Hydrotherapy was once known as hydropathy. Hydropaths use traditional methods to help cure ailments, with the use of water, hot or cold, to restore the balances of an upset system out of harmony with nature. It is an alternative treatment, which is also used for relief from pain, and it is definitely not something new, because the ancient Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, and Turks knew all about the benefits of hot and cold baths, especially in their own huge public baths.
A modern-day sauna would have been the same as the ones used centuries ago
These baths had pools full of hot water and cold water, steam emerged, when the water was thrown on red-hot rocks, and all the toxins were supposedly steamed out from one’s system through the application of hot and cold water. Even the Chinese and the Japanese had their own hydropathy treatments in their medical sciences and systems.
In ancient Indian medical sciences like Ayurveda, hydrotherapy was done by immersing the body into a bath of hot water, and after that, he was lifted back into another tub full of cold water, thus literally sweating out his poisons. He could also be wrapped up in a cloth, dipped in icy water, or his stomach and forehead being subjected to either the hot water treatment or the cold water treatment depending on the diseases. Because at that time it was thought that the ailments and the fevers could be literally sweated out, through the skin and from the pores, through the application of hot and cold water.
When hot and cold water was applied to the body, with the help of cloth, a hot application was always followed by a cold application immediately, nodded to get the sluggish circulation moving again – caused by the constriction of the blood cells, which would occur when they felt something hot touch the skin – and the blood vessels went back to normal. The amount of time taken for any such application would be anywhere between 40 seconds to 3 minutes, depending on whether it was a cold application or a hot application.
You can get a large number of hip baths, body baths, and full-body immersion baths, either in the market, or if you want to go through the spa treatment, you are also going to go undergo massage, especially in a steamy atmosphere – words not to be taken literally, or with any double entendre, nor do I intend a pun.
Hydrotherapy became fashionable in England in the 1800s, when aristocrats began discovering their old Roman baths, and began to gather in places, where they could drink mineral waters which were supposedly the cure all, for rheumatism, gout, and other problems, according to the doctors. Actually, these baths were beneficial for all those people who really liked their food and drink. And that is why they had to walk to the baths, in order to drink a glass full of sulfur laden water. This exercise was enough to set their digestion moving, and they thought it was the benefit of the waters, and the minerals in them which did the curing.
Here is an example of some of the affectations, shown by these aristocrats, in the drinking of the water. This excerpt has been taken from Lorna Doone, written by RD Blackmore, about a young lad named John Ridd.
He was about 12 years old, going home from school, and pumping some cold water upon his head from the pump in a yard. And he got caught by a flirtatious female, a French servant, who wanted some water for her mistress, the baroness in a carriage, traveling somewhere.
Now make the pump to flow, my dear, and give me the good water. The baroness will not touch unless a nebule be formed outside the glass."
I did not know what she meant by that; yet I pumped for her very heartily, and marveled to see her for fifty times throw the water away in the trough, as if it was not good enough. At last the water suited her, with a likeness of fog outside the glass, and the gleam of a crystal under it, and then she made a curtsey to me, in a sort of mocking manner, holding the long glass by the foot, not to take the cloud off; and then she wanted to kiss me; but I was out of breath, and have always been shy of that work, except when I come to offer it; and so I ducked under the pump-handle, and she knocked her chin on the knob of it; and the hostlers came out, and asked whether they would do as well.
Upon this, she retreated up the yard, with a certain dark dignity, and a foreign way of walking, which stopped them at once from going farther, because it was so different from the fashion of their sweethearts. One with another they hung back, where half a cart-load of hay was, and they looked to be sure that she would not turn round; and then each one laughed at the rest of them.
In Germany and in other mountainous areas, also, along with Sweden, Norway, and other European countries there were a number of ancient spas, discovered again in the 18th and 19th centuries, where the same thing was advertised by the doctors, and people flocked to them, climbed up hills and roads, to reach those hidden magic baths, drank the waters, and perhaps bathed in the pools, of hot water coming from Springs, and felt themselves miraculously rejuvenated.
Even today, after a long tiring day, what could be better than sinking into a hot water bath and feeling all that heat seep into your tired bones and muscles?
A hot water bath or a cold water bath is never going to be undertaken, after a meal. Hydrotherapy is basically a therapeutic treatment, which can only be done under the close supervision of an experienced therapist. He is also going to add the right herbs and essential oils to the bath, which he knows are going to help relax, cure, heal, and rejuvenate you.
Hydrotherapy has been associated with aromatherapy since ancient times. Essential oils of spices, flowers, plants, and herbs were added to the water, and the steam inhaled by the patient. But as I am not a qualified hydrotherapy practitioner, I can only just tell you about the old methods, where hydrotherapy treatment was done in the form of a cold water bath, just a simple cold water bath. Taken daily without fail.