fountains ofyouth - garden state...

FountainsYouthofNEW JERSEY’SWATER-CURES

This is a story about the bustling medicalmarketplace in nineteenth-century NewJersey, and, in particular, the

establishments known as water-cures. What we nowcall alternative, complementary, or holistic medicinewas once referred to as sectarian medicine and itspractitioners as irregulars. Most regular or orthodoxphysicians, often called "allopaths" by their critics,viewed the endless parade of irregular sectarianpractitioners as either ignorant quacks or educated,but deluded, quacks. In order to get our bearings,we must look briefly at botanical and homeopathicsects before turning to the hydropaths, hygeio-therapists, and naturopaths.

by Sandra W. Moss M.D., M.A.

Sandra Moss. M.D., M.A. (History)is a retired internist and past president of the Medical

History Society of New Jersey. Dr. Moss writes and speaksabout the history of medicine in New Jersey.

Acknowledgements: This paper is dedicated to the memoryof Professor David L. Cowen (1909-22006), New Jersey’spremier medical historian. Archivist Lois Densky-WWolff,

Special Collections, University of Medicine and Dentistryof New Jersey, provided expert research assistance, as did

the staff at Rutgers University Archives and SpecialCollections.

Fountains of Youth Sandra W. Moss, MD, MA GardenStateLegacy.com Issue 2 December 2008

FROM JERSEY TEA TO JERSEY CURE

Botanical medicine was a mainstay inNew Jersey from colonial times. “Herband root” doctors and genuine (orbogus) “Indian cures” supplementedthe domestic ministrations ofhousewives and neighbors. “Jersey tea,”brewed from Ceanothus americanusduring the Revolutionary era, laterfound its way into pharmaceuticalcompendia.1 Early Swedish settlersused wormseed and moccasin flowerfor intestinal worms and spasmodicafflictions. Dr. Lawrence Vandeveer ofSomerset, a founder of the MedicalSociety of New Jersey, creditedskullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora)with preventing rabies inhundreds of patients in the late-eighteenth century.2

False advertising and shamelesspromotion underlay most ofNew Jersey’s colorful assortmentof patent medicines, includingBrown’s Liver Invigorator, Dr.Brigg’s Modern Curative, Goff ’sAnnihilator, Indian Cough Syrup,Dr. Clark’s Life Pills, Rough on BilePills, Wells’ Health Renewer, Pell’sMalaria Eradicator, and Jersey Cure.3

The profitable G.G. Green company ofWoodbury claimed that its “attested”August Flower and German Syrupremedies healed tuberculosis,promoted nervous energy, improvedthe quality and color of the blood,sustained mental exertion, andstopped “retrograde metamorphosis.”4

DOCTOR WARS:IRREGULARS vs. REGULARS

From its founding in 1766, theMedical Society of New Jerseypositioned itself as the guardian oflegitimate medical knowledge andpractice in the state. Quacks or not,the irregulars represented unwelcomecompetition for regular physicians

struggling to make a living. Repeatedlystymied in its efforts to controlpractice through state licensing, theregular medical establishment ditheredfor decades over the problem ofmedical sects. In the 1820s, theMedical Society of New Jerseydenounced the itinerant “irregular-bred pretenders tomedicine” whose progress was marked

by

“cunning, deception and falsehood.”5

In the 1840s, regulars comparedsectarian practitioners to “thescrofulous tubercles of the lungs [that]corrode and destroy the vitality of thewhole system.”6 A leading Newarkphysician urged his fellows to banishhomeopathic quacks to the“companionship of the superstitions that flourish in murky heathendom.”7

In 1865, the Medical Society of NewJersey counted some one hundred and

Cartoon in the Water-Cure Journal ridiculing theregular profession, portrayed as a crude, boorish

man grinding up toxic pharmaceuticals. Water-Cure Journal and Herald of Reform, 1849

“Water”by A.S.A.

Water, bright and beautiful water,

Pervading everything in Nature,

In the dew-drop on the leaves,

In the ocean’s curling wave,

In the crystal fountain leaping,

In the lonely grotto sleeping,

In the springs and deep-cut wells,

In the silent shady dells,

In the rills with hues of silver,

In the rapid flowing river,

In the cooling shower refreshing,

In Niagara's cataract dashing,

In polar climes of snow and sleet,

Forming winter’s winding sheet,

Where rainbow hues delight the eye,

All pervading element of nature,

Why can half thy goodness measure?

For burning fever, aches, and pains,

Water-cure the balm contains,

The “packing,” “sitz,” or “dripping sheet,”

Will quiet pain, encourage sleep;

The “plunge,” the “douche,” “half-bath,” and “shower,”

Will inflammation soon o’erpower,

With proper action, food, and air, Water will all our ills repair.

Water Cure Journal and Herald of Reforms 12 (1852), 18


fifty irregular practitioners in the state;of the twenty-one female irregulars,most were “of the class known as theprogressive bloomer kind, spiritualists,and infidels.”8

Nineteenth-century New Jerseyanswitnessed the grim harvest oftuberculosis, typhoid, and epidemic

cholera. Infant and childhoodmortality and death in childbirth werecommon. The most skilled physicianshad few effective medications, modernsurgery was in its infancy, andantisepsis was unknown. Leaders ofhealing sects were united indenouncing the “heroic” medicalpractices of the regulars, and thepublic was inclined to agree. Regularpractitioners relied heavily onphlebotomy (bleeding) to regulate andrestore a vaguely understood internalbalance. Generations of doctorspurged and puked their haplesspatients with calomel (a toxicmercurial laxative) and tartar emetic(an antimony-based emetic). Tonicssuch as Fowler’s solution (an arsenicalmixture) were prescribed to build up adepleted system. Irritant plasters raisedblisters on the skin to draw outdiseased matter from internal organs.As the century progressed, many ofNew Jersey’s regular physiciansabandoned heroic therapy in favor ofgentler medications and a greater

regard for the healing power of nature.

