During an epidemic of scarlatina in 1836 two of my children were attacked by the disease, a boy of about eight, and another of five years, the younger one two days after the older one. I ordered them to be packed, and all seemed to go well, when, during my absence from the city (of Freiberg) a medical friend, who called, persuaded my wife to desist from continuing the hydriatic treatment, and use some remedies of his instead. On my return, I found the elder boy (the other began only to show some slight symptoms) in a very bad state: the cerebellum and spine were distinctly affected by the contagious poison; the patient complained of insupportable pain in the back of his head, the spine and all over his body, so that no one dared to touch him. The fact of the packs having been discontinued during twenty-four hours being concealed from me, and the boy being subject to herpes and inclined to scrofula, I began to fear that the treatment would not be applicable in such cases, and became really alarmed about my child. I was then almost a novice in Priessnitz's practice, at least in the treatment of acute diseases, which seldom occurred at Graefenberg, and, had I had more confidence in blood-letting and drugs, I would probably have resorted to them. For a while I was doubtful about the course I should pursue, when Dr. B., my medical friend, made his appearance and I learned what had happened during my absence. Instead, however, of giving way to his earnest solicitations to rely on the old practice, I at once became encouraged by his confession, and declared I would persevere in my own practice, which was quite new to him, and in which no physician of the place as yet believed. He assured me, from the symptoms, that the boy could not live twenty-four hours, unless he be bled, and that even then he would not answer for his life. Having lost six children before under allopathic treatment, and having never had much confidence in drugs during the time I had been connected myself with the practice, I firmly refused to allow either bleeding or drugging, and expressed my resolution to see what water could do, resigning myself to the possibility of a bad issue of the case. I need scarcely assure my readers, that my feelings were far from agreeable, and that my resolution required all the reminiscence of the bad success of allopathic treatment of former cases in my family, and the confidence I had in Priessnitz and his system, to support it. I tried the pack again, which did little or no good. Judging from the effects of the sitz-bath in cases of affection of the brain during continued fevers, that it might be of service also in the present case (Priessnitz's directions did not go so far, nor had I treated a similar case since my return from Graefenberg), I put my boy with great care into a sitz-bath of 70 deg. F. and left him there for a little over half an hour, when he felt greatly relieved. He was taken to his bed and allowed to become warm, when he