Kneipp USA

Jonathan Paul De Vierville

Professor Jonathan Paul de Vierville, Ph.D., is director and founder of the Alamo Plaza Spa and received his spa training at the Kneipp School in Germany and in Karlsbad Czech Republic. He is board member of the International Spa Association Foundation and the American Massage Therapy Association Foundation. Annually he conducts THE KUR SPA COURSE at European Spas.

He bases his programs on the holistic herbal and water therapy developed by the Catholic priest Sebastian Kneipp in the 1890's in the Bavarian spa village of Bad Worishofen (southern Germany).

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Der Wasser Kur (The Water Course)

Hydrotherapy: Washes, Wraps, Packs and Herbs

By Jonathan Paul De Vierville, Ph.D., L.M.S.W.-A.C.P., L.P.C., T.R.M.T.

Director, Alamo Plaza Spa at the Menger Hotel

During the mid-19^th Century when consumption (tuberculosis) was treated with fresh air, Sebastian Kneipp (1821-1897), an obscure German priest, contracted the deadly disease. In search for a remedy, Kneipp discovered an 18^th century book on cold water treatments written by Johann Siegmund Hahn (1696-1773). 1737 Lesson of the Power and Effect of Fresh Water in the Lives of Persons, especially for Use in Inner and Outer Sicknesses, saved Kenipp’s life. Following Hahn’s suggestions Kneipp plunged himself in the cold Danube River for a minute. When his body cooled, respiration accelerated, and circulation diminished, Kneipp quickly came out of the cold water and rested in bed where he wrapped himself in heavy warm blankets. Shortly his respiration normalized, body warmed, and blood circulation increased greatly. Kneipp practiced Hahn’s cold water treatment two or three times a week for several weeks and successfully treated his consumption.

In 1855 while serving as a priest for the Dominican Nunnery in Bad Worishofen, Germany, Father Kneipp began using these cold water washes and warm wraps with sick nuns and parishioners. Kneipp recognized the severity of Hahn’s plunge, so Kneipp developed other less severe methods which required shorter durations. Also he developed hot and cold contrast baths using essential herbal bath oils and herbal teas.

Kneipp’s reputation as a natural healer spread throughout Germany and Austria and soon sick Europeans were flocking to his parish. His patients included nobility and aristocrats, as well as farmers, peasants, and the poor.

After three decades of practical experience, Father Kneipp published Meine Wasserkur in 1886. Four years later, the English translation,  My Water Cure, appeared in London. Kneipp’s book presented a natural therapeutic system which detailed a practical understanding of methods used for preserving health and treating diseases and marked the beginning of an active century-long health care tradition that carried his book through sixty-two editions.

Kenipp presented Wasserkur in three parts. The first described numerous water applications; the second consisted of a home apotheca; and the third listed alphabetically complaints and diseases successfully treated with his methods. Kneipp used water applications for dissolving and evacuating morbid matters, and strengthening the organism. Dissolving actions were accomplished with medicinal herbal vapors and hot baths; evacuation with wet wraps and bandages, hot shower baths, and wet sheets; and strengthening was stimulated with cold baths, cold shower baths, affusions, ablutions, and his system of hardening. 

Kneipp’s system of hardening (i.e. prevention) began with walking barefooted through wet grass, on wet stones, in cold water, or over newly fallen snow. Short cold baths for arms and legs and cold showers for the knees were also used. “Many storms break out in life upon man’s health; happy is he who has health’s roots well fastened, deepened and grounded by hardening.” 

The Kneipp water applications included wet sheets, baths, vapors, shower bath, ablutions (washings), wet bandages (wraps) and drinking of water. For example a cold foot bath consisted of standing in the cold water (32-65 degrees F, 0-18 degrees C) up to the knees, for one to three minutes, followed by walking briskly to bring the blood back into the feet. Cold foot baths served to lead blood down from head to chest and were generally taken with other applications. For healthy people, cold foot baths give a freshness and strength, and are especially advisable in summer-time, after a hard and fatiguing day. Cold foot baths take away weariness and bring on rest and good sleep. 

