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Wash and Be Healed: The Water-Cure Movement and Women's Health (Health Society And Policy)

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In Wash and Be Healed: The Water-Cure Movement and Women's Health, Susan Cayleff documented the expansion and collapse of the water-cure movement and its impact on a number of middle class women across America. The idea of "taking the waters" for health was an ancient notion. Spas were built all over Europe near hot springs, and the wealthy often spent time at these resorts. But hydropathy as it evolved during the early 1800s became a rest cure for members of the new middle class, particularly women.

Modern hydropathy started as a reaction against the heroic medicine of the 17th and 18th century by Vincent Priessnitz, a German farmer. He turned to using wet wraps when he broke several ribs in an accident in the early 1820s and a local doctor gave him up as incurable. Within a few months, Priessnitz's simple treatments led to his recovery, and he began to promote this cure to other people.

Hydropathy spread across America in the mid-1800s. Cayleff found that a number of prominent early abolitionists and feminists went to water-cures in America: Harriett Beecher and Calvin Stowe, Susan B. Anthony, Alice James and Clara Barton. While most people went to water-cures for only a few weeks or months at a time, some lived there for many years. As Cayleff observed:

"For reform activists and professional women, the live-in cures offered freedom from public scrutiny and demands, a legitimate focus on oneself as opposed to one's labors and relationships, the opportunity to commune with like-minded residents, the respite from the isolation and demands of home, the prospect of companionship and new or rejuvenated relationships, and genuine physical restoration."

Hydropathy died out as a health movement, partially due to the fact that its effectiveness could not be scientifically proven. However, hydropathy did have a subtle impact on medical care, which did re-emerge during the 1960s and 1970s--people needed to be treated as individuals, not merely a collection of symptoms. So even if the specifics of hydropathy lost its impact, the general belief people had the power to manage their health has returned.