Rational Hydrotherapy: A Manual of the Physiological and Therapeutic Effects of Hydriatic Procedures, and the Technique of their Application in the Treatment of Disease

Water, applied externally or internally and at varying temperatures, is an agent which more fully than almost any other cooperates with the healing powers of the body in resisting the onset and development of pathogenic processes. There is no other remedy by which the movements of the blood and the blood supply, both general and local, and in fact every form of vital activity, may be so readily controlled as by hydriatic application. The general order of the book is as follows: First, a short historical sketch and an overview of the physical, anatomical and physiological facts that are especially related to the subject; second, a study of the physiological effects of hydriatic application, hydrotherapy equipment and practices; third, a description of the technique of all useful hydriatic procedures; and fourth, a section on hydriatic prescription-making in which is presented a brief summary of the indications presented by the diseases most commonly encountered in practice and of the hyric measures required to meet the same and specific information on how hydriatic measures can regulate blood pressure and cario-vascular disorders.