LOBELIA AndINFINITESIMALS:THOMSONIANS ANDHOMEOPATHS

The windy promises of charismaticfounders of new medical sects held

great appeal for the ailingpublic. Early in thecentury, Samuel Thomson,New Hampshire farmerand self-proclaimedmedical prophet,popularized his botanicalsystem of healing, basedon the notion of heat as avital force. In theJacksonian era of thecommon man, anyintelligent layman couldbecome a Thomsonianphysician and join a

Thomsonian Friendly Botanic Societyby purchasing Thomson’s New Guideto Health, and a kit of Thomson’ssequentially numbered remedies. Thejewel in the crown of Thomsoniantherapeutics was lobelia (puke-weed,vomitwort, gagroot) a toxic plantwhich induced violent vomiting as itcleaned and allegedly regenerated thestomach, the Thomsonian furnace ofthe body. Enemas, steam baths and“hot” herbs such as cayenne pepperand ginger completed Thomson’ssystem.9 In 1831, John J. Waldron ofNew Brunswick paid twenty dollars“for the Right of preparing and usingthe medicine secured to DoctorSamuel Thomson by letterspatent...[H]e is constituted a memberof the Friendly Botanic Society and isentitled to all the privileges there untoBelonging.”10 New Jersey had just ahandful of Thomsonian practitioners.A Burlington County physician wrotepoetically in 1854: “Occasionally ason of Lobelia with his pepper andsteam comes hissing through our orbit

like a comet from the far-off regions,and disappears as suddenly.”11

After the Civil War, the eclecticmovement, drawing from regularmedicine as well as homeopathic andbotanical systems, became animportant force in American practice.In 1865, the medical society countedthirty one eclectic practitioners in thestate.12 Charles Wilson, “botanicdruggist” of Newark, boasted of threedecades of “Eclectic, Thompsonian[sic], Botanic, Clairvoyant, and FamilyPrescriptions carefully prepared.”13

Eclectic physician Amanda Taftpracticed with her husband in Newarkin the 1870s and was secretary of theEclectic Medical Association of NewJersey, founded in 1873.14

In the second half of the century,the greatest sectarian threat washomeopathy, the invention ofdisaffected German physician SamuelHahnemann, who proclaimed his“laws” of similars and infinitesimals:remedies that cause a symptom whengiven in full doses would cure the samesymptom when given in tiny doses.Such “infinitesimals” were created by aseries of ritualistic dilutions.15

Homeopathy, with its educated andsophisticated practitioners, includingmany German immigrant physicians,appealed to the urban middle andupper classes. With their gentle,watered-down medications andscientific-sounding patter, homeopathswere serious rivals to the regulars, whohad little to offer (said thehomeopaths) but harsh drugs and theirown scientific-sounding patter.Homeopathic medical schools,societies, and journals flourished.Many homeopaths practiced a mixtureof regular and homeopathic medicine,an appealing compromise for them andtheir clientele. In 1874, Newarkcounted eighteen homeopaths amongits one hundred and five physicians.16

The New Jersey homeopaths formed

Advertising notice for New Brunswick Thomsonian practitioner, J.J. Waldron. Special Collections, Rutgers University


their own state society in 1877. Indebating the question of a state boardof medical examiners, the president ofthe MSNJ declared in 1889: “At thepresent time the only quackery tolegislate against in our state isHomeopathy. What chance is thereagainst this powerful organization?”17

When a state board of medicalexaminers was finally created in 1890,however, the statute called for fiveregulars, three homeopaths and evenone eclectic member. By 1910, NewJersey’s homeopaths and eclectics werewelcomed into the ranks of theregulars; all three united inopposition to what they all saw asthe new common threat fromosteopathy.18

THE WATER-CURE:PACKING, PLUNGING,AND SITZING

Physicians and healers since timeimmemorial have usedwater in the form ofbaths and compresses aspart of their therapeuticarsenal. In the 1820s,Vincent Priessnitz, anAustrian farmer,catapulted his personalcold-water cure into a“system”of hydropathictreatment for all theafflictions of mankind.Priessnitz opened theworld’s first water-cure establishment atGräfenberg, Austria, in 1826, enjoyinggreat success among the Europeanglitterati of the day (along with someAmericans), while influencing ageneration of devoted disciples. Notfor the timid (or very sick) were thevigorous regimens of wet bandages,baths, showers, soaks, copious waterdrinking, and a rather grim diet.Although some regular medical menwere wooed and won, others becamesevere critics; one such critic called

Priessnitz a “water-daemon.”19 Incontrast to the hot mineral waters soenjoyed by Europeans at pleasantresorts such as Bath and Baden Baden,hydropathic cures worked through theforce of pure, cold water. APhiladelphia medical journalpronounced hydropathy the “reigninghumbug in Europe” and predicted thatAmericans would happily submitthemselves to wet sheets,tumblers of cold water,and “stale ryebread.”20

One of the first water-cures inAmerica was opened in New York in1844 by Russell T. Trall M.D., agraduate of Albany Medical Collegeand the American champion of thePreissnitz water-cure. Trall had studiedregular medicine in search of asolution to his own unspecified“persistent ailments.” According to an1891 biography, however, hediscovered that “the only true remedialagents were those bearing a normal

relation to the vital organism, like air,light, water, food, exercise, sleep,electricity, etc.”21 Trall adopted themore inclusive and scientific-soundingname “hygeio-therapy” for his system.The New York Hydropathic School,later the New York Hygeio-Therapeutic College, was opened atTrall’s water-cure institute in 1853. In

addition to water-cure, Trall andother hygeio-therapists

advocated temperance,non-smoking, hygienic

living, physicalexercise,vegetarianism,sensible dress (notight-lacedcorsets!), sex andchildbirtheducation, and theunbleached and

unsifted flourpromoted in the

1830s by preacher andfood reformer Sylvester

Graham.22

In the pages of the Water-Cure Journal and Herald of Reforms,Trall outlined the American version ofPreissnitz’s water-cure system. The wet-sheet packing, in which a cold wetsheet and an outer layer of blanketswere tightly wrapped about the body,was said to “correct morbid andrestore healthy secretions” in additionto sedating and soothing the nervoussystem. The mummified patient wasleft to shiver, then sweat, for fifteenminutes to two hours. In rubbing wet-sheet treatments, patients werewrapped in a wet sheet and rubbed“energetically and perseveringly” todivert internal toxins to the pores ofthe skin. For the fit and hardy, therewas the douche (shower), in which aforceful torrent of piped-in mountainspring water gushed onto the patientfrom above. The douche was said to“arouse the absorbent system.”The

Right: Russell G. Trall,American champion of the

water-cure.

