Water is the basis of our nourishment (Leaflet S06), but its benefits by no means end there. Hydrotherapy was well developed a hundred years ago and is still popular and highly regarded in many European countries, though not yet in Britain. Here are several ways in which you can use water to enhance your health or safely soothe away disease.
Hot Bath
A prolonged warm bath is very relaxing but leaves you flabby and exhausted and is not the most efficient way to cleanse your body. If the water comes from a hot copper tank, or is fluoridated, you will in addition absorb more copper or fluoride than is good for you. Shower or immerse yourself more briefly in hotter water to make you perspire freely, then finish with a half minute cold splash or shower. Sweating through wide open skin pores enhances your excretion. The cold phase then closes the pores, extruding the last of the sweat which would otherwise have dried out as solid residues to clog and irritate them. It also has a bracing, tonic effect which you will quickly learn to like once your misapprehensions have been dispelled.
Swimming
Bathing in the sea or fresh water ponds and rivers is very refreshing and healthy despite the pollution they now contain, provided you can find a safe bathing-place. If the water is cold plunge in and warm up vigorously until you feel yourself tingling all over. Then get out and briskly rub yourself dry, unless you want to swim longer for exercise. The tonic effect of this on your whole system is quite long-lasting, but you need to be warm and vigorous before you start. The plunge is quite a shock, so work up to it at home by cold showers after your hot bath. If chlorine in swimming baths irritates you, stick to outdoor pools, and enquire in the Amenities Department of your local government office for any pool nearby that is disinfected by an alternative process such as bromine or hydrogen peroxide: you may be lucky.
Washing
Only use soap on your face when you really must, and splash it generously with cold water to finish with. Cold water from the shower nozzle sprayed on your eyelids (just loosely closed) works wonders for tired or sore eyes; on your face generally it helps with nasal congestion and nose-bleeds.
Cold Treading
Splash your feet up and down in a three inch (10cm) bath of cold water for a minute or so. This is relaxing before sleep, or for sleeplessness.
Body Pack
After a hot bath wrap a cold damp cloth tightly around your body once, fastening it with safety-pins every few inches. Cover it with a thick woollen pullover, or get into bed. Within a few minutes the initial cold shock becomes a warm glow that you can confirm by feeling under the edge of the cloth; this will last about two hours. Good for headaches (Leaflet P27), eczema (Leaflet P28), stomach ache (Leaflet P29) and fever (Leaflet P05). Usual mistake — cloth too wet: spin or wring it as dry as you can.
Sitz Bath
Drop your bottom in 4-6’cold water — a baby bath inside your bath works well. Within thirty seconds you’ll begin to tingle: get out and rub dry briskly. Only do this when you are warm to start with; no need to uncover your upper body. Good for cystitis (Leaflet P32) when your doctor says there is no germ, for any kind of menstrual problem (P34), incontinence (P33) or piles (P30).
Hot Pack
Strip to the waist, rub a little vegetable oil up and down the muscles each side of the spine, and apply a hot wet face flannel to the back. Cover it with a thick dry towel to conserve the heat, and renew the flannel every thirty seconds. Make the sixteenth flannel cold, wash off the oil and rub dry. This is a good first aid treatment for asthma (Leaflet P13) that will reinforce whatever else is done and can be repeated with benefit after half an hour.