arranged on the table; jugs of milk for those who like it, and to whom it is allowed. One jug smokes, and the well-known fragrant flavour soon suggests to the nose tea! Surely this is irregular, or why the disguise? Why not a teapot?

“The Doctor took his seat at the head of the table. In the place of honour on his left was the patient whose longest stay in the house entitled her to the distinction. (I afterwards found that precedence at table is arranged by this rule, subject to the intermixture of the gentlemen.) She is eminently gifted to grace her position, being more than pretty, and with tongue and manner to match. Next to her is a gentleman of a dissenting expression of countenance, then another pretty woman, a young man of distinguished manners, and another very pretty woman, who, unlike the two fair patients above her, is dark in all that beautifies a brilliant complexion.

“Skipping over the gentleman on her left, because on this first morning I found nothing to remark upon, I come to my vis-À-vis, with her kindly and companionable expression (I am sure I shall like her;) and having mentioned our present stock of ladies on the opposite side, the lower part of the table is made up of gentlemen, one of whom presides at that end. On my side of the table, the upper seat is generally reserved for a visitor. I am happy to find in the whole party nothing distressing to look at: no lameness, no appearance of skin diseases, no sign-post or label to proclaim an aliment, no sore eyes, no ‘eyesore;’ nothing, in short, worse than an occasional pallid or invalid character, like my own; and I am told that all who have any palpable or disagreeable infirmity, are treated as out-door patients, which wholesome regulation gives full play to the proverbially high spirits of hydropathists, who almost immediately jump from a state of dejection and perverse brooding over their ailments, to a joyous anticipation of good, even on the first day of initiation into the treatment. The appetite, too, is always ready for the simple, wholesome meal. Nobody ever enjoyed a well-earned breakfast more than I on this morning.”

The gentleman “of a dissenting expression of countenance,” of whom we desiderate a drawing, seems the only bit of shade in this bright scene. We have quoted, without abridgment, the description of the company at the table, as not unimportant, alongside of the hilarity of hydropathists, who jump from grave to gay, “even on the first day of initiation into the treatment.” Mr Lane will understand that we do not at all doubt his account of his illness. He must not quarrel with us for remarking that simple fare, regular diet, agreeable society, lots of laughing and talking, bathing and shampooing, bracing exercise, and enchanting natural prospects, appear admirably adapted to reinvigorate the invalids to whom we have been introduced. It would surprise us to be informed that the process had any where failed; and, as far as we can judge, the prescription of the regular practitioner in London would, without much hesitation, be in similar cases—“Go to Malvern for a month.” Shower-baths and douches, too, may be had in the Great Babylon, but not exactly the refreshing concomitants so vividly brought before us by Mr Lane. Suppose we take a peep at a hydropathist’s dinner:—

“At the head of the table, where the Doctor presides, was the leg of mutton, which, I believe, is every day’s head-dish. I forget what Mrs Wilson dispensed, but it was something savoury, of fish. I saw veal cutlets—with bacon, and a companion dish, maccaroni—with gravy (a very delicate concoction): potatoes, plain boiled, or mashed and browned; spinach, and other green vegetables. Then followed rice pudding, tapioca, or some other farinacious ditto, rhubarb tarts, &c. So much for what I have heard of the miserable diet of water patients. The cooking of all is perfection, and something beyond, in Neddy’s opinion, for he eats fat!

“After dinner, the ladies did not immediately retire, but made up groups for conversation, both in the dining and withdrawing room. A most happy arrangement this, which admits the refreshing influence of the society of ladies in such a house.

“A drive had been proposed, and, by the invitation of two of the ladies, I joined the party.

“Through picturesque lanes, we went to Madresfield Court, the seat of Lord Beauchamp (Ned on the box.) We saw the exquisite conservatories, the grapes in succession houses, and pineries. The principal furniture in this house—carpets, tapestry, &c.—were placed exactly as they now appear, more than fifty years ago. It is a very romantic place, abounding in a great variety of trees of magnificent growth.

“We returned soon after seven, when I prepared to take my first Sitz bath. It is not disagreeable, but very odd, and exhibits the patient in by no means an elegant or dignified attitude.

“For this bath it is not necessary to undress, the coat only being taken off, and the shirt gathered under the waistcoat, which is buttoned upon it; and when seated in the water, which rises to the waist, a blanket is drawn round, and over the shoulders.