Kneipp's therapeutic method included eighteen different types of baths, not including the various herbal baths, four types of vapor baths and eight different of shower baths. Two types of ablutions were given, one for healthy people and one for sick. Either the whole body or part is washed. Ten types of bandages covered either the head, neck, shoulders, foot, leg, thigh, chest, upper torso, torso or whole body (i.e. Spanish mantle). 

In the second section of Wasserkur Kneipp included instructions for making tinctures or extracts, teas, powders, oils and other home medicines. Kneipp itemized the necessary contents of a little home apotheca. For nutrition and several kinds of strength-giving foods he supplied recipes for the preparation of bran-bread, soups, and honey-wine. 

In the last section on diseases Kneipp listed alphabetically those complaints and disorders he most frequently treated. The cases were not imaginary ones; in some cases names were mentioned. Kneipp recognized his list was not complete, but he wished this part of the book to be instructive as well as entertaining for his intended readers, common German folk, workers and peasants, not academic doctors. The list of diseases began with Abscesses and ended with Worms. 

Today, many of the diseases listed by Kneipp, such as cholera, consumption, diphtheria, dysentery, scarlet fever, smallpox, tetters, and typhus, have been eradicated. Other complaints, however, are still with us and probably always will be. Sleeplessness, exhaustion, headaches, over-excitement, nervous complaints and disorders, melancholy, and even insanity are not unusual problems encountered in contemporary society. So are ulcers, stomach cramps and acidity, hemorrhoids, hypochondriasis, backaches, influenza, rheumatisms, heart complaints, bowel and bladder complaints, bed-wetting, burns, and asthma. 

For each of these complaints and many others Kneipp offered practical suggestions and described his natural treatment methods and experience. For examples two students, who had left college before the end of the term came to him. Both students suffered from nervous headaches. They were unable to study or read for a few minutes. Kneipp advised each student to spend the greater part of the day walking barefoot especially in the cool dewy grass. On their rambles in the woods they were to stand in the cold streams (cold foot baths) for some minutes every hour and then walk briskly. Finally he instructed them to take two or three cold upper body showers (cold affusions) daily. Both students following Kneipp’s advice and the headaches disappeared and they returned to their studies. Kneipp commented: “Would that so wholesome a practice as walking  barefoot in wet grass might find a place among the numerous drill-exercises taught in schools, many of which cause great heat and excitement whilst walking barefoot on a wet meadow is unsurpassed in its calming effect.” 

A reading of Kneipp’s cases makes for an informative as well as entertaining time. Practical suggestions as well as profound wisdom are found throughout. Kneipp’s natural treatment methods can be understood as a multi-disciplinary system consisting of five basic complementary principles of treatment. The five fundamental principles include therapeutically integrated uses of:

1. Hydrotherapy – thermal and mechanical water applications and baths

2. Kinesiotherapy – exercise, movement, and massage

3. Phytotherapy – natural herbal medicinal remedies, oils, teas and juices

4. Nutrition – well balanced, tasty, digestible and diversified diets

5. Regulative Therapy – mental, emotional, rhythmic and cultural life patterns. 

A Kneipp Kur (a course, not a cure) is a personalized health care training program and series of applications accomplished with the help of a spa physician and professionally trained massage therapists and medical bath masters. A typical Kneipp course consists of a three to four week coordinated series of applications based upon the five principles and applied with sufficient time and repetition. 

Modern German universities, medical schools, and clinical researchers have studied the Kneipp System and developed official therapeutic indications lists for prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. Therapeutic indications include cardiovascular diseases, rheumatic diseases, metabolic disturbances, afflictions of the digestive tract, nervous troubles, neuropathy, affection of the respiratory tract, male and female hormonal disturbances, childhood diseases, post-operative conditions, and allergies of the skin and mucous membranes. 

