The Recreations of a Country ParsonBoyd, Andrew Kennedy Hutchison
General
The Recreations of a Country Parson
Boyd, Andrew Kennedy Hutchison
Clergy -- Anecdotes; Country life -- England; Rural clergy -- England
The morning after his arrival, Mr. Lane fairly entered upon the
Water System: and his diary for the following month shows us that
his time was fully occupied by baths of one sort or another, and
by the needful exercise before and after these. The patient is
gradually brought under the full force of hydropathy: some of the
severer appliances--such as the plunge-bath after packing, and the
douche--not being employed till he has been in some degree seasoned
and strung up for them. A very short time sufficed to dissipate
the notion that there is anything violent or alarming about the
Water Cure; and to convince the patient that every part of it is
positively enjoyable. There was no shock to the system: there was
nothing painful: no nauseous medicines to swallow; no vile bleeding
and blistering. Sitz-baths, foot-baths, plunge-baths, douches, and
wet-sheet packings, speedily began to do their work upon Mr. Lane;
and what with bathing, walking, hill-climbing, eating and drinking,
and making up fast friendships with some of his brethren of the
Water Cure, he appears to have had a very pleasant time of it. He
tells us that he found that--
The palliative and soothing effects of the water treatment are
established immediately; and the absence of all irritation begets
a lull, as instantaneous in its effects upon the frame as that
experienced in shelter from the storm.
A sense of present happiness, of joyous spirits, of confidence in
my proceedings, possesses me on this, the third day of my stay. I
do nut say that it is reasonable to experience this sudden accession,
or that everybody is expected to attribute it to the course of
treatment so recently commenced. I only say, so it is; and I look
for a confirmation of this happy frame of mind, when supported by
renewed strength of body.
To the same effect Sir E. B. Lytton:
Cares and griefs are forgotten: the sense of the present absorbs
the past and future: there is a certain freshness and youth which
pervade the spirits, and live upon the enjoyment of the actual
hour.
And the author of the Hints to the Sick, &c.:
Should my readers find me prosy, I hope that they will pardon an
old fellow, who looks back to his Water Cure course as one of the
most delightful portions of a tolerably prosperous life.
When shall we find the subjects of the established system of medical
treatment growing eloquent on the sudden accession of spirits
consequent on a blister applied to the chest; the buoyancy of heart
which attends the operation of six dozen leeches; the youthful
gaiety which results from the 'exhibition' of a dose of castor oil?
It is no small recommendation of the water system, that it makes
people so jolly while under it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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