Vincenz Priessnitz
Encyclopedia
Austrian Silesia
Austrian Silesia , officially the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia was an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Austrian Empire, from 1867 a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary...
, who is generally considered the founder of modern hydrotherapy
Hydrotherapy
Hydrotherapy, formerly called hydropathy, involves the use of water for pain-relief and treating illness. The term hydrotherapy itself is synonymous with the term water cure as it was originally marketed by practitioners and promoters in the 19th century...
, which is used in alternative
Alternative medicine
Alternative medicine is any healing practice, "that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine." It is based on historical or cultural traditions, rather than on scientific evidence....
and orthodox
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
medicine. Priessnitz stressed remedies such as suitable food
Nutrition
Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....
, air, exercise, rest and water, over conventional medicine. He is thus also credited with laying the foundations of what became known as Nature Cure
Nature cure
Nature cure, natural hygiene, or natural care refer to methods of self-healing, often using fasting, dieting, rest, or hydrotherapy. These are, for example, used in the following systems of alternative medicine:* Orthopathy* Naturopathy...
, although it has been noted that his main focus was on hydrotherapeutic techniques. Priessnitz's name first became widely known in the English-speaking world through the publications and lecture tours of Captain R. T. Claridge
Captain R. T. Claridge
Captain Richard Tappin Claridge, F.S.A. , was a prominent asphalt contractor and captain in the Middlesex Militia, who became best known for his prominent promotion of hydropathy, now known as hydrotherapy, in the 1840s. It was also known as the Cold Water system or Cold Water cure...
in 1842 and 1843, after he stayed had at Grafenberg in 1841. However, Priessnitz was already a household name on the European continent, where Richard Metcalfe, in his 1898 biography, stated: "there are hundreds of establishments where the water-cure is carried out on the principles laid down by Priessnitz". Indeed, Priessnitz's fame became so widespread that his death was reported in the as far away as New Zealand.
Young age
Vincenz Priessnitz was born into a farmer's family in the village of GräfenbergGräfenberg
Gräfenberg may mean:* Gräfenberg, a city in Franconia, Germany* Lázně Jeseník , administrative part of city Jeseník, Czech Republic** Gräfenberg Spa, a spa founded by Vincent Priessnitz in Lázně Jeseník- Family names :...
(now Lázně Jeseník) near Frývaldov (now Jeseník) and baptized Vincenz Franz. His parents were among the first settlers of the village. When Vincenz was eight his father went blind and he had to help in the farm, especially after his elder brother died four years later. Once Vinzenz watched a roebuck
Roe Deer
The European Roe Deer , also known as the Western Roe Deer, chevreuil or just Roe Deer, is a Eurasian species of deer. It is relatively small, reddish and grey-brown, and well-adapted to cold environments. Roe Deer are widespread in Western Europe, from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, and from...
with a wounded limb coming to a pond (or stream) to heal its wound. He healed his own finger injured during timber felling with water wraps (1814). In 1816 he was injured more seriously when he broke his ribs in an accident with a cart and the doctor claimed it was fatal or at least crippling. He used his water therapy which took a year but eventually succeeded. He became locally renowned and started healing animals and some neighbours by pouring cold water. Soon queues of people were coming to Gräfenberg, so in 1822 Vincenz decided to rebuild his father's house, building part of it as a sanatorium for his patients.
Success
In 1826 he was invited to ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
to heal the Emperor
Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor
Francis II was the last Holy Roman Emperor, ruling from 1792 until 6 August 1806, when he dissolved the Empire after the disastrous defeat of the Third Coalition by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz...
´s brother Anton Victor
Archduke Anton Victor of Austria
Anton Victor, Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia was an Archduke of Austria and a Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. He was also briefly the last Archbishop-Elector of Cologne and Prince-Bishop of Münster, before those territories were secularized in 1803.Anton Victor was the son of Leopold II, Holy...
, Grand Master
Knights Hospitaller
The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta , also known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta , Order of Malta or Knights of Malta, is a Roman Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of military, chivalrous, noble nature. It is the world's...
of the Teutonic Knights
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
. It made him a great reputation so a lot of people from all over the country started to stream to Gräfenberg. Among the methods he used in his therapy there was not only cold water but also hard work and barefoot walks on grass. The diet and sleep regime were quite strict. His “sponge washing” was not accepted by local doctors of medicine, and so they complained and called him an impostor with no medical background. The complaints were denied by the imperial committee which accepted hydrotherapy as an alternative medical method and in 1838 granted Priessnitz a permit to establish the spa he started several years earlier.
