Now! Then! Jane Carlyle tells husband Thomas how she rebelled against the brutal hydrotherapy meted out by Dr William Macleod at Ben Rhydding spa, Ilkley

20 July 1849: Jane Carlyle tells husband Thomas how she rebelled against the brutal hydrotherapy meted out by Dr William Macleod at Ben Rhydding spa, Ilkley

Jane Welsh Carlyle. 1894. Letters and Memorials. Ed. Thomas Carlyle and James Anthony Froude. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Get it:

Excerpt

Oh, my dear, I have been “packed”! The doctor proposed to “pack” me for courtesy, and I, for curiosity, accepted. So at six in the morning, just when I had fallen into sound sleep, I was roused by a bath-woman coming to my bedside, in a huge white flannel gown, and bidding me turn out. I got on to the floor in a very bewildered state, and she proceeded to double back one half of my bed clothes and feather-bed, spread a pair of blankets on the mattress, then a sheet wrung out of cold water; then bade me strip and lie down. I lay down, and she swathed me with the wet sheet like a mummy; then swathed me with the blankets, my arms pinioned down, exactly, in fact, like a mummy; then rolled back the feather-bed and original bed-clothes on the top of me, leaving out the head; and so left me, for an hour, to go mad at my leisure! I had no sooner fairly realised my situation of being bound hand and foot under a heap of things, than I felt quite frantic, cursed my foolish curiosity, and made horrid efforts to release myself; thought of rolling to the bell, and ringing it with my teeth, but could not shake off the feather-bed; did ultimately get one of my hands turned round, and was thankful for even that change of posture. Dr Nicol says the bath-woman should have stayed with me during the first “pack,” and put a wet cloth on my head; that it was the blood being sent to my head that “caused all this wildness.” Whatever it was, I would not undergo the thing again for a hundred guineas. When the bath-woman came back at seven, I ordered her to take me out instantly. “But the doctor?” The doctor, I told her, had no business with me, I was not a patient. “Oh! then you have only been packed for foon, have you?” “Yes; and very bad fun!” So she filled a slipper-bath to “put me to rights,” and I plunged into that so soon as I was set loose, and she splashed pitcher after pitcher full of water on my head. And this shall be the last of my water-curing, for the present. I feel quite shattered still, with an incipient headache, and am wishing that Forster would come, and take us back to Rawdon.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

Hydrotherapy can kill, really. Paddington Weighs In deals with a similar horror:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaEysHZapJw

For some reason I class hydrotherapy with hydrophobia.

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Original

To T. Carlyle, at Galway.

Benrydden: Friday, July 20, 1849.

Oh, my dear, I have been ‘packed!’ The Doctor proposed to ‘pack’ me for courtesy, and I, for curiosity, accepted. So at six in the morning, just when I had fallen into sound sleep, I was roused by a bath-woman coming to my bedside, in a huge white flannel gown, and bidding me turn out. I got on to the floor in a very bewildered state, and she proceeded to double back one half of my bed clothes and feather-bed, spread a pair of blankets on the mattress, then a sheet wrung out of cold water; then bade me strip and lie down. I lay down, and she swathed me with the wet sheet like a mummy; then swathed me with the blankets, my arms pinioned down, exactly, in fact, like a mummy; then rolled back the feather-bed and original bed-clothes on the top of me, leaving out the head; and so left me, for an hour, to go mad at my leisure! I had no sooner fairly realised my situation of being bound hand and foot under a heap of things, than I felt quite frantic, cursed my foolish curiosity, and made horrid efforts to release myself; thought of rolling to the bell, and ringing it with my teeth, but could not shake off the feather-bed; did ultimately get one of my hands turned round, and was thankful for even that change of posture. Dr. Nicol says the bath-woman should have stayed with me during the first ‘pack,’ and put a wet cloth on my head; that it was the blood being sent to my head that ’caused all this wildness.’ Whatever it was, I would not undergo the thing again for a hundred guineas. When the bath-woman came back at seven, I ordered her to take me out instantly. ‘But the doctor?’ The doctor, I told her, had no business with me, I was not a patient. ‘Oh! then you have only been packed for foon, have you?’ ‘Yes; and very bad fun!’ So she filled a slipper-bath to ‘put me to rights,’ and I plunged into that so soon as I was set loose, and she splashed pitcher after pitcher full of water on my head. And this shall be the last of my water-curing, for the present. I feel quite shattered still, with an incipient headache, and am wishing that Forster would come, and take us back to Rawdon.

417 words.