Hydrotherapy.

Historical background
Hydrotherapy in general dates back to ancient cultures from China, Japan (Onsen, Japanese Hot Springs), and most recently to the Thermae (Roman Hot Springs). After an oblivion during the Middle Ages, hydrotherapy was rediscovered during the 18th and 19th century by J.S.Hahn (1696-1773), MD, Vincent Priessnitz, Oertel (1764-1850), and Rausse (1805-1848). In Woerrishofen (south Germany) Sebastian Kneipp developed the systematic and controlled application of hydrotherapy for the support of medical treatment which was delivered only by doctors at that time.

Cold water bathing and drinking
Hydrotherapy as a formal medical tool dates from about 1829 when Vincent Priessnitz, a farmer of Gräfenberg in Silesia, Austrian Empire, began his public career in the paternal homestead, extended so as to accommodate the increasing numbers attracted by the fame of his cures. Two English works, however, on the medical uses of water had been translated into German in the century preceding the rise of the movement under Priessnitz. One of these was by Sir John Floyer, a physician of Lichfield, who, struck by the remedial use of certain springs by the neighboring peasantry, investigated the history of cold bathing and published in 1702 his IvxpoXovoLa, or the History of Cold Bathing, both Ancient and Modern. The book ran through six editions within a few years and the translation was largely drawn upon by Dr J. S. Hahn of Silesia in a work published in 1738 On the Healing Virtues of Cold Water, Inwardly and Outwardly applied, as proved by Experience. The other work was that of Dr James Currie of Liverpool entitled Medical Reports on the Effects of Water, Cold and Warm, as a remedy in Fevers and other Diseases published in 1797 and soon after translated into German by Michaelis (1801) and Hegewisch (1807). It was highly popular and first placed the subject on a scientific basis. Hahn's writings had meanwhile created much enthusiasm among his countrymen, societies having been everywhere formed to promote the medicinal and dietetic use of water; and in 1804 Professor Ortel of Ansbach republished them and quickened the popular movement by unqualified commendation of water drinking as a remedy for all diseases. In him the rising Priessnitz found a zealous advocate, and doubtless an instructor also.
At Gräfenberg, to which the fame of Priessnitz drew people of every rank and many countries, medical men were conspicuous by their numbers, some being attracted by curiosity, others by the desire of knowledge, but the majority by the hope of cure for ailments which had as yet proved incurable. Many records of experiences at Gräfenberg were published, all more or less favorable to the claims of Priessnitz, and some enthusiastic in their estimate of his genius and penetration; Captain Claridge introduced hydropathy into England in 1840, his writings and lectures, and later those of Sir W. Erasmus Wilson (1809 – 1884), James Manby Gully and Edward Johnson, making numerous converts, and filling the establishments opened soon after at Islalvern and elsewhere. In Germany, France and America hydropathic establishments multiplied with great rapidity. Antagonism ran high between the old practice and the new. Unsparing condemnation was heaped by each on the other; and a legal prosecution, leading to a royal commission of inquiry, served but to make Priessnitz and his system stand higher in public estimation.
Increasing popularity soon diminished caution whether the new method would help minor ailments and be of benefit to the more seriously injured. Hydropathists to occupied themselves mainly with studying chronic invalids well able to bear a rigorous regimen and the severities of unrestricted crisis. The need of a radical adaptation to the former class was first adequately recognized by John Smedley, a manufacturer of Derbyshire, who, impressed in his own person with the severities as well as the benefits of the cold water cure, practised among his workpeople a milder form of hydropathy, and began about 1852 a new era in its history, founding at Matlock a counterpart of the establishment at Gräfenberg.
Ernst Brand (1826 – 1897) of Berlin, Raljen and Theodor von Jurgensen of Kiel, and Karl Liebermeister of Basel, between 1860 and 1870, employed the cooling bath in abdominal typhus with striking results, and led to its introduction to England by Dr Wilson Fox. In the Franco-German War the cooling bath was largely employed, in conjunction frequently with quinine; and it was used in the treatment of hyperpyrexia.

The use of heat
The Turkish bath, introduced by David Urquhart into England on his return from the East, and ardently adopted by Richard Barter, became a public institution, and, with the morning tub and the general practice of water drinking, is the most noteworthy of the many contributions by hydropathy to public health.
Until around 1840, hydropathy was not common in the United States although it was popular in Europe in the 19th century. But in "Nature's Cures", Michael Castleman wrote that hundreds of 'water-cures' were located on the countryside during the Civil War.[1]

State of the field at the beginning of the 1900s
The following material is from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica and thus represents the state of the field at the beginning of the 1900s.

Forms of hydrotherapy

Packings
The full pack consists of a wet sheet enveloping the body, with a number of dry blankets packed tightly over it, including a macintosh covering or not. In an hour or less these are removed and a general bath administered. The pack is a derivative, sedative, sudorific and stimulator of cutaneous excretion. The trapped body heat causes the patient to be warmed. There are numerous modifications of it, notably the cooling pack, where the wrappings are loose and scanty, permitting evaporation, and the application of indefinite duration, the sheet being rewetted as it dries; this was used to deal with fever. There are also local packs, to trunk, limbs or head separately, which are derivative, soothing or stimulating, according to circumstances.