Below: Trall's HygeianHome and Hygeio-

Therapeutic College,Florence, New Jersey. J.D. Scott, Historical Atlas of

Burlington County, New Jersey,1876


sitting or “sitz” bath, still used todayfor symptomatic relief of painfulbottoms, was recommended as a“revulsive” for “affections of the headand chest” (presumably drawing thetoxins away from the affected areas) aswell as a “corroborant” for disordersof the lower abdomen and pelvis. Thecold plunge bath, a quick immersionof the whole body up to the neck, wasrecommended after packings and as aregular morning ablution. Both menand women might be prescribed the“wet dress,” a coarse cotton or linengarment to be worn at night. Wetbandages were applied to the chest orabdomen to treat regional afflictions.The liberal intake of pure water and,at the other end, colonic irrigationswere also part of various water-cureregimens. Insistence on cold watertreatments was variable, and tepid orwarm water was used in somepatients.23

Hygeio-therapy had much torecommend it. Leaders of theprofession emphasized personalresponsibility for health and the role ofthe mind and emotions in intensifyingsymptoms. Magazine articles andbooks such as Trall's “Water-Cure forthe Million and The HydropathicEncyclopedia” laid out programs forhome care and consumer education.The hydropathic emphasis on personalcleanliness, emerging in an era whenregular bathing was consideredesthetically unnecessary and evendangerous, appeals to our modernsensibilities.

For some converts, hydropathy tookon a moralistic tone, as they washedaway “corruption and putrefaction.”24

Hydropathy fit in well with mid-century reformist ideals of humanperfectibility. Women, as the guardiansof family health, found thathydropathy appealed to theirintellectual and egalitarian sensibilities.Like homeopathic and eclectic medical

schools, the hydropathic schoolswelcomed women students and faculty.Women, who turned to hydropathy for“female complaints,” appreciated thepresence of a female doctor on staff.25

Trall’s daughter-in-law, Rebecca, wasalso an M.D. and water-cure doctor. In1853, the ladies of Trenton formed awater-cure society for “those ladieswho desire to become betteracquainted with their ownconstitutions, and feel disposed toengage in the work of forwarding aproper system of female physical, aswell as mental, education.”26

In his “Hydropathic Encyclopedia,”Trall fired back at the regulars whowere critical of hydropathy and otherdrugless sects: “...no age of the worldpresents a medley of medical scribblersin the regular profession more biasedand bigoted in their notions, morevisionary in their speculations, morepuerile in their theories, and moreinconsistent in their practices, than isfurnished by the history of the presentstate of the medical profession in thiscountry.”27

The Water-Cure Journal and Heraldof Reform, to which Trall was a majorcontributor, reached a large audienceand readers were urged to sign up newsubscribers. In 1853, a Princetonstudent wrote to inform the editor thathe was busy with his studies and hadlittle time to sell subscriptions. He waspleased to report that “quite a numberof the students have the Water-CureEncyclopaedia, by Dr. Trall, andvarious other of your publications.”28

JERSEY WATER-CURES:CRYSTAL-CLEAR WATERSIN THE GARDEN STATE

In 1867, Trall brought his water-cureto New Jersey, founding the EasternHygeian Home at scenic FlorenceHeights overlooking the DelawareRiver (Burlington County). The grandestablishment catered to three hundred

The wet-sheet pack, believed to rid the body oftoxins through the pores in the skin.

Water-Cure Journal and Herald of Reforms, 1850

The douche-bath, a forceful gush of cold water,often piped in from a mountain stream, whichfell from a height upon hardy subjects.

R.T. Trall, Hydropathic Encyclopedia, 1853

The sitting-bath or sitz-bath, conducive toreading.

R.T. Trall, Hydropathic Encyclopedia, 1853

The plunge-bath, a quick total-body dip in apool of cool water, often following a wet-sheetpack.



residents. Recreations such as billiards,rowing, and a river promenadecomplemented the hydropathicregimens.29 By 1869, Trall’s Hygeio-Therapeutic College transferredoperations to the Florenceestablishment. Among the students wasyoung John Harvey Kellogg, whowould go on to earn an M.D. fromBellevue Medical College and make hisname as the colon-obsessed medicaldirector of the sanitarium at BattleCreek, Michigan (celebrated in the film“The Road to Wellville”).30 Trall’sinstitute continued until 1875, when itwas offered for sale. He diedfrom complications of arespiratory infection in 1877and is buried in Florence.31

In 1967, Harry B. Weiss,New Jersey State entomologistand a prolific historian ofJerseyana, together with HowardR. Kemble, wrote “The GreatAmerican Water-Cure Craze,”painstakingly documenting overtwo hundred American watercures, including ten in NewJersey. Typically, guests stayedfor weeks or months, Residentphysicians often boasted Europeancredentials. Many water-cures, locatedin lush rural settings. were operatedand advertised like magnificent resorthotels. The earliest known water-curein New Jersey was in Morristown,where Dr. George Dexter, an associateof Trall, operated his rather pricey($12 per week) and short-lived facilitybetween 1845 and 1847, completewith a spacious plunge bath andspring-fed douche. From Morristown,Dexter published The Fountain orHydropathic Journal, which lasted justtwo issues.32

