Hot & Cold Therapies

Hydrotherapy, formerly called hydropathy involves the use of water for soothing pains and treating diseases. more...

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Its use has been recorded in ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations. Egyptian royalty bathed with essential oils and flowers, while Romans had communal public baths for their citizens. Hippocrates prescribed bathing in spring water for sickness. A Dominican monk, Sebastian Kneipp, again revived it during the 19th century. His book My Water Cure in 1886 was published and translated into many languages.

The use of water to treat rheumatic diseases has a long history. Today, hydrotherapy is used to treat musculoskeletal disorders such as arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, or spinal cord injuries and in patients suffering burns, spasticity, stroke or paralysis. It is also used to treat orthopedic and neurological conditions in dogs and horses and to improve fitness.

Immersion in water - and doing exercises in water - has always been a popular therapy. Thousands of years of treatments have built an enormous amount of expertise but the alleged benefits had little supporting evidence from science until approximately 30 years ago. A 2006 survey of research in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases discusses the vast amount of high-quality studies showing the effectiveness of hydrotherapy. A new field of research focuses on the cost-effectiveness of hydrotherapy vs. other forms of treatment.

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.

Read more at Wikipedia.org