A hundred years ago, Dr. Sir John Floyer, in a work he published, stated that he frequently saw people with cutaneous eruptions go to a spring in his neighbourhood, dip their shirts in it, wring them out, put them on, and walk away. He inquired, and never found any harm to result from thus wearing wet linen. The Russians, from time immemorial, have gone into snow in a state of perspiration. What we claim for Priessnitz' system is, a systematic mode of manipulating; a cautious, modified plan of operations, by which no risk is incurred, and more good produced than can be accomplished by any other means known to the medical profession. Hydropathy would doubtless have taken a much larger extension, had the trouble attending the treatment been less, and its practitioners more competent. It has always been matter of regret that Mr. Priessnitz has no successor, and that he has not himself published something on the subject of the Water-cure. To supply this desideratum, when last at Gräfenberg, where I stayed twelve months, I proposed to Mr. Priessnitz that he should furnish me the matter, and that I should publish it; to this he consented, and gave me verbally his opinion of the treatment to be followed in the various cases as they occurred. The following pages are my humble endeavours to place before the public the results of our conversations as a familiar guide to the Water-cure for men and animals. The greatest enemies to hydropathy--its most violent opponents--are those who know nothing whatever about it; who have never seen it practised as it ought to be, or made reasonable inquiry into the subject. This is what every science has had to encounter. When Lord Spencer, many years ago, was in the habit of stating his belief that steam and gas might be made available to useful purposes, he was considered a madman, and would-be-wise people declared that what he said on the subject was absurd. Dr. Lardner, in his "Encyclopædia," endeavoured to prove, and no doubt did convince his readers, that no steam-boat could cross the Atlantic. Works may be read in the "Bibliothèque" in Paris, written by medical men on the introduction of the potato into France, to shew that fevers which raged at that time in the capital arose from the use of that vegetable. Thus, it will be seen, speculative opinions are but of little value--we want facts; and unless we are prepared to discredit the evidence of the many respectable professional men, and others, whose names are here given, the value of hydropathy must be admitted. The learned and talented Dr. Forbes, editor of the "British and Foreign Medical Review," says:--