Vincenz Priessnitz
Vincenz Prießnitz, occasionally Vincenz Prisnitz or Vincenz Prißnitz, (* October 4, 1799 in Grafenberg at Freiwaldau, † November 28, 1851 ibid ) was a farmer and self-taught natural healer from Austrian Silesia. He is ( according to the " taps " Siegmund Hahn and Johann Siegmund Hahn ) an innovator of cold water cure in Austria and Germany.
Life
Vincenz Prießnitz was born as the youngest of six children of the farmer and his wife Theresa Prießnitz Franz Kappel in Freiwaldau City, House No. 175. Then the father went blind and the oldest brother died early, Prießnitz had to leave school after only a short time and collaborate on the family farm. He could only read and write limited, so was functionally illiterate. With 17 years Prießnitz broke two ribs when he was thrown on the road to the field of his shying horse to the ground and then run over by the appended cars. Without fixing this might have led to life-threatening injury to internal organs. He helped himself by fusing the injured ribs with a dipped in cold water envelope and tape over it several tight-fitting cloths. This was the birth of the Prießnitz envelope. The ribs healed, and very quickly the young Prießnitz had for miles around the reputation of being a " water doctor ".
1828 Prießnitz married Sophie, daughter of the commune of Böhmischdorf at Freiwaldau. With her he had one son and six daughters. Its water treatments did not prevent he suffered a stroke in 1848 and thereafter, according to ADB suffered from " cirrhosis of the liver and dropsy ." At the age of 52 years Vincenz Prießnitz died on 28 November 1851 in Grafenberg. The left by his wealth was estimated at an impressive 10 million guilders. Since his son at the time of his death was still a child, a hydropathic establishment was taken over by a son.
Work
In 1826, the first patients came from outside to Prießnitz. He set up a bathhouse, in which he treated with water, but was indicted in 1829 by several doctors as quacks. The trial ended with an acquittal for Prießnitz because he therapied not with drugs, but only with water. In 1830 he got the approval of the Austrian Government for the establishment and maintenance of a cold-water sanatorium. In the bathhouse a huge pan of ten meters in diameter, was installed, in which the patients were also able to swim. In addition, it contained a well. Already in 1832 a second institution building was built with 18 rooms and a hall. Overall, could be accommodated in the hospital at the same time about 100 patients. Until his death, treated the " water doctor " here about 36,000 patients. To date, the sanatorium he founded there in Bad Grafenberg ( Lázně Jeseník ).
Prießnitz developed any new medical theory, but made with its water cures and air baths hydrotherapy popular. Internal diseases he performed "bad juice " back, which would have to be brought out from the body. He turned to cold water and cold compresses in a variety of diseases, but also prescribed exercise and diet (water, milk and cold unseasoned food ). He also sat on Resilience, preferably by ice-cold showers, which spilled out the water from a height of several meters to the patient. Further treatment elements were the drinking cure, enemas, baths, and perspiring.
He published nothing, but dictated in 1847 his daughter Hedwig the Vincent Priessnitz families water book, which is deposited at the Institute for the History of Medicine at the University of Vienna.
1846 Prießnitz was awarded the large golden medal of merit for his services in the name of the Austrian emperor. In City Park Jesenik and Türkenschanzpark in Vienna remember to this day monuments of Vincenz Prießnitz. In Leipzig eV in today's allotment gardeners club Priessnitz Dawn, also a memorial to him. In 1909, in Vienna Floridsdorf ( 21st district ) was named the Prießnitzgasse after him.
Since 1960, the German Naturopaths shank lends a Prießnitz Medal.
Trivia
Prießnitz has input into the Polish language, in which he was immortalized by his performance. So say shower in Polish prysznic, a Polonised form of his German family name.