The Orange Mountain Water-Cure,opened in 1848, operated from animpressive building situated on sixteenscenic acres in South Orange, “on theline of the Morris and Essex Railway,

by which passengers are landed at theStation House of the establishment.”Founder and first director, Dr. CharlesH. Meeker of Newark, had observedand studied with Priessnitz in Austriafor over a year.33 The Water CureJournal proclaimed that Meeker “hasthe largest, best, and every way themost attractive Water Cure House inthe State, which is always liberallypatronized. This place needs norecommendation from us.”34

Advertisements boasted of“extensive panoramic views” andwoodland paths.35 By 1851, the

expanding water-cure-cum-resort, withroom for one hundred “cure-guests,”offered an outdoor packing room,plunge bath, douche, wave bath, andswimming bath as well as horses,billiards, bowling, and, (for the ladies)a working flower garden. As wascommon among American water-cureestablishments, owners and medicaldirectors came and went in rapidsuccession. For a time, Germanmedical graduate Dr. Joseph Weder,who was familiar with European spas,was the resident physician at SouthOrange.36 A later resident physician,Edward Fellerer, announced theopening of the New JerseyHydropathic Collegiate Institute onthe South Orange site in 1853, thoughfew, if any, students matriculated.

Fellerer was the author of “A Reportof Two Hundred Interesting CasesTreated With Water.” Under newownership, the water-cure sputteredalong until 1857, when it became asummer resort hotel.37

A decade after it closed, StephenWickes, M.D., a leading regularphysician from Orange, subjected theOrange Water-Cure to witheringcriticism. Orange, wrote Wickes, hadbeen “the center of a grandexperiment in the annals of medicalpretension.”The regular physicians lostpatients to the blandishments of the

“pretending quacks,” and it seemedas if “the good old paths ofsound medical truth were to bewashed out by a flood of water.”Water, at once a tonic and a“debilitant,” had its place inregular therapy; but only thetrained physician, Wickes asserted,familiar with the disease processand the “state of vigor or debilityof the patient,” could properlyprescribe such treatments.38

The Schooley’s MountainWater Cure in WashingtonTownship (Morris County)

operated between 1851 and 1853,catering to wealthy clients. A financialdispute between the physician ownersended the venture. In the Plainfieldarea, a British physician and hisdaughter-in-law operated theWashington Springs Water-Cure forladies in 1853. A subsequentphysician/owner treated both men andwomen, offering “electrochemicalbaths” for some years until unpaiddebts shut down the facility. Dr. E.J.Loewenthal, who had previousexperience at the prestigiousBrattleboro (Vermont) HydropathicInstitute, operated a water-cure inBergen Heights in the 1850s.39

The Parkerville HydropathicInstitute (Gloucester County) openedin 1848 under the medical directorship

The Orange Mountain Water-Cure, frequently advertised inhydropathic journals.



of George Dexter, late of theMorristown water-cure. Investors weregiven the option of being repaid inhydropathic services. Dexter, who alsodabbled in spiritualism, claimed thathis methods could cure “gallopingconsumption” (rapidly-progressivetuberculosis) in one month. Parkervilleboasted a circular stone room in whichcold spring water fell from a height ofthirty feet onto patients deemedsufficiently hardy for a douche bath.Parkerville, whichclosed in 1852maintained separatefacilities for alcoholics,abusers of morphineand stimulants, and theinsane.40

Some New Jerseyanssought water-cures outof state. In 1850, theregistry at a famedwater-cure inBrattleboro, Vermont,listed five ladies fromTrenton. Dr.Schieferdecker’snotorious water-cure inPhiladelphia was thesite of the negligentdeath from gangreneand bedsores of thedaughter of an Episcopal clergymanfrom Belvidere, N.J., in 1874.41

By 1870, hydrotherapy was indecline and many lavish water-cureswere closed. The novelty wore off asthe public wearied of self-denial anduncomfortable treatments. The horrorsof the Civil War put the damper onvisions of human perfectibility.Scientific advances such as the germtheory, the promise of new medicaland surgical therapies, and thebeginning of a revolution in medicaleducation helped raise the status ofregular medicine in the eyes of thepublic.42

KNEIPPISM: FROM THEDANUBE TO DENVILLE

At the end of the century,hydropathy enjoyed an internationalrevival. Preissnitzian hydrotherapy wasrepackaged in Germany by SebastianKneipp, a tubercular young priest.Renewed in health and strength bydips in the chilly Danube, Kneippopened a sanitorium at the monasteryin Wörishofen, refining his system toinclude herbal baths and potions,

exercise, dietetics, hot baths, steambaths, and local applications of waterby means of a watering can or hose. Inorder to toughen up their weak,enervated, urbanized bodies, Kneipp’sfollowers took long barefoot walks inthe morning dew or frost. They wereurged to clear their minds of worries,wear loose and comfortable clothing.limit spices, avoid alcohol, and get asmuch fresh air as possible.

In 1895, Father Joseph Joch, atemperamental Austrian-born priest,together with seven Sisters of theSorrowful Mother of the Third Orderof St. Frances, arrived in New Jerseyfrom Wisconsin, where they had

ministered to German immigrants.Joch credited Kneipp with his owncure from tuberculosis, becaming afaithful disciple. Joch was determinedto set up a Kneippian water-cure inDenville (Essex County) near the largeGerman enclave in Newark. The Orderof St. Francis purchased two hundredacres along the Rockaway River. Whileresidential facilities for the St. FrancisSanitarium were still in the planningstage, day patients came from nearby

towns to stand onsubmerged woodenplatforms in the“invigorating, crystal clearwater.” In the decades thatfollowed, the residentialand therapeutic facilitiesexpanded; among thefeatures were treatmentrooms with floors andwalls of marble.