Hot air baths
Hot air baths or saunas, the chief of which is the Turkish (properly, the Roman) bath, consisting of two or more chambers ranging in temperature from 50°C to 100°C or higher, but mainly used at 66°C for curative purposes. Exposure is from twenty minutes up to two hours according to the effect sought, and is followed by a general bath, and occasionally by soaping and shampooing. It is stimulating, derivative, depurative, sudorific and alternative, powerfully promoting tissue change by increase of the natural waste and repair. It determines the blood to the surface, reducing internal congestions, is a potent diaphoretic, and, through the extremes of heat and cold, is an effective nervous and vascular stimulant and tonic. Morbid growths and secretions, as also the uraemic, gouty and rheumatic diathesis, were believed to be beneficially influenced by it. The full pack and Turkish bath for a while seemed to be replacing the once familiar hot bath. The Russian or steam bath and the lamp bath are primitive and inferior varieties of the modern Turkish bath, the atmosphere of which cannot be too dry and pure.

General baths
General baths comprise the rain (or needle), spray (or rose), shower, shallow, plunge, douche, wave and common morning sponge baths, with the dripping sheet, and hot and cold spongings, and are combinations, as a rule, of hot and cold water.

Local baths
Local baths comprise the sitz, douche (or spouting), spinal, foot and head baths, of hot or cold water, singly or in combination, successive or alternate. The sitz, head and foot baths are used flowing on occasion. The application of cold by Leiters tubes was believed to be effective for reducing inflammation (e.g. in meningitis and in sunstroke); in these a network of metal or indiarubber tubing is fitted to the part affected, and cold water kept continuously flowing through them. Rapid alternations of hot and cold water was believed to have a powerful effect in vascular stasis and lethargy of the nervous system and absorbents, benefitting local congestions and chronic inflammations.

Compresses
Bandages (or compresses) are of two kinds,cooling, of wet material left exposed for evaporation, used in local infiammations and fevers; and heating, of the same, covered with waterproof material, used in congestion, external or internal, for short or long periods. Poultices, warm, of bread, linseed, bran, &c., changed but twice in twenty-four hours, are identical in action with the heating bandage, and superior only in the greater warmth and consequent vital activity their closer application to the skin ensures.

Other
Fomentations and poultices, hot or cold, sinapisms, stupes, rubefacients, irritants, frictions, kneadings, calisthenics, gymnastics, electricity, &c., are adjuncts largely employed.

Tibetan-Hydrotherapy

Taking a bath in Tibetan medicinal water
14:37:13 24-12-2007

Lighting incense in a room and planting oneself into the environment scented by the smoke is one of the ways Tibetans keep fit. And they say they are taking a bath when doing so.
According to the Tibetan medical code, the Tibetans had long produced many ways for “taking baths” to cleanse themselves, build up their physique and prolong life. Most popular ones include taking baths in rivers or in medicated water, or by exposing themselves to steam or sunshine, plus the above-mentioned method.
The seventh Tibetan month is the best season for taking baths. The rainy season has ended, and river water temperature begins to pick up. Most of the plants have ripened. Tibetans believe the deity in charge of medicine will descend to the earth to gather medicinal herbs at this time.
Manager of the China Tibetan Medicinal Water Bathing Center in Beijing explaining the history of Tibetans taking baths in medicinal water to Wang Zhaoguo and other State leaders.
A bright star called Garma Duiba is the incarnation of the deity, who appears for seven days in early autumn. All water receiving his light becomes dew. Taking a dip in the dew will help build up one’s health and remove one’s sins. This marks the Bathing Festival, during which Tibetans rush to rivers for the purpose, especially at night when the deity star appears in the sky.
Bathing in medicated water is the continuation of the Bathing Festival. It takes in the good points of taking baths in rivers, in a smoky environment and in a house filled with steam.
What is popularly used for bathing in medicated water is “the five-taste dew”. It is actually a kind of soup prepared with cypress and azalea leaves and three kinds of medicinal herbs. Taking a bath in the soup does not mean dipping oneself in it. The soup is boiled and the steam produced provides the “smoke” for the bather. Tibetans believe such bathing is good for blood circulation and the kidney.
Through generations of research and study, more preparations have been developed to help treat internal diseases, skin diseases and those related to arthritis and nervous disability. In recent years, Tibetan medical circles have been encouraging the general public to adopt the bathing treatment.
In December 2001, the China Tibetan Medicinal Water Bathing Center, the first of its kind in China, was built in Beijing. It has since received many people from government and art circles in and outside China. The former premier of Kazakhstan took a special trip by air here for a dip in the medicated water for nine days running. He returned home lauding its magical effect.
Address:
The China Tibetan Medicinal Water Bathing Center,
located at No.133 Beisihuan Ring Road, Beijing.