“Having remained ten minutes in this condition (Ned and I being on equal terms, and laughing at each other), we dried and rubbed ourselves with coarse towels, and descended to supper with excellent appetite.”

Shall we alter or modify our observations, in consequence of this extract? Not pausing for a reply, we wish to explain, that, in hydropathical nomenclature, to be “half-packed” is to be put to bed, with a wet towel placed over you, extending from shoulders to knees, and enveloped with all the blankets, and a down-bed, with a counterpane to tuck all in, and make it air-tight. Here is complete “packing.”

“May 15.—It was not the experience of the half packing that caused me to awake early, but a certain dread in anticipation of the whole wet sheet; and at six the bath attendant appeared with what seemed a coil of linen cable, and a gigantic can of water, and it was some comfort to pretend not to be in the least degree apprehensive. I was ordered out of bed, and all the clothes taken off. Two blankets were then spread upon the mattress, and half over the pillow, and the wet sheet unfolded and placed upon them.

“Having stretched my length upon it and lying on my back, the man quickly and most adroitly folded it—first on one side and then on the other, and closely round the neck, and the same with the two blankets, by which time I was warm, and sufficiently composed to ask how the sheet was prepared of the proper degree of dampness. [I was told that being soaked well, it is held by two persons—one at each end, and pulled and twisted until water has ceased to drop; or that it may be done by one person putting it round the pump-handle, or any similar thing, and holding and twisting it at both ends.] Two more doubled blankets were then put upon me, and each in turn tucked most carefully round the neck, and under me. Upon this the down bed was placed, and over all another sheet or counterpane was secured at all sides and under the chin, to complete this hermetical sealing. By this time I was sure of being fast asleep in five minutes, and only anxious to see Ned as comfortable, for he was regarding the operation with silent horror. He, however, plucked up, and before Bardon (the attendant) had swathed him completely, favoured me with his opinion, conveyed in accents in which a slight tremor might be detected, that ‘packing is jolly.’”

“What occurred during a full hour after this operation neither man nor boy were in a situation to depose, beyond the fact that the sound, sweet, soothing sleep which both enjoyed, was a matter of surprise and delight, and that one of them, who had the less excuse for being so very youthful, was detected by Mr Bardon, who came to awake him, smiling, like a great fool, at nothing, if not at the fancies which had played about his slumbers. Of the heat in which I found myself, I must remark, that it is as distinct from perspiration, as from the parched and throbbing glow of fever. The pores are open, and the warmth of the body is very soon communicated to the wet sheet, until, as in this my first experience of the luxury, a breathing—steaming heat is engendered, which fills the whole of the wrappers, and is plentifully shown in the smoking state which they exhibit as they are removed: still it is not like a vapour bath. I can never forget the calm, luxurious ease in which I awoke on this morning, and looked forward with pleasure to the daily repetition of what had been quoted to me, by the uninitiated, with disgust and shuddering.

“The softness and delicacy of the skin under the operation is very remarkable, and to the touch, clearly marks the difference between a state of perspiration or of fever.”

We wish to be informed what there is of novelty in all this procedure? It is merely one way, out of many ways, of taking a bath. The shepherds on our hills, long before the Water-Cure had local habitation or name, were well aware, when their hard but faithful service made the heather their bed, that by dipping their plaids in the stream, and wringing them out, and then wrapping them round their bodies, such heat was generated as they could not otherwise procure. Then the alternation of hot bath and cold bath, followed by dry-rubbing! The Russians and the Turks are comparatively beings of yesterday. But what does a hydropathist undergo at Malvern, for which Galen and Celsus had not laid down plain and ample directions? There is no apparatus so intricate or so extensive—there is nothing done by the hand or by machinery at a hydropathical establishment, which is not anticipated at Pompeii, or was not familiar to those eminent ancients whom we have named. The economy of baths was brought to more exquisite and copious perfection by the Romans than it has been since. Vice, luxury, gluttony, fatigue, disease, caprice, indolence, extravagant wealth, inordinate vanity, imperial pomp, were all occupied according to the impulse or the necessity of the individual, or of cities and provinces, to adorn with new contrivances, or to supply the defects of that essential furniture to the comfort of the later Roman. The poets teem with allusions to and descriptions of the expedients used in ministering to their effeminacy in the baths. The medical writers have considered and discussed the whole subject of baths and bathing with a minuteness and a comprehensiveness which leave nothing to be learned from hydropathy now-a-days. The Greeks wanted only the enormous riches of Rome to be cited as of tantamount authority. Galen differs from Celsus in arranging the order according to which different baths should be taken; but the interval between them may account for all changes. Did it ever occur to Galen that water was a panacea? No; but many patients were under his care, the counterparts of the sojourners at Malvern; and that he treated them much after the fashion of Dr Wilson, we shall accord to the later gentleman our belief. Rome, in the reign of Commodus, was not less likely than London to send forth sufferers whose roses would renew their bloom, and whose nerves would regain their tension, at the bidding of rustic breezes, lively chat, and methodical discipline.

