Hydropathy at Home: The Water Cure and Domestic Healing in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Britain

Peer-reviewed history-of-medicine article fetched directly (PMC2774269) on 2026-08-02. States Gully was notably critical of orthodox medicine, accusing conventional practitioners of subjecting patients, especially women, to useless local treatments, bleeding, cauterization, and injections based on exploitative diagnoses, yet concludes that in his Malvern practice he did not center on treating the poor or democratizing the water cure, but instead chiefly administered expensive regimes of treatment to wealthy patients. Records 1840s Malvern charges of 4-5 guineas a week plus 2 shillings 6 pence to bath attendants, and a 2-guinea initial consultation fee with Gully personally. Also records that Gully's own 1863 popular manual (A Guide to Domestic Hydrotherapeia) was framed as a response to patients wanting to continue home water treatment after leaving his personal supervision.