The 2024 Legal Defense Fundraiser has ended early due to the Board's decision to settle the suit. Donations will go towards the creation of a legal defense fund. Discussion on the matter can be found at the RationalMedia Foundation noticeboard. Thank you for your generous support.
Water Cure
How Jesus made wine Water woo |
![]() |
Suckers getting soaked |
“”a lot of children who drink soft drinks actually become ‘stupid’, but once you take the soft drink away from them, their grades improve tremendously
|
—Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, NaturalNews[1] |
![](/w/images/thumb/6/62/Snow_therapy.jpg/165px-Snow_therapy.jpg)
The Water Cure (also known as the Kneipp Cure or hydrotherapy) was created in 1816 by a Vincenz Priessnitz, a peasant farmer in Austria. The water cure was later developed and popularized in the 1880s by Father Sebastian Kneipp.[2][3] Fereydoon Batmanghelidj
later published puff pieces on the water cure in a journal he runs himself.[4] It was accepted as part one of many cure-all treatments in the early days of naturopathy.[5] It has since mostly fallen into disfavor.
Hydropathic organisations did accept women before actual medical schools admitted female students.[6] Historically they treated female patients with respect.[6]
In modern-day non-woo medicine, the term "hydrotherapy" more often refers to physical therapy done in water. Of course NaturalNews is promoting the woo version,[7] even worse they proclaim it a cure to AIDS.[8] Also screw credentials, you don't need a license to practice the hydropathy.[6]
How
Treatments include: covering with wet sheets, foot baths (cold or warm), half-baths (cold or warm), whole-baths (cold or warm), head baths, eye baths, vapor (steam) baths, shower-baths, ablutions, bandages, walking barefoot in the snow, and water drinking. Herbal medicine and diet (bran bread or Kneippbrød, soup and mead) are also used.[3]
You see according to most American hydropaths, the water cure is best applied externally on the skin.[6] Even though skin isn't very good at absorbing water.[9]
Incidentally, hydrotherapy is probably, at least in part, the basis for the old cartoon cliché in which a character suffering from the cold is treated with a heated foot bath.
Aliments that are allegedly cured:
List:[3]
- abscesses
- apoplexy (cerebral hemorrhage)
- asthma
- AIDS[4]
- bed-wetting
- bladder diseases
- blood decomposition
- blood poisoning
- vomiting blood
- intestinal complaints
- bowel inflammation
- brain disease
- brain inflammation
- burns
- catarrh
- chlorosis (hypochromic anemia)
- cholera
- colic
- consumption (tuberculosis)
- costiveness (constipation)
- cramps
- croup (respiratory viral infection)
- weakness
- delirium tremens
- diarrhea
- diptheria
- dropsy
- dysentery
- ear diseases
- epilepsy
- erysipelas (streptococcal dermititis)
- cataracts
- fever
- giddiness
- gout
- hemorrhoids
- hoarseness
- hypochondriasis
- influenza
- insanity
- kidney problems
- knee tumors
- lumbago (low back pain)
- emphysema
- melancholy
- nervous disorders
- perspiration
- rheumatism
- Saint Vitus's dance (Sydenham's chorea)
- scarlet fever
- sciatica
- insomnia
- smallpox
- stomach acidity
- stomach tumors
- tetters (various skin diseases)
- typhus
- ulcers
- difficulty urinating
- vaccination side-effects
- worms
External links
- Tourists taking the Kneipp Cure at Bad Wörishofen, Germany, home of Kneipp
- Pleasures of the Water Cure — a satirical Victorian-era booklet illustrated by Thomas Onwhyn
References
- ↑ Sodas cause dehydration Natural News
- ↑ Meine Wasser-Kur, durch mehr als 30 Jahre erprobt und geschrieben zur Heilung der Krankheiten und Erhaltung der Gesundheit by Sebastian Kneipp, Jos. Kösel, 1899.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 My Water-Cure: Tested For More Than 40 Years by Sebastian Kneipp. 3rd English edition translated from the 36th German edition. Jos. Kösel, 1894.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 The Water Cure: Another Example of Self Deception and the “Lone Genius” by Harriet Hall. Science based Medicine
- ↑ Universal Naturopathic Encyclopedia, Directory and Buyers' Guide: Year Book of Drugless Therapy for 1918-19 by Benedict Lust (editor and publisher).
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 The Feminist Origins of “Eight Cups a Day” by Erika Janik. Slate
- ↑ The Water Cure: An interview with Dr. Batmanghelidj by Mike Adams. Natural News
- ↑ The Water Cure: AIDS and the Pharmaceutical Industry Natural News
- ↑ Does human body absorb water through skin? Quora