Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/100

94 and it could not be proved that anybody had ever been the worse for a cold-water cure. The sympathy of the public was emphatically on the side of the defendant, who relied on his native eloquence and asked the court if it was fair to force an indictment for the practise of medicine against a man who had never encouraged the belief in the efficacy of medicinal prescriptions or dispensed a grain of drugs in his life. "Bathing," he argued, "is a mere sanitary habit, and you might as well arrest me for advising my neighbors to take more outdoor exercise or try a change of diet."

Those neighbors became a trifle too demonstrative in their applause, and the court warned all concerned to "be more careful hereafter," but, on the whole, thought it best to discharge the prisoner.

The kreis physicus (chief health officer of the district) threatened to appeal the case, but at the urgent advice of a legal friend, concluded to desist.

As a net result of the prosecution, Squire Priessnitz gained so many new patrons that he had to enlarge his sanitarium, and the next year could add a new branch for female patients. As usual in such cases, the charm of novelty