Initially, Jochadministered the water-cure treatments for themale patients and SisterWendelinha Bauer lookedafter the female patients.In 1898 a water-curephysician from Wisconsinjoined the sanitarium ashouse physician.

St. Francis attracted a national andinternational clientele as it took on thetrappings of a health spa and resorthotel in the 1920s. Promotionalliterature in the late 1930s stressedthat the health resort catered to themildly ill, convalescents, and those inneed of “rest and recuperation.” It wasnot a hospital and did not have thestaff or equipment for “bedriddencases, incurables, nursing care, or nightattendance.” “Drug fiends” andalcoholics were “debarred.”The oldKneippian water-cure regimens wereexpanded into a smorgasbord of trendytherapies. By the 1940s, the residentphysician might prescribe alcohol rubs,

Father Joseph Joch (far right, seated), the resident physician (far right, standing)and a group of patients at St. Francis, Denville, ca. 1905.

St. Francis...The First 100 Years. Special Collections, UMDNJ


electric light baths, infrared lights, pineneedle bubble baths, salt rubs, sulfurbaths, short waves, or ultraviolet rays.

Hydrotherapy atSt. Joseph’s ended inthe 1960s.43 St.Joseph’s wasparticularly proud ofits “douche table,” a“hi-tech” piece ofequipmentpurported to placehydrotherapy on afirm scientificfoundation. Thetable was developedby Americanphysician SimonBaruch (father offinancier BernardBaruch) whoembracedhydrotherapy as an essentialcomponent of general medicalpractice. The fine marble table wasfitted with hoses and faucets forspraying hot or cold water. Theoperator, who controlled temperature,timing, and pressure, sprayed water atthe patient who braced himself someten feet away. Alternately, water at theprescribed pressure and temperaturecould be transmitted to a cage-likeapparatus that distributed the streaminto multiple encircling showerheads.44

In South Jersey, Dr. Charles Schmidt(later Smith) of Atlantic City openeda water-cure sanitarium at Egg HarborCity (Atlantic County). The foundingmyth went something like this:Schmidt himself had drunk the watersand bathed in a fountain of youthsomewhere in the vicinity in 1836. He“rediscovered” the site at Egg HarborCity in 1859, but it was not until1900 that he could open Dr. Schmidt’sWater-Cure. Early guests, most likelyfrom the German-speaking communityof Egg Harbor City, bathed near awaterfall, drank Persian herb tea, and

walked until they and their clotheswere dry. Later guests, many fromneighboring states, waded and bathed

in the cedar waters of acleverly designed“serpentine bathingchannel” next to the largeguest house. To reinforcethe myth, Schmidt, whosported a full white beard,claimed to be one hundredand thirty years old. Thesanitarium failed in theearly 1910s.45

The Idlyease Inn inNewfoundland (PassaicCounty) was advertised in1908 as a modern healthresort, offering “All Formsof Hydro-Therapy andMassage.” Idylease was a“quiet, homelike place for

Semi-Invalids, Convalescents,Neurasthenics, and Mild Cases ofCardiac, Nephritic and StomachicTroubles, and for those desiring changeof environment. No Tubercular or

Objectionable Cases.”The resident physician and

superintendent was Dr. D.E. Drake. Abrochure published in about 1930stressed the round-the-clock availability

of staff physicians, Norwegian-trainedmassage therapists, and the “mostapproved scientific apparatus foradministering baths, sprays, anddouches.” Potential guests, in theaccepted social order of the day, werereassured by the policy boldly statedon the first page of the brochure:“Hebrew Patronage Not Solicited.”46

Idylease’s prohibition of tubercularcases reflected modern understandingof tuberculosis as a transmissibleinfection caused by bacteria. RobertKoch in Germany first isolated thetubercle bacillus in 1882, although ittook some years for the medicalcommunity to fully accept theinfectious nature of the disease.Victims of tuberculosis, previouslythought to be suffering from aninherited or constituional weakness ofthe lungs, belonged in sanitoriums, notwater-cures. This attitude contrastssharply to earlier claims of tuberculosiscures by nineteenth-century water-curepractitioners. Indeed, many water-curedoctors became converts to the system

as a result of their personal return tohealth from what they believed to be(and often was) progressivetuberculosis. In retrospect, we knowthat untreated tuberculosis is often

State-of-the-art "douche (shower)table" for directing water spray atwater-cure guests, St. FrancesHealth Resort in Denville, ca.1940s.

St. Francis...The First 100 Years. SpecialCollections, UMDNJ

St. Francis Health Resort, Denville, N.J., ca. 1952. Special Collections, UMDNJ


marked by spontaneous remissions(and relapses), although someunfortunate sufferers experience arelentless downhill course. Until theintroduction of streptomycin in the

late 1940s, doctors and patientsnaturally attributed apparent recoveriesto the treatment of the moment,whether it be crisp mountain air, longsea voyages, the piney Adirondacks, orthe water-cure.

Among many prominent adherentsto the water cure was John AugustusRoebling, Trenton’s famous engineerand industrialist. In 1869, Roebling laydying in excruciating pain and miseryfrom tetanus, a complication of a footinjury sustained while examining thesite of the future Brooklyn Bridge.Beyond help from any physician,regular or sectarian, the great engineersteadfastly demanded hydropathictreatments; his tremulous handwrittendeathbed notes insisted upon “nononsense of the Drs.”47 He was buriedin Trenton, a city plunged intomourning.48

THE ROAD TO YUNGBORN:BACK TO NATUROPATHY

Young German-born Benedict Lust

was living in New York in the early1890s when he, too, developedtuberculosis. Pronounced incurable byhis American doctors, he returned toGermany, took the Kniepp water-cure,

and recovered. He also investigatedvarious German “nature cures.”49 Backin New York, Lust’s fertile imaginationand flowing pen transformed theKneippian water-cure into a universalsystem of healthful living thatLust called “naturopathy.”

