hydropathy
/hʌɪˈdrɒpəθi
/noun [mass noun]
The treatment of illness through the use of water, either internally or through external means such as steam baths (not now a part of orthodox medicine). Compare with hydrotherapy.He turned to hydropathy, a Victorian medical fashion in which a patient is given cold showers, steam baths, and wrappings in wet sheets....
- She was a single mother, and she was exploring all sorts of homeopathy, hydropathy, all those things that people did in those days to try to get well.
- It jumped from a small local spa to a national one in the middle of the 19th cent. with the popularity of hydropathy.
Derivatives
hydropathic
/ adjective ...- She continued her medical lectures and began offering her own hydropathic treatments.
- He subjected himself uncritically to nonsensical and unpleasant hydropathic ‘cures’.
- In the 19th century this pudding seems to have been known as ‘hydropathic pudding’ because it was served at health resorts where pastry was forbidden.
hydropathist
- Above all, the hydropathists reminded us of the inseparable relationship that exists between good health and pure water.
- We emerge, spluttering and gasping from a genuine cold salt-water bath, such as the hydropathists have no idea of.
- Other alternatives included herbalist doctors, who only used plants and plant extracts in their treatments, and hydropathists, who promoted water cures.
Origin
Mid 19th century: from hydro- 'of water', on the pattern of allopathy and homeopathy.