In his 1846 book, Gully re-elaborated the mechanism inherited from Priessnitz’s followers into a more physiological-sounding theory: the vis medicatrix naturae (the body’s own healing force) was assumed axiomatic, and water was held to influence disease by acting on the ganglionic nervous system, whose centre Gully placed in the viscera, first by negative means (withdrawing orthodox drugs, alcohol, and other irritants) and then by positive means (applying water internally and externally to redistribute and purify the blood) (Price, 1981, p. 276). Robin Price’s 1981 Medical History assessment, summarizing this theory in detail, judges that Gully’s mechanism rested on assumptions modern medicine would regard as scientifically, though not necessarily pragmatically, unjustifiable (Price, 1981, p. 276). No controlled study validating a ganglionic-nervous mechanism by which cold-water application cures disease appears in the historical record Price surveys; the claim is recorded as unreplicated rather than tested against modern physiology.