“The masters of healing innaturopathic pathology,” wroteLust, “seek to attack the causeof disease by liberating uponand within the organism, thebeneficent forces of nature...”50

Until his death in 1945, hewould be naturopathy’sgreatest champion.

In 1896, Lust chose Butler(Morris County) in theRamapo Mountains as the perfect sitefor a new venture. Variously called theKneipp Naturopathic Establishmentfor Promoting Natural Life, Jungborn(roughly, “fountain of youth” inGerman), and, finally, theAmericanized Yungborn, Lust’s NewJersey health resort was a “place to

grow well and strong again, to be bornanew, to regain lost health and vitalityand with it the fire and enthusiasm andthe joy of living that comes with aperfectly sound body and a vigorousand well-poised mind.”

As part of the “regeneration cure,”Yungborn guests took the usualhydropathic treaments, inhaled theinvigorating mountain air, hiked formiles, walked barefoot in the dewygrass, sunbathed in “the garb ofnature,” absorbed the “healingmagnetism” of mud baths, performedcalisthenics, exercised in the“splendidly equipped” gymnasium,enjoyed massages and physiotherapytechniques such as “Swedishmovement,” drank pure spring water,and ate the vegetarian meals supervisedby Mrs. Lust, N.D.51 Lust rhapsodizedthat within every person lay thepotential for “Massive Muscle, SurgingBlood, Tingling Nerve, ZestfulDigestion, Superb Sex, Beautiful Body,Sublime Thought, Pulsating Power...Glorious Freedom, Perpetual Peace,Limitless Unfoldment, and ConsciousGodhood.”52

From Yungborn, Lusk operated hisNature Cure Publishing Company,offering books such as Louisa Lust’sGood Dinner Cook Book, reprints andtranslations of important Germannaturopathic authors, and his ownarray of journals and books. TheKneipp Naturopathic Supply Store at

The Serpentine Creek at Dr. Smith's Neutral-Water Health Resort and Sanitorium in Egg HarborCity, ca. 1910. From the collection of Ron Hesse, Courtesy Egg Harbor City Historical Society

Brochure for Idylease Inn, ca. 1930, with restrictivepolicies. Special Collections, UMDNJ


Yungborn sold “porous healthunderwear,” as well as “air shoes”(sandals), air bath gowns, and poroussuspenders, some of which soundcomfortable to the modern ear (exceptfor the porous suspenders). The voiceof naturopathy in America was Lust’smagazine, Naturopath and Herald ofHealth (originally the Kneipp Water-Cure Monthly). In 1913, he opened asecond Yungborn in Tangerine incentral Florida.53

Lust founded the AmericanSchool of Naturopathy inNew York in 1901,offering the degree ofN.D. (NaturopathicDoctor). Studentswere trained invibration, massage,electricity,magnetism, physicalmanipulation,hydropathy, diet andfasting, and exerciseregimens. For mind,spirit, and soul, studentslearned such principlesas self-culture, pure love,and “spirit-unfoldment.” Except forhealing herbs, studentswere to view all drugs aspoisons and those whoprescribed them as littlebetter than murderers.

Some courses wereoffered at Yungborn,such as the “special residence beginnersand post-graduate courses.” Lusteagerly brought new healing systemsunder the naturopathic umbrella.54 A1917 advertisement invited students to“Become a Doctor of Naturopathywhich will qualify you at the same timeas Osteopath, Chiropractor,Hydropath, Dietician, Electropath,Mechanotherapist, Neuropath,Zonetherapist, Mental Scientist, etc.”55

Lust himself was a graduate of

homeopathic and osteopathic schools,and often billed himself as N.D.,M.D., D.O., and D.C.

The flirtation with chiropracticended by the 1930s, when Lustaccused the chiropractors of trying todestroy naturopathy using “despicable,dastardly, treacherous tactics.”Thechiropractors were, he fumed, worsethan the “medical crowd.”56

Lust never stopped looking for thefountain of youth. In the 1920s, hewas sure he had found it. “Blood

washing” was a system of lengthywarm showers in which the subjectfrequently changed position in order toexpose all areas of the body to the hotspray. In his 1923 book, “TheFountain of Youth or Curing by Water:How You May Quickly OvercomeAcute and Chronic Illness by the Useof the Biological Blood-WashingBath,” he described his epiphany: “Andso I went down to my sanitorium inButler, N.J., where I was sure I would

have plenty of hot water; and there Irigged up such apparatus as suited mypurpose, and I took the new blood-washing bath...I am not exaggeratingwhen I say that three of those eight-hour units...made me, a man of sixty,feel twenty-five years younger...There isno tedium under the shower. It is asenthralling as an opium dream is saidto be.” Blood-washing was laterprescribed for patients at Yungborn.57

In 1943, Lust was overcome bysmoke at his Florida Yungborn. Heremained convinced until his death in1945 that the sulfa drugs prescribedby his physicians to control theinfections that so commonly provefatal in burn patients, had poisonedhis body and shortened his life. He isburied in Butler near his New JerseyYungborn.58

New Jersey had its own naturopathicmedical college in Newark, gloriously

named The FirstNational University ofNaturopathy:Embracing New JerseyCollege ofOsteopathy, MeccaCollege ofChiropractic, UnitedStates School ofNaturopathy, UnitedStates School ofPhysiotherapy,National School ofPhysical Culture. Thecollege was

incorporated by its founder and dean,F.W. Collins in 1905, although it isunclear when the school actuallyopened or how long it lasted. Thelavish brochure of 1930 listed lecturers(including Lust) with an alphabet soupof medical degrees after their names,along with the names of the school’stwo prominent attorneys, retained tofight off challenges from “ourpowerful and influential enemy theMedical trust, A.M.A.”

Left: Benedict Lust as a youngman, ca. 1903.

Adolf Just, Return to Nature: The TrueNatural Method of Healing and Living and

the True Salvation of the Soul, 1903

Below: Benedict Lust'sYungborn Sanitorium, Butler,N.J., ca. 1921.