It has seldom been our happiness to meet with a more astute lady of her rank than the woman at the cottage at St Anne’s, who replies to Mr Lane, when he wonders at his power to mount the steep hills,—“Indeed, so do I, sir; but when I tell how the Water-Cure patients get strength to come up here, after a few days, and how well they look, some gentlefolks are hard enough to say the Doctor pays me to say so.” We exonerate the woman and the Doctor.

“May 26.—Packed, bathed, and out as usual, but instantly turned in again. It was raining after a fashion that, even to me, seemed to promise no interval or alleviation.

“We turned into the dining room, and, pushing the seats of the chairs under the table, we made a clear space for walking round the room. Our dining-room is forty feet long; and, after a minute’s discussion as to our intended route, it was settled that we should go (by the watch) to the spring beyond the Wyche. I opened the windows, and Ned arranged water bottle and tumblers on the table, undertaking to announce our arrival at the several springs. He had marked the distances by the time occupied, and so we started, and having walked from end to end of the room—and round the table ten minutes, Ned called that we were at the Turnpike, and we stopped to drink. We then passed on, doing all sorts of small talk with a friend who had joined us, until we got to the Wyche and to the Willow Spring; then we drank again, and just having started, we met, at the turn of the road, Mr Townley; who came suddenly upon us, and joined our party cheerfully. There were frequent over-takings of each other, and at the corners of the paths we contended for the sharp angles, and carried out the rules of the road by passing on the proper side.

“Mr Townley walked as well as the best of us, and was a delightful walking companion; full of anecdote, of solid information, and a quiet dry humour all his own; but we could not inoculate him with a love for Malvern. Enumerating the varied attractions of the place, I unluckily wound up with the charming drives; when he admitted that it is ‘a delightful place to get away from.’”

A rebel in the camp! What is to come next? Why, a revelation that the Water-Cure system at Malvern is so old that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.

“May 27.—Packed, bathed, and out as usual. Surely the variable nature of our climate is a source of constant, never-failing interest. Here is a glorious morning, following a day that seemed to give no hope of a change. Walked with Sterling and Ned to the Holy Well at Malvern Wells, then mounting the hills to the Beacon.

“The work published by Dr Card tells of extraordinary cures effected by the water of the Holy Well. The monks of old used to wrap in cloths steeped in this water, persons afflicted with leprosy or other eruptions; and (as the Guide quotes) ‘make them lie in bed, and even sleep, with the wet cloths on the diseased parts.’

“Why, here was an instinctive use of the ‘Wet Sheet Packing’ of very ancient date; but not (as the monks perhaps deemed) miraculous.”

The monks have unexpectedly got Mr Lane into a scrape. Their treatment of their patients is in all respects the same as the hydropathic treatment. But what is science in hydropathy is instinct in the priesthood. It is the most singular instance of instinct ever recorded. A controversy has long raged as to the precise approximation of animal instinct to human reason. The line of demarcation between the instinct of the monk and the reason of the hydropathic doctor is so faint and slender that nobody, except a “packed” Malvern jury, with Mr Lane as foreman, could be audacious enough to hint its existence. So the worthy and intelligent monks not only knew how to select a charming residence, but practised the Water-Cure several hundred years ago! What becomes of the apt comparison between the “common fate of new revelations,” as illustrated in the hostility of doctors which nearly ruined the great Harvey, and the disbelief of sensible people in the virtue of hydropathy? Hydropathy, in our view of it, is nothing new; but when it is demonstrated that at Malvern itself it existed in former ages, its want of success cannot with consistency be attributed to its novelty. The originality of the system, altogether, is on a par with the following branch of it:—