The Kneipp System is practiced at many European spas. In Bad Worishofen, Germany there are over 200 spas (Kur Houses) that operate year round. Kneipp’s original work, recent research, and public information continue to be published by the Kneipp Bund (Union), The International Association for the Kneipp Movement, and Kneipp Verlag GMBH, all located in Bad Worishofen, Germany. 

Professional training is conducted at the Sebastian Kneipp School of Physiotherapy where certification programs for Massage Therapy, Medical Bath Master, Movement Therapy, Physiotherapy, and Foot Care Specialists are offered. The Kneipp System and training is particularly relevant to contemporary massage practitioners. Many European massage therapists and bodyworkers have successful practices combining Kneipp’s methods and hydrotherapy applications along with their usual massage modalities. 

Early Kneipp Practitioners and Institutions in America

One hundred years ago Kneipp’s Wasserkur along with his other two books My Testament and So You Shall Live, were first introduced to the United States by German immigrants. Earliest mention was found in letters of German-American priests, nuns, and physicians who visited Bad Worishofen for their own ailments. Later, testimonials from Americans were fond among visitor lists at the Kur houses, hotels, pensions, and even at an orphanage. Several American health-seekers joined the Kneipp Organizations, which published, Central Blatt fur Kneippische Heilverfahren (Central Newspapers for Kneipp Healing Procedures). The paper published treatment results reported in the small German village where Kneipp practiced. With the spread of Kneipp’s success and reputation, those unable to travel to Germany sought out Kenipp’s methods in America. 

The first American institution to use Kneipp’s system was established in 1892, at Dansville, Wisconsin, by Father Rauber. Before coming to America, Rauber trained with Kneipp. Except for Rauber’s early influence on a later establishment, little is known about the first Kneipp institution in the United States. Following Father Rauber, Doctor Joseph Josh, an Austrian theologian-physician, purchased property at Dansville. After training with Kneipp for two years Josh arrived in Wisconsin in 1894. With the help of 21 local nuns from the Sisters of the Grieving Mother, Josh established the St. Francis Sanatorium. A full range of Kneipp methods was offered. Joch was joined by Doctors Theodore Jaqueman and N.F. Keifer in 1895. The medical staff emphasized good nutrition, physical and mental hygiene. The sanatorium was an early success. 

In June 1893 Reverend Father Rouge of the Mount Carmel Orphan Asylum established the New Orleans Kneipp Water-Cure. Sufferers of all kind came to Rouge’s New Orleans establishment. Water applications were administered for the treatment of diseases including, articular and muscular rheumatism, consumption, bronchitis, heart disease, stomach ailments, liver, spleen, and bowel diseases, bladder troubles, gout, skin affections, female complaints, nutritional disorders, disease of the eyes, ears, and throat, and nervous diseases. 

Rules of hygiene were strictly enforced at Rouge establishment. Smoking was not permitted in the halls, parlors, or dining room. Quiet was maintained. There was no whistling or slamming of doors. Good manners were encouraged. No spitting on the floors, sitting in bed, lighting matches on the walls, or throwing things from the windows. Along with their daily water applications, hygiene, nutrition, and manners, patients were expected to maintain a strict health-care regime that included mile long walks along the grassy levee of the Mississippi. Additional physical exercise included woodcutting and wading in a fresh water pond. 

Of the 85 patients treated in 1903, 35 lived in New Orleans, 23 were from other towns in Louisiana, and 27 came from other southern states. Daily treatments cost from $3.33 to $5.00, depending upon the disease, and quality of room and board. Room and board for persons accompanying patients was $2.00. Treatments could be arranged for patients in their homes. 

Rouge was trained in the German tradition of Natural Medicine. Most medical schools in Germany taught (and still do today) a combination of naturopathic and allopathic medicine. Natural Medicine which in German is called Naturheilverfahren (natural healing procedures) is based on a philosophical knowledge of nature and is taught along-side scientific academic biomedicine (Schulmedizin). Medical health care is a blend of nature and science, which includes an emphasis on water treatments and use of natural herbal remedies, along with surgery and pharmacology. 

