Volume 1
Jamie Doughty BSc, ND, Venessa Wahler ND, in Textbook of Natural Medicine (Fifth Edition), 2020
A Brief History of Naturopathic Medicine Introduction
Hydrotherapy is a form of physical medicine using the therapeutic application of water in a variety of ways, both internally and externally, on the body. Topical applications of cold or hot water packs, compresses, baths, pools, steams, sweats, showers, enemas, and colonics are all forms of hydrotherapy. Profound, multisystem physiological effects result from the thermodynamic property of water and its effects on an organism’s circulation and capability to remove waste and eliminate. Hydrotherapy techniques applied to a patient are a form of stress to the cells that influences their metabolic function, regulates their environment, and provides an opportunity for the body’s natural healing processes to take place.
Hydrotherapy has been used by human civilizations for thousands of years and has grown to have literature demonstrating scientific evidence-based applications and uses worldwide today.
Naturopathic physicians are trained in harnessing the curative power of nature through hydrotherapy techniques to treat a myriad of chronic diseases by supporting the innate ability of the human body to heal. Naturopathic medicine follows the principle of “first do no harm,” which analyzes the risks versus benefits of any therapeutic intervention. Hydrotherapy is a simple nature cure—a gentle, effective, and curative modality for modern culture. In the words of Dr. Simon Baruch (1840–1921): “No remedy in the entire materia medica demands as clear judgment and as much knowledge of the patient’s condition as does the application of water.”
In North America there are seven different accredited naturopathic educational institutions that all teach and practice the therapeutic application of water through many lecture hours and much clinical experience.1 The working hypothesis of naturopathic hydrotherapy is that the state of being free from illness and injury is proportional to the normal flow of healthy blood, lymph, and qi.