Vincenz Priessnitz
Vincenz Priessnitz, also written Prießnitz (sometimes in German Vinzenz, in English Vincent, in Czech Vincenc; 4 October 1799 – 26 November 1851) was an Austrian hydrotherapist.
Originally a peasant farmer in Austrian Silesia, he is generally considered the founder of hydrotherapy, an alternative medical treatment.
Priessnitz stressed remedies such as vegetarian food, air, exercise, rest, water, and traditional medicine.
[5] The use of cold water as a curative is recorded in the works of Hippocrates and Galen,[6] and techniques such as spas, bathing, and drinking were used by various physicians in Europe and the US through to the 18th century.
[7] The practice was becoming less prevalent entering the 19th century however, until Priessnitz revived the technique after having major success applying it on patients in his spa in Gräfenberg (now Lázně Jeseník).
Priessnitz's name first became widely known in the English-speaking world through the publications and lecture tours of Captain R. T. Claridge in 1842 and 1843, after he had stayed at Gräfenberg in 1841.
Priessnitz refused to accept the doctor's diagnosis, and over the next year, he healed after applying wet bandages to his chest and drinking large quantities of water.
[6] Soon queues of people were coming to Gräfenberg, so in 1822 Vincenz decided to rebuild his father's house, building part of it as a sanatorium and spa for his patients.
To treat many diseases, he would wrap the patient in wet bandages and many layers of blankets to cause heavy perspiration from the heat.
As his popularity grew, Priessnitz limited his practice to his residence, and began expanding the Gräfenberg spa with lodgings, dining rooms, showers and bathhouses.
[6] As hydrotherapy became more widely accepted, his opponents became more concerned with his exact methods than the overall practice, finding Priessnitz's treatments far too extreme and taxing on the body.
Dr. Robert Hay Graham, who visited the Gräfenberg spa in October 1842, noted that Priessnitz did not keep any records of his patients, and that his practice was based on hunch and experience over any systematic approach.
Graham suggested that Priessnitz's treatment worked on one out of twenty people at best, and that a milder water-cure that was combined with other medicines would be preferable.
[11] A visit by Arch-Duke Franz Carl in October 1845 was greeted with an address extolling the virtues of Priessnitz and his methods, signed by 124 guests, from a variety of countries.
The skin was thought to act as a membrane, and impurities in the body would flow out into pure water applied by bandages and baths.
Newspapers of the day reported that on the morning of his death "Priessnitz was up, and stirring about at an early hour and complaining of the cold, and had wood brought in to make a large fire.
His friends had for some time believed him to be suffering from dropsy in the chest, and at their earnest entreaty he consented to take a little medicine, exclaiming all the while, 'it is no use.'
