Prießnitz, Vincenz (Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie / Deutsche Biographie)

The Deutsche Biographie entry for Vincenz Prießnitz is the authoritative biographical reference used in this case. It carries the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie article (volume 26, 1888, pp. 589-590, by Julius Leopold Pagel) and the Neue Deutsche Biographie article (volume 20, 2001, p. 720, by Manfred Skopec), and lists him as “Naturheiler, Begründer der modernen Hydrotherapie.” The entry gives his life dates (born 4 October 1799 at Gräfenberg bei Freiwaldau in Austrian Silesia; died 28 November 1851 at the same place), records that he was the son of a farmer who went blind in old age and that Prießnitz attended the town school only briefly, and states that he built the so-called old bathhouse in 1826, having until then used a washing-trough for his treatments. It records the government permission to run a cold-water cure establishment (the Neue Deutsche Biographie article gives the year as 1831, which this case follows; the older Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie article gives 1830), the rise of his annual patient numbers from 49 in 1829 to 1,780 by 1839 (with a lifetime total near 36,000), and the large gold medal of merit awarded by the Austrian Emperor in 1846. The entry notes plainly that Prießnitz followed humoral-pathological views rather than scientific medicine and that he published no writings of his own. These facts anchor the practitioner entry and the charismatic-practitioner, financial-conflict, and disconfirmation stages of the case.