Most early Kneipp sanitariums were affiliated and staffed by members of religious orders, whose fundamental purpose was that of Christian missionary service for the sick and suffering. An early example of this missionary service occurred in the winter of 1893 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when Mother Alexia introduced Kneipp’s teachings to the Sanatorium of St. Joseph-Sacred Heart. Twenty years earlier, Sister Alexia had arrived in the United Stated. She helped found the St. Joseph Convent of Sister’s School of the Holy Franziskus, a boarding school for girls, and over 100 church schools. 

With her many accomplishments, Mother Alexia returned to Germany in 1892 for treatment of her severe rheumatism. Father Kneipp treated her with his methods. Kneipp’s natural treatments made a lasting impact on this amazing woman. Returning to America, Mother Alexia established an “American Worishofen” in Milwaukee. By Christmas 1893, Mother Alexia opened the first Kneipp clinic, where 80 patients were treated at one time. Eventually the Kneipp clinic expanded into a comprehensive sanatorium which utilized water methods, herbal applications, movement, and nutritional therapies. Some years later the clinic merged with St. Mary’s Hill Hospital where Dr. Julius Wen Glesky began using Kneipp methods for the treatment of nervous diseases. 

In 1894 Dr. William Giermann, a German physician, purchased 180 acres at the Hillside Cold Springs on Sylvan Lake located near Rome City, Indiana, where he began to offer Kneipp treatments to patients who traveled by train from Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Chicago, Detroit, Toledo, and Columbus. During the first year over 2,500 health-seeking visitors came to Giermann’s Kneipp Springs Sanitarium. One of the patients was Mother Mary Emma Nunlist, Superior General of the Sisters of the Precious Blood. 

In 1901 Dr. Giermann arranged for the Sisters of the Precious Blood to purchase Kneipp Springs. The Sisters transformed the spot into a health resort for the sick members of their Congregation, an asylum for poor children, and a home for the aged. Near the Sanitarium they planted vegetable and herb gardens, fruit trees, and built fish ponds. Herbs were used for therapeutic teas and seasonings, the fruits and vegetables for natural diets and organic menus. Surrounding fields and woods allowed for long walks. Meditation and prayer were practiced at Lourdes Grotto. The fresh cold spring water ponds provided pools for foot baths, wading and arm washing. 

For fifty years between 1901 and 1951 Kneipp treatments were administered to a yearly average of 2,000 guests. More than fifty other types of natural applications, including baths, wraps, packs, vapors, gushes, poultices, and fomentations were offered. In 1942 Kneipp Springs affiliated with the Catholic Hospital Association, Indiana Hospital Association, and American Hospital Association. The sanitarium was modernized into a general medical, chronic, convalescent and rest home with treatments of hydrotherapy, electrotherapy, heliotherapy, massage, and diets. The natural springs park included a nursery, tennis courts, shuffleboard lanes, golf course, and movie theater that provided a home away from home at the 125-bed sanitarium. The 50^th Jubilee booklet listed former patients from Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New York and Ontario. 

During the fifties and sixties treatment services and facilities were expanded. A new building project which enlarged  the administrative offices, dining room, and lobby was completed by 1965. But as the facility grew, the staff decreased. During the seventies the older sisters passed on, and as the Catholic Church underwent changes, many sisters left the order and fewer novices trained. As the number of Sisters declined, so did their capacity for trained services. As services declined, so did donations. Finally in 1977 the Sisters sold Kneipp Springs to The Way International for use as Center for Biblical Research and Teaching. 

Other Kneipp institutions were established before the turn of the century. In 1893 a group of Franciscan Friars built a $100,000 project near Chicago. Several years later the Franciscans expanded their treatment services and took over patient care at St. Josef-Home in Peoria, Illinois. Rector Konrad, a priest and former patient healed by Kneipp in 1891 established St. Josef-Home in 1894. The same year in Cleveland, Ohio, Dr. Schmitz established his Columbia Sanatorium which he based on Kneipp’s system. Most Kneipp centers were established with financial support from Christian Men’s societies. 

