Wash and Be Healed: The Water-Cure Movement and Women's Health

by Cayleff, Susan

• ISBN13: 9780877228592
• ISBN10: 0877228590
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1991-03-14
• Publisher: Temple Univ Pr

Summary

In a century characterized by dramatic health-care remedies-bloodletting, purging, and leeching, for example-hydropathy was one of the most celebrated alternative forms of medical care. Unlike these other cures, however, hydropathy, which entailed various applications of cold water, also staunchly advocated the reformation of such personal habits as diet, exercise, dress, and way of life. Susan E. Cayleff explores the relationship between this fascinating sect of nineteenth-century medicine and the women who took the cure.Wash and Be Healedinvestigates the theories, practices, medical and social philosophies, institutions, and the most prominent proponents of the water-cure movement and studies them in relation to the diverse reform networks of the nineteenth century. Documenting the popularity and importance of hydropathy among female activists, Cayleff argues that the water-cure movement was overpowered by allopathic (or orthodox) medicine which viewed hydropathy as a crackpot therapeutic largely because of its close association with nineteenth-century social activism. The book gives us an alternative view of social and sexual relationships which should contribute to the growing awareness among scholars that the history of health and healing must be more than the history of allopathic medicine. Author note: Susan E. Cayleffis Associate Professor in the Department of Women's Studies at San Diego State University.

Author Biography

Susan E. Cayleff is Associate Professor in the Department of Women’s Studies at San Diego State University.

Table of Contents

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Rise of Medical Sectarianism1. Wash and Be Healed: The Hydropathic Alternative2. Hydropathy, Woman' sPhysiology, and Her Role3. Ideology in Practice: Water-Cure Establishments4. Hydropathy and the Reform Movements5. Women at the Cures: Rest for the Weary ActivistConclusion: Demise and Legacy of the Water-Cure MovementNotesAn Essay on SourcesIndex

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