2000, Number 5
La hidroterapia como tratamiento de las enfermedades mentales en México en el siglo XIX
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Language: Spanish
References: 15
Page: 41-46
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ABSTRACT
Since we have notice, humanity has used water to relieve sickness. Hippocrates recommended water as a sedative in melancholia. Celsus in sad madness, Areteo in the fainting fit and the frenzy. But it was not until the XVIII and XIX Centuries when water was studied and its use was systematized. Because the excelent results observed with hydrotherapy and bathetherapy, water was considered as a panacea. In the last years of the XIX Century, hydrotherapy was a discipline with firm physiologic bases and a solid knowledge. The actions mecanism of water in the nervous system was explained by its thermocellular effects and its reflex on the periferic nervous system. The vasoconstrictive-vasodilatation phenomenon was responsible for the modification of the nervous system. There were seven main effects of water, depending on temperature, time, mode and aplication site. It was believed that the phenomenon produced by frequent and long lasting baths, modifided mood, blood composition, digestion and absortion. Suprise baths were the treatment chosen for serious mania. Lukewarm water and swimming were used in sedative and agitated patients. Before 1848, hydrotherapy was used in Mexico only as immersion in cold water. In 1869, the first showers, such as those of the Bellevue baths were installed at the San Lucas Military Hospital. Shortly after, the bathing system of the San Hipolito Asylum for the Insane was also changed. For the bath area of the Castañeda Insanity Asylum, engineers and doctors in charge took ideas from the Comission of the 5th Asylum of the Sena. The bath building has 730 square meters, with a department equipped with showers, swimming pool, massage area, feet baths, tubs and a phototherapy and electrotherapy department. Hydrotherapy was recommended for hypochondria, mania, melancholy, epilepsy, clorosis and paralysis. Treatment for hypochondria was both physic and moral; it required pure air, nice views, a pleasant society of happy friends who could help patients to change their feelings and life style. Hydrotherapy was applied by means of two baths per week. Half an hour cold-seat baths, the other days a sweatdamp sheet for 2 hours, cold belly defensives a cold sheet in breast and back, and a water enema everyday. The same treatment was used for hysteria, but cold baths were given 22 times a month; three days a month, a damp-sheet and cold showers were applied. Cold baths from head to toe were given, as well as sedative lukewarm baths and revulsive showers in pelvis. Hydrotherapy was prohibited while nursing and during puerperal period. Also in malnutrition and in degenerative and circulatory diseases, or in patients with apopletic seizures. Results depended on the individual’s susceptibility and idiosincracy. It was used as prophylactic in irritable children of neuropathic parents, in business men, students in exams, or people with intellectual or physical fatigue.REFERENCES