The next year 1500 patients arrived (among them one monarch, a duke and duchess, 22 princes and 149 counts and countesses) and 120 doctors to study the new therapy. A visit by Arch-Duke Franz Carl
Archduke Franz Karl of Austria
Archduke Franz Karl Joseph of Austria from the House of Habsburg was father of two emperors as well as the grandfather of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, whose assassination sparked the hostilities that led to the outbreak of World War I, and the greatgrandfather of the last Habsburg...
in October 1845 was greeted with an address extolling the virtues of Priessnitz and his methods, signed by 124 guests, from a variety of countries. The new spa house, built that year with 30 rooms, was called Castle and the next house was called New Spa House. In 1846 Priessnitz was awarded a medal by the Emperor
Ferdinand I of Austria
Ferdinand I was Emperor of Austria, President of the German Confederation, King of Hungary and Bohemia , as well as associated dominions from the death of his father, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, until his abdication after the Revolutions of 1848.He married Maria Anna of Savoy, the sixth child...
. Various aristocratic patients did him reverence by erecting monuments in the spa town. Among the most famous guests was Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...
who visited the spa twice (1839 and 1846).
Priessnitz's English biographer, Richard Metcalfe, notes that while despite the fame of the Graefenberg setting, the view of Priessnitz himself was that the therapeutic virtue was the water-cure treatment, not the locality.
- That Priessnitz was of this opinion appears from the fact that after his fame had spread throughout Europe, and people came to Graefenberg from all quarters, he did not confine his practice of hydropathy to that healthy region, but visited and treated patients at their own homes in towns, where similar success attended his manipulations.
- There are some who would stultify Priessnitz by making his saying, "Man muss Gebirge haben" (One must have mountains), to mean that he considered a mountainous region indispensible to the successful practice of hydropathy. But, as the facts stated above show, the whole career of Priessnitz gives the lie to such a notion.
Vincenz Priessnitz died in 1851. Newspapers of the day reported that on the morning of his death "Priessnitz was up, and stirring about at an early hour and complaining of the cold, and had wood brought in to make a large fire. His friends had for some time believed him to be suffering from dropsy in the chest, and at their earnest entreaty he consented to take a little medicine, exclaiming all the while, 'it is no use.' He would see no physician, but remained to the last true to his profession". At about four o'clock in the afternoon, "he asked to be carried to bed, and upon being laid down he expired. Priessnitz's wife Sofie died in 1854, and was buried in the family crypt in Gräfenberg, where Priessnitz also lay. They had nine children, comprising eight daughters and one son. The son, Vincent Paul Priessnitz, was born on 22 June 1847, and died on 30 June 1884, aged 37.
Legacy
The Museum of Vincenz Priessnitz is in the house which was the seat of the first hydrotherapy institute in Lázně JeseníkLázne Jeseník
Lázně Jeseník is a small village in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic. It is administratively part of the city of Jeseník ....
.
There is a statue of Priessnitz in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
(1911), in Kirchheim unter Teck
Kirchheim unter Teck
Kirchheim unter Teck is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, in the district of Esslingen. It is located on the small river Lauter, a tributary of the Neckar. It is situated near the Teck castle, approximatively 25 km southeast of Stuttgart...
and a Priessnitz fountain by Carl Konrad Albert Wolff in Poznan
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
The 200th anniversary of his birth was listed among the UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
anniversaries in 1999.
A band from Jeseník named itself Priessnitz
Priessnitz (band)
Priessnitz is a Czech rock band from Jeseník formed in 1990 . After several years Jaromír Švejdík, leader of the band, left Jeseník to Prague...
.
A Czech movie based on his life was made in 1999 under the name of Vincenz Priessnitz.
Knowledge of Preissnitz's work in Britain led to the foundation of twenty hydropathic establishments. Of these, two remain one in Peebles
Peebles
Peebles is a burgh in the committee area of Tweeddale, in the Scottish Borders, lying on the River Tweed. According to the 2001 Census, the population was 8,159.-History:...
, the other Crieff Hydro
Crieff Hydro
Crieff Hydro is a hotel in Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland. The purpose-built hotel opened in 1868 as the Crieff Hydropathic Establishment, and is locally known as the Hydro...
, Crieff
Crieff
Crieff is a market town in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. It lies on the A85 road between Perth and Crianlarich and also lies on the A822 between Greenloaning and Aberfeldy. The A822 joins onto the A823 which leads to Dunfermline....
.