The first Kneipp & Nature Cure Sanitarium at Newark, New Jersey, and the New York Kneippianum at New York City and Poughkeepsie were built in 1898. Dr. Charles Lauterwasser, a Kneipp student, organized the Kneipp and Nature Cure Sanatorium in Newark. At the First Brooklyn Light and Water Cure Institute patients received Swedish movement massage, electric vibration massage and electric light baths of either blue or white light. In Philadelphia Dr. Theo Fuhrmann, a German hydropathic physician, opened the First Philadelphia Kneipp & Nature Cure Sanitarium. 

One of the most vocal American advocates of Father Kneipp’s teachings was Benedict Lust. Born in 1872 and raised in Germany, Lust suffered from tuberculosis. His father sent him to Kneipp treatments. Traveling to New York City in 1892 Lust was forced to return to Bad Worishofen, where he underwent another course of treatment. The success of Kneipp’s methods convinced Lust to seek permission for establishing a magazine, a society, a school, and a treatment institution in America. In 1896 Lust returned to New York City with his commission from Kneipp. 

When Lust returned to New York, he began teaching the Kneipp method. The interest in Kneipp was already strongly established by the religious societies in German-American communities. Lust worked as a teacher, research scientist, doctor, health food store manager, journal editor, author-publisher, sanatorium operator, and society administrator. He organized Kneipp societies in Jersey City, Brooklyn, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Columbus, Buffalo, Rochester, New Haven, San Francisco, New Mexico, and Mineola, Long Island. Members within these organizations received the Amerikanische Kneipp Blaetter and Lust’s English-language publication, The Kneipp Water-Cure Monthly. By the fall of 1896 Lust opened the Kneipp Water-Cure Institute of New York City. 

Lust’s intensity attracted several influential Americans involved with health care publications. Bernard MacFadden became interested, then Doctors Lindlahr, Reinhold, and Trall, highly respected eastern doctors. Lust became associated with Dr. Frederick Collins, of Newark, New Jersey, author of The Simplicity of Water Cure, and later with Dr. Hugh Wendel, ND, DO, MD, DC, DD (Doctor of Naturopathy, Osteopathy, Medicine, Chiropractics, and Divinity), a German trained “Naturartz.” Together, Lust, Collins, and Wendel lectured and demonstrated Kneipp’s methods in communities all along the East coast. 

Sebastian Kneipp died on June 17, 1897; the same year Lust became a United States citizen. The following year Lust graduated from the Universal Osteopathic College of New York and became licensed as an osteopathic physician. With his new associations, licenses, and residency, Lust shifted directions. In 1898 he changed the name of his store from the “Kneipp Store” to the “Health Food Store.” He acquired chiropractic training and established the New York School of Massage and the American School of Chiropractics. Lust directed his energies into the promotion of Naturopathy. 

In 1902 Lust purchased the term Naturopathy from Dr. John Scheel of New York City. Lust’s definition of Naturopathy was very broad. Lust incorporated nearly every therapeutic modality, except drugs, into his Naturopathy. He used Naturopathy to describe eclectic and generic doctrines which included “the art of natural healing and the science of physical and mental regeneration on the basis of self-reform, natural life, clean and normal diet, hydrotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic, naturotherapy, electrotherapy, diet, phytotherapy, physical and mental culture, to the exclusion of poisonous drugs and non-adjustable surgery. 

The same year Lust established The American School of Naturopathy (Naturheilkundliches Institute)  and The American Naturopathic Association in New York City. He changed the title of The Kneipp Water Cure Monthly  to  The Naturopathic and Herald of Health. As editor of Naturopathic and Der Hausdoktor magazines, Lust promoted “Nature’s Path.” Later, Lust reorganized the Naturopathