Pouring water over the body--hydrotherapy prescriptions in the late Middle Ages

• Published in: Sudhoffs Archiv Vol. 86; no. 1; pp. 54 - 68
• Main Author: Jacoby, Joachim
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: German
• Published: Germany 2002
• Subjects: Europe; History of medicine; History, 15th Century; History, 16th Century; History, Ancient; History, Medieval; Humans; Hydrotherapy - history; Manuscripts, Medical as Topic - history; Prescriptions - history
• ISSN: 0039-4564

Once identified, an illness is met or fought against by an appropriate therapy. The diverse use of water holds a significant place among the therapeutic means which had been developed in Western medicine ever since antiquity. The essay deals with one particular form of application, namely, the gush of water. Focus is laid on the period around 1500. As the relevant medical treatises are based directly on Greek or Roman authors (Hippocrate, Galen, Celsus) or are even commentaries of Arabic handbooks in their Latin translations (Avicenna, Rhazes), antique medicine inevitably had also to be taken into account. The pouring of water, alone or in combination with other prescriptions, was applicable in a variety of illnesses as fevers, pains of the joints, psychic diseases, or even headaches. To counteract the causes (or symptoms) of a disease the water quality could be adjusted by changing its temperature, by adding certain substances (oils, herb extracts or decoctions) or by varying the way of application. The gush of water could serve many purposes and was prescribed to soothe, to refrigerate, to stop a swelling, to widen pores, to shock the patient and even, given the underlying humoural conception of men's nature, to draw away humours from one part of the body to another. The water gush, hence, was not restricted to be used in the case of one particular illness only but was considered an almost general therapeutic means.