Special Collections, UMDNJ


Course offerings coveredhydrotherapy as well as a spectrum ofdubious fads, including iridology(diagnosis of disease by examining theiris), thermotherapy, actinotherapy,universal naturopathic tonic treatment,astro-science, phrenology, pelvicadjustment, the Collins neuro-chrometherapy, and naturopathic footcorrection.59

Rx: BATHE OFTEN, EATRIGHT, EXERCISEREGULARLY

Regular practitioners graduallyadopted some of the practices of thehydropaths and naturopaths, althoughmuch of the impetus for change camefrom within medicine itself. In 1900,the Cooper Hospital in Camden, alongwith many other American hospitals,claimed success in treating typhoidfever with a system of cold bathsinvented by Ernst Brand of Germany.60

In the absence of effective antibiotics(prior to the early 1950s), tuberculosisexperts also looked to nature. A 1906editorial in the Journal of the MedicalSociety of New Jersey proclaimed:“Gradually, almost in spite ofourselves, the truth has forced itselfupon us that the consumptive is,generally speaking, better off withoutdrugs...‘Back to Nature’ must we gobefore we can make any headway in themanagement of this widespread andintractable malady [i.e., tuberculosis]...Fresh, pure, outdoor air, sunlight andproperly selected food form the tripodupon which the entire moderntreatment of consumption rests.”61

Johns Hopkins internist WilliamOsler, the dean of American physiciansat the turn of the twentieth century,recommended cold baths and wet chestbinders for tuberculosis.62

Baths and compresses continue to

find frequent and varied applications inmodern physical therapy.63 Prior to themid-twentieth century, when effectivepsychotropic medications becameavailable, psychiatric institutionsroutinely used baths, packs, andshowers to calm agitated or deliriouspatients.64

It’s hard to argue with taking baths,eating sensibly, exercising regularly,dressing comfortably, and keepingwell-informed about health. Many ofthe late-nineteenth-century hydropathsand naturopaths were sincere in theirbeliefs, despite their entrepreneurialspirit and a propensity for outrageousclaims and shameless hyperbole. Lustand his colleagues, in their “reverentialabsorption in the benevolent mysteriesof nature,” indiscriminatelychampioned and marketed everydrugless fad that rolled down the‘pike.65

The spirit of hydropathy andnaturopathy lives on in comforting, iffuzzy, concepts such as “organic” and“holistic.” As was the case withhydropathy, “alternative medicine” hasgained greater respectibility in regularmedical circles when reframed as“complementary medicine.”

Much of the attraction and thepower of hydropathy and othersectarian medical cults lay in the factthat regular medicine seemed to havelittle to offer in the half centuryfollowing the Civil War, particularly inthe area of effective pharmaceuticaltherapy. The New Jersey hydropathsand naturopaths of a century and moreago were a colorful bunch with a flairfor drama. Let us raise our cups ofCeanothus americanus (Jersey tea) andour bottles of pricey designer water(with natural antioxidants) to theirmemory.

“TheNatureCure atButler”For Mister Lust can make you well, if you will

let him lay

The plans for what you eat and wear, and his commands obey.

He's got an Eden out of town, where you will get no meat,

And walk 'mid trees as Adam did, in birthday suit complete;. . .

Roast beef, cigars, and lager-beer you'll never want again,

When you've been healed by Butler, by fruit, fresh air, and rain.

It's very cheap as well as good -- this wondrous Nature Cure,

And if you take it home with you, its blessings will endure;

For all the ills of all mankind, the cheapest and the best

Is Mister Lust's great Nature Cure -- just put it to the test!

Naturopath and Herald of Health5 (1904): 151


1 David L. Cowen, Medicine and Health in NewJersey: A History (Princeton: Van Nostrand,1964), 3-4

2 Thomas P. Fitzpatrick, "The Lenape Contributionto New Jersey Medicine," Journal of the MedicalSociety of New Jersey (JMSNJ) 81 (1984): 701-6; Stephen Wickes, History of Medicine in NewJersey and of Its Medical Men from theSettlement of the Province to A.D. 1800 (Newark:Martin R. Dennis, 1879), 427-429.

3 William Helfand, personal communication4 G.G. Green: Home of August Flower and German

Syrup (Woodbury, NJ, 1889), Special Collections,University of Medicine and Dentistry of NewJersey (pamphlet).

5 Augustus R. Taylor, Ferdinand S. Schenck,"Report of the Standing Committee for the Year1828," Transactions of the Medical Society ofNew Jersey, 1766-1858 (Newark: Jannings andHardham, 1875), 245-8 (quotation, 245);

6 John Lilly, L.A. Smith, E.J. Marsh, "Report of theStanding Committee for the Year 1848,"Transactions of the Medical Society of NewJersey, 1766-1858, 429-34 (quotation 429)

7 Alexander Dougherty, "Report from the EasternDistrict," Transactions of the Medical Society ofNew Jersey; 1766-1858, 438-42 (quotation 441).

8 Stephen Wickes, Chas. Hasbrouck, R. Gaunt,"Report of the Standing Committee,"Transactions of the Medical Society of NewJersey (1866): 121-22 (quotation, 122).

9 James C. Whorton, Nature Cures: The History ofAlternative Medicine in America (New York:Oxford University Press, 2002), 25-48

10 Waldron family papers, MC 777, RutgersUniversity Special Collections and UniversityArchives

11 F. Gauntt F., "Reports from Burlington County,"Transactions of the Medical Society of NewJersey (1854):584-94 (quotation 594).

12 Wickes, Hasbrouck, Gauntt, "Report," 121-2.13 Newark Daily Patriot, 1 November, 1865.

14 Medical and Surgical Directory of the UnitedStates (Detroit: R.L. Polk, 1886), 598; Cowen,Medicine and Health, 72.

15 Whorton, Nature Cures, 49-7516 Samuel W. Butler, comp., Medical Register and

Directory of the United States, 1874(Philadelphia: Office of the Medical and SurgicalReporter, 1874), 451-3.

17 H. Genet Taylor, "President's Address,"Transactions of the Medical Society of NewJersey (1889): 61-77 (quotation 71)

18 Cowen, Medicine and Health, 129-30. 19 Harry B. Weiss and Howard R. Kemble, The

Great American Water-Cure Craze (Trenton: ThePast Times Press, 1967), v, 13.

20 The Medical Examiner and Record of MedicalScience (Philadelphia), 7 (1844), cited in Weissand Kemble, Great American Water-Cure, 47-8.

21 Vegetarian Society of America, Food, Home, andGarden 3 (1891): n.p. Verbatim typed copy:Papers, Weiss, Harry B., 1932-69; RutgersUniversity Archives and Special Collectons.

22 Whorton, Nature Cures, 77-101; Weiss andKemble, Great American Water-Cure, 36-7, 89

23 R.T. Trall, "The Water-Cure Process Illustrated,"Water-Cure Journal and Herald of Reforms 8(1849), 2-7; Marshall Scott Legan, "Hydropathy inAmerica: A Nineteenth Century Panacea,"Bulletin of the History of Medicine 45 (1971), 267-80.

24 Whorton, Nature Cures, 85-7.25 Jane B. Donegan, Hydropathic Highway to

Health: Women and Water-Cure in AntebellumAmerica (New York, Westport CT: GreenwoodPress, 1986), xi-xvi

26 Water Cure Journal and Herald of Reform 14(1853): 122.

27 Russell T. Trall, The Hydropathic Encyclopedia: ASystem of Hydropathy and Hygiene, Designed asa Guide to Families and Students, and a Text-Book for Physicians (New York: Fowlers andWells, 1853), 34.

28 Water-Cure Journal and Herald of Reform 15(1853): 36.

29 Weiss and Kemble, Great American Water-Cure,84-5.

30 Richard W. Schwarz, John Harvey Kellogg(Nashville: Southern Publishing Association,1970), 27-30.


32 Weiss and Kemble, Great American Water-Cure,41-4, 138-9.

33 Water-Cure Journal and Herald of Reforms 5(1848), 158.



36 Edward Bulwer Lytton, Extracts from Sir E.Bulwer Lytton's Confessions and Observations ofa Water-Patient, Letter to the New MonthlyMagazine, To Which is Appended: A Descriptionof the Orange Mountain Water-Cure (ca 1851),Rutgers University Archives and SpecialCollections.


38 Stephen Wickes, "Water-Cure in Orange,"Transactions of the Medical Society of NewJersey (1861): 68-76.

39 Weiss and Kemble, Great American Water-Cure,143-5

40 Ibid., 146-5041 Ibid., 218, 95.42 Whorton, Nature Cures, 101. 43 Peggy Carroll, St. Frances: The First 100 Years

(Denville, NJ: S.S.M. HealthCare Ministry, 1995),Special Collections, University of Medicine andDentistry of New Jersey.

44 Simon Baruch, An Epitome of Hydrotherapy forPhysicians, Architects and Nurses (Philadelphia:W.B. Saunders, 1920), 111-6.


46 Advertisement in Medical Directory of New York,

New Jersey and Connecticut, New York (NewYork: Medical Society of the State of New York,1908), 11; Idylease Inn, (Newfoundland NJ, n.d.)Special Collections, University of Medicine andDentistry of New Jersey (brochure).

47 Letters, Ferdinand W. Roebling, MC 654, SpecialCollections and University Archives, RutgersUniversity Libraries.

48 David McCullough, The Great Bridge: The EpicStory of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge (NewYork: Simon and Schuster, 1972), 90-99.

49 Whorton, Nature Cures, 19250 Advertisement in Louis Kuhne, Neo-Naturopathy:

The New Science of Healing and the Doctrine ofthe Unity of Diseases (Special AuthorizedAmerican Edition) (Butler NJ, New York: BenedictLust, 1917).

51 Advertisement, Kuhne, Neo-Naturopathy;Advertisement, Naturopath and Herald of Health19 (1914), n.p.

52 Advertisement, Naturopath and Herald of Health(1902), cited in Whorton, Nature Cures, 196.

53 Advertisement, Kuhne, Neo-Naturopathy;Whorton, Nature Cures, 191-9, 205.

54 Whorton, Nature Cures, 195-655 Advertisement, Kuhne, Neo-Naturopathy.56 Naturopath and Herald of Health 40 (1935): 2-3. 57 Benedict Lust, The Fountain of Youth or Curing

by Water: How You May Quickly Overcome Acuteand Chronic Illness by the Use of the BiologicalBlood-Washing Bath (New York: MacfaddenPublications, 1923), 102; Benedict Lust, BloodWashing Method (New York: Benedict LustPublishing Company, 1923), Special Collections,University of Medicine and Dentistry of NewJersey (pamphlet).

58 Whorton, Nature Cures, 21759 The First National University of Naturopathy

(Newark: First National University ofNaturopathy,1930), Special Collections andUniversity Archives, Rutgers University Archivesand Special Collections(brochure).

60 E.L.B. Godfrey, "Typhoid Fever: Its Relation toWater Supplies, with Observations Concerning itsTreatment," Transactions of the Medical Societyof New Jersey (1900): 73-82.

61 "Back to Nature," Journal of the Medical Societyof New Jersey 3 (1906): 27

62 William Osler, Thomas McCrae, ModernMedicine: Its Theory and Practice (Philadelphia:Lea Brothers, 1907), 422-3

63 Jack M. Zislis, "Hydrotherapy," in Frank H.Krusen ed., Handbook of Physical Medicine andRehabilitation (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1965),328-339.

64 Jack R. Ewalt, Edward A. Strecker, Franklin G.Ebaugh, Practical Clinical Psychiatry, 8th ed.(New York: McGraw Hill, 1957), 358-9.

65 Whorton, Nature Cures, 200.


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