May 31.—“At five o’clock in walked the executioner, who was to initiate me into the SWEATING process. There was nothing awful in the commencement. Two dry blankets were spread upon the mattress, and I was enveloped in them, as in the wet sheet, being well and closely tucked in round the neck, and the head raised on two pillows; then came my old friend, the down bed, and a counterpane, as before. I need not sketch this, as it is precisely like the wet sheet packing in appearance.

“Not so in luxury. At first I felt very comfortable, but in ten minutes the irritation of the blanket was disagreeable, and endurance was my only resource—thought upon other subjects out of the question. In half an hour, I wondered when it would begin to act. At six, in came Bardon, to give me water to drink. Another hour—and I was getting into a state. I had for ten minutes followed Bardon’s directions, by slightly moving my hands and legs, and the profuse perspiration was a relief; besides, I knew that I should be soon fit to be bathed, and what a tenfold treat! He gave me more water, and then it broke out! In a quarter of an hour more he returned, and I stepped, in that condition, into the cold bath, Bardon using more water on my head and shoulders than usual—more rubbing and sponging, and afterwards more vigorous dry rubbing. I was more than pink, and hastened to get out, and compare notes with Sterling. We went to the Wyche. This process is very startling. The drinking water is to keep quiet the action of the heart. To plunge into cold water after exercise has induced perspiration might be fatal, but this quiescent, passive state, involves no danger of any kind.”

To recur to the Roman bath is superfluous. The curious will find in Celsus all they have read in these extracts, and much more than is “dream’d of in your hydropathy, Horatio.” The ingenuous narrative of Mr Lane is useful. The preposterous pretensions of the Water-Cure are visible and palpable. There may be no harm in Malvern, so long as the patients with whom Mr Lane makes us acquainted resort to it; although, conscientiously, we coincide with Mr Townley in his opinion that it must be “a delightful place to get away from.” We do not at all impugn Dr Wilson’s medical skill, and we heartily admire his tact. There are numbers of people who, resisting and infringing the orders of their medical advisers at home, blindly obey the behests of the physician at a watering-place. There are many, also, blasÉs and out of sorts with the racket, the whirl, and the glare of London life—or of what is worse, a provincial burlesque of London life—to whom the gentle influences of the balmy country air waft back the health which their riot had almost frightened from its frail tenement. These people visit such places as Malvern, do what they are commanded to do, spend their hours in rational enjoyment, and go home—converts to the Water-Cure. It is not very just, but it is very common.

And now let us state distinctly what we would really consider, and gladly dignify, as “The Water-Cure.” For although unable to recognise in water an universal and infallible panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to, we can yet bear a large testimony in its favour, and send it out to service with the highest character. It is our deliberate and mature conviction that the inhabitants of the Cumbraes and the adjacent islands of Great Britain and Ireland may, to their own infinite advantage, fishify their flesh a great deal more than they do at present. Our language does not embrace the full scope of our recommendation; because the minnow and the whale, along with all the intermediate gradations of the finny family, may probably disclaim the reputation of water-drinkers. Internally and externally, according to the rational views which we are about to explain, we advocate the application of the pellucid fountain and the crystal stream. This is to touch, we are quite aware, some of the most important questions which can engage the attention of the philanthropy and of the legislature of this country. It is to do so; and we hope to evince in our remarks at once the fearlessness and the moderation which become the honest and the practical investigation of matters affecting the moral and the physical welfare of thousands of human beings.

In lauding water as a beverage, it is impossible to evade an expression of opinion regarding the great movement which is represented and embodied in the existence and diffusion of temperance societies over the length and breadth of the land. Whatever words can be selected of most emphatic significance, we are willing to adopt in general approbation of that movement. We single out here no individuals for encomium, and refuse to decorate with a preference any particular fraternity or society. Taking, as our limits necessarily oblige us to take, a broad survey of the principle, and the results of the principle disclosed by experience, we cheerfully pronounce both to be positively and undeniably good. Observe, we say temperance. Total abstinence is a different thing altogether—an extreme which may warrant and cover abuses as bad as drunkenness itself. No spectacle is more ludicrous than a procession of Tee-totallers. If total abstinence is a virtue hard to win, and accessible only to an inconsiderable minority, the pharisaical ostentation of its vain-glory is not calculated to attract or conciliate the overwhelming majority who feel unable to soar to its sublimity. If, on the other hand, total abstinence is a virtue of such easy acquisition as to imply no sacrifice either in grasping or holding it, surely banners need not wave, nor bagpipes grunt, to celebrate such humble and ordinary merits. The Stoics, in declaring pain to be no evil, unconsciously proclaimed that there was no fortitude in suffering. The citizens of Edinburgh who live guiltless of larceny do not perambulate the streets once a-year in holiday attire to the cadence of martial music, for the purpose of being pointed out to the marvelling on-looker as men who never picked a pocket or broke into a larder. Total abstinence is not an end which common sense acknowledges to be attainable. In peculiar circumstances it may be that a sagacious and strong mind, determined to rescue masses of his countrymen from a degrading and destructive bondage, may begin by tearing them violently and completely asunder from their former pernicious habits. His ultimate hopes, however, do not rest on the permanency of this revulsion, but on the foundation which even its temporary supremacy enables him to plant in the understanding and in the heart, for finally establishing better inclinations, wiser purposes, a detestation of excess, and a love of moderation. National temperance will be the triumphant realisation of his aspirations; and as we believe national temperance to be practicable, so we believe it to be desirable, on the lowest and most selfish, as well as on the loftiest and purest grounds. As politicians, we are satisfied that the temperance of the people is an auxiliary in securing, assisting, and facilitating good government, little inferior to many of those invaluable institutions for which Britons are ready to shed their life-blood. The national tranquillity, energy, industry, and affluence, ought to be the aggregate of the contentment, enterprise, diligence, and wealth of each individual. Any thing, therefore, which will convince a man that sobriety makes a happier fireside than heretofore, gives to him at all hours of the day a cooler head and a steadier hand than he used to have, and leaves at sunset a shilling in the purse which he could never find there during the reckless season of his dissipation, is not merely a direct benefit to the individual, but a substantive addition to the resources and strength of the community. We wish to preach no ascetic doctrines, nor to curtail the enjoyment of life of any the least of its fair proportions. Over-fasting and over-feasting are alike repugnant to our ideas. What we delight to see is, that hundreds and tens of hundreds, voluntarily turning off from a road which leads invariably to misery, poverty, and crime, are now treading a more salubrious path, where, as they proceed, an unreproving conscience and domestic happiness must cheer them with their blessings, and, in all probability, worldly prosperity will reward them with its comforts. The first part, then, of our “Water-Cure” is temperance—by which we do not mean either that water is the only fluid which mortals shall imbibe, or that water, even if so exclusively imbibed, is the elixir of life. We mean a general recognition in the conduct of life, that while intemperance is senseless, brutish, dangerous, and guilty, temperance on the contrary—without stinting enjoyment, or balking mirth, or fettering the freest exhilaration of his nature—secures to man at all times, whether of relaxation or of toil, the healthful development of his faculties, and would, in this our own country, prodigious as its industry is, and magnificent as its achievements have been, redeem a quantity of time and means wasted, which, rightly employed and exerted, might elevate the social security and harmony, the political and commercial ascendancy, the public and the private affluence, of the British empire above the visionary splendours of an Utopian commonwealth. Thus far we

without fear of being accused of

The external application of our “Water-Cure” sends us plump over head and ears into as many fathoms as you please. In the middle of the multitudinous sea, or under the even-down deluge of a shower-bath, we are equally at home and at ease. No misgivings of any kind restrict our exhortation to wash and to bathe. Medical advice is so precious a thing that we are anxious to enhance its value by its rarity. Nothing will effect this purpose so certainly as the habitude of constant and sensitive cleanliness among rich and poor, young and old. What ought to be the cheapest, and what is the most thorough instrument of cleanliness, is an abundance, an overflowing superabundance, of water. Before judging our neighbours, we may begin by looking into matters at home. Is it possible that the metropolis of Scotland, at any season of any year, shall be in such a condition from want of water as to exclaim in its agony,

Is it possible that during certain summer months, in more than one year, of which the recollection does not dry up so readily as the city-reservoir, water could with difficulty be procured here for love or money? And is this the place, where the ordinary supply fails sometimes to meet the ordinary demand, in which it was gravely and enthusiastically proposed to erect spacious baths for the working classes? It is infinitely discreditable that such occurrences should have ever distressed us; but, looking forward both to what the people themselves are attempting, and to what the government intends to do, the necessity is apparent for an immense and immediate alteration and improvement in the supply of water to all large and densely-populated towns. The squabbles of companies cannot be permitted to banish health and breed fever. Extensive sanatory measures introduced into a city of which the water-pipes might be dry during the dog-days, would be a repetition of the monkey’s exhibition of the beauties of the magic-lantern, forgetting to light the lamp. The husky voice of the public, adust with thirst, shall not be wholly inaudible. The procrastinations of juntos cannot much longer be accumulated with the vicissitudes of the atmosphere.

When the scheme for the erection of baths for the working classes was first promulgated here, we individually subscribed our pittance, and predicted its failure—and for this reason: The plan could not stand by itself. To make a labourer, at the end of the day’s or the week’s work, as clean and fresh as soap and hot-water, with all appliances and means to boot, could make him, and send him to encounter in his own dwelling and vicinity the filth and the odours of a pig-stye, was not a very feasible proposition. But personal purification would induce household tidiness. It might do so, if ventilation and drainage and space were all at his command, and within his regulation. If they were not, in what a hopeless contest he engaged! Invisible demons, on whose invulnerable crests all his blows fell harmlessly, whose subtlety no precaution on his part could exclude, and to whose potency his own lustrations only made his senses more acute, would speedily quench his new-born ardour, and probably seduce him back to the persuasion, that for one in his position the truth lay in the proverb—“The clartier the cosier.” We must also give him the benefit of those data which political economists never refuse to any body—a prolific wife and numerous progeny. A clean house of one room, open to the incursions and excursions of seven or eight children, whose playground is the Cowgate, or, let it be the shores—that is, the common sewers—of the Water of Leith, is a tolerably desperate speculation. Thither, however, our operative, radiant from his abstersion, is doomed to repair, that he may be affronted by the muddy embraces of his infants, and oppressed by the fragrance of his home. The project of the baths, simply as such, although excellent in its spirit, and true in its tendency, could not, we repeat our belief, have been productive, as an isolated effort, of material or ending benefit. Much must go hand in hand, and step by step, with it. Ventilation and drainage, and more ample elbow-room, are indispensible to carry us forward successfully in the momentous progress on which we are, earnestly, we hope, entering towards the amelioration of the people. Nor shall we hesitate to affirm, that no system of education can be satisfactory or complete, which shall not at least endeavour to provide some means for extricating the offspring of the lower classes in their tender years, when the superintendence of father or mother is almost an impossibility for a great portion of the day, out of the causeway and the dunghill, and if not absolutely to put them in the way of good, at all events effectually to keep them out of the way of harm.

Then it is that we shall clamour for water with indomitable pertinacity. We shall demand it every where—in private houses, in public baths, and in fountains in our streets and squares. There can be no excuse for withholding it. Nature has not been niggardly in her distribution among the neighbouring hills of this simple and invaluable gift. When sums of money which stagger the most gaping credulity are revealed so near our thresholds, and demonstrated to be so readily available for useful purposes, it is neither presumptuous nor irrational to expect that a few driblets from the still swelling hoard may be dedicated to operations which, in combination with other extraordinary conceptions and performances, may crown the present century as more wonderful than any age, or all the ages, which it has succeeded. Great Britain, within a little span of time, has launched into an ocean of hazardous experiments. The voyage is more perilous, we think, than many anticipate; but if it be otherwise, and our forebodings are dissipated by steady sunshine and fine weather; if a new commercial policy shall furnish more sustenance than we require, without any detriment to native industry; if a grand system of education is destined to fortify public intelligence, without weakening public virtue; and if the physical condition of all ranks shall be ultimately so comfortable as to enable them to enjoy their good dinners and their good books, let us hope to hear, with our own ears, the people with one acclaim cry out—“We are well-fed, well-educated,” and “Our hands are clean!”

Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul’s Work.