"Water Doctor" Vincenz PRIESSNITZthe founder of the world's first hydrotherapy spa, was so well known in the first half of the 19th century that he received a letter from South America with the following on the envelope: Vincenz Priessnitz - Europe. The spa he built in the Jeseníky Mountains from almost nothing was visited by socialites and celebrities of the imperial court from all over Europe and overseas, and even Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was treated by him. Over 400 books have been written about Priessnitz's life and work, most of them in German.
Although he had no medical training, he was able to help thousands of patients to health by purely natural means. Priessnitz's healing methods are now considered the basis of modern hydrotherapy and natural healing, but in his time he faced human envy, accusations of quackery and even ended up in prison. Eventually he came to be recognised, was awarded the first-class Citizen's Gold Medal, and his poultice known as the "Priessnitz poultice" is now registered as a national cultural heritage. On the bicentenary of his birth in 1999, UNESCO included this date in the world cultural calendar.
The founder of the world-famous spa was born 225 years ago, on 4 October 1799. He was born the youngest of six children of Jan František Priessnitz, a peasant, and his wife Maria Theresa née Kappel in the small settlement of Gräfenberg (today the Jeseník Spa) near Frývaldov, today's Jeseník. After the blindness of his father and the death of his elder brother Josef - both attributed to the poor work of the rancher and the grandmother of the rooter - the then twelve-year-old Vincenz became a farmer on the family farm and it seemed that his life was destined. Especially since he rarely went to school due to his farm duties. However, no one could deny him his natural intelligence, sharp mind, thoughtfulness and the charisma of an exceptional personality, which soon became apparent. By observing the surrounding nature and natural phenomena, he gained experience which he later began to use in healing.
In his life, the saying that everything bad is good for something good was confirmed. He was able to heal himself from severe injuries caused by his work on the farm: at the age of fourteen he pinched his arm while baling wood, two years later he was knocked down by a stampeding horse and a loaded wagon ran over his chest. While the ranch hand called in pronounced his injuries fatal, and if he survived he would be crippled for life, Vincenz said he remembered a doe he had watched as a child go to one of the local springs to wash his injured leg until it healed - and so he imitated her. He straightened his broken ribs on the back of a chair, fixed them with a cold-water compress, applied "priessnitz" wraps - and he recovered. His neighbours considered it a miracle, and he himself gained an unshakable faith in the healing power of cold water.
Whether the story of the deer is true or not, the use of spring water, baths, compresses and hardening became the basis for future successful treatment. Surprisingly, the methods of the strange man who changed the way people looked at health worked even on those who didn't believe. News of his miraculous cure spread throughout the region. First he began to cure the animals of his neighbours, then the inhabitants of Gräfenberg and the surrounding area, and eventually even prominent citizens from Frývaldov and even Vienna.
At the age of twenty-three, he had his family home rebuilt into a brick building with a storey (the first on Gräfenberg), he placed a crib on the ground floor, and thus founded the world's first hydrotherapy institute. Of course, it didn't stop there, in the following years Gräfenberg became a famous spa resort where the elite of the monarchy of the time went to be treated. Many turned up their noses at Priessnitz because he was self-taught and had no medical training, but his methods were able to successfully cure thousands of patients.
In 1828 Priessnitz married Sophie, the daughter of the mayor of Česká Ves u Frývaldova. Eight daughters were born from the happy marriage, her son František died soon after his birth. He did not live to see the longed-for successor to his life's work, his son Vincenz Pavel, until 1847. In 1929, the local ranchers and doctors of Frýdek filed a complaint against him and accused him of being a charlatan. It bothered them that, as a layman, he was treating everyone who came in for free and successfully, thus losing his livelihood. The court acquitted him because he did not treat with medicines or herbs but only with water.
In 1831 he received permission from the Austrian government to build and operate a cold-water sanatorium without medical training but under medical supervision. Later, an imperial commission declared his hydrotherapy "a new remarkable phenomenon in the field of health care" and issued him a permit without restrictions. The official spa was established in 1837. He set up a large pool 10 metres in diameter with a fountain in the bathhouse, in which patients could swim. In 1838 a second building with 18 rooms and a hall was built. At that time, up to 1,500 patients a year were treated in the spa, and doctors from all over Europe came here to study Priessnitz's healing methods. Until his death, Priessnitz treated around 36,000 patients here.
He did not publish anything about his methods of hydrotherapy, but in 1847 he dictated to his daughter Sophie the 63-page "Water Book of the Family of Vincenz Priessnitz", which is still preserved in the Institute of the History of Medicine at the University of Vienna. In 1880, his son-in-law Hans Ripper had a copy made for the Priessnitz archives.
In 1848 he suffered a stroke and then liver and kidney disease. In early November 1851 he caught a cold, which his weakened body could not overcome. He died in Gräfenberg on 28 November 1851 at the age of 52. His wife Sophie survived him by only three years. Both are buried in the family chapel in Jeseník Spa. The estate Vincenz Priessnitz left behind was estimated at three million gold pieces. As his son was still a child at the time of his death, the hydrotherapy facility was taken over by his son-in-law, the husband of his daughter Sophie, and his friend Josef Schindler, a doctor and owner of the Potočná hydrotherapy institute in the Jizera Mountains.
In his honour, his patients had often expensive monuments built in many places around the spa, often complete with water springs. Between 1836 and the 1940s, 88 monuments were erected - a unique worldwide phenomenon, created by representatives of 13 nationalities from all over the world.
Gnews.cz - Jana Černá
PHOTO - atis.cz / de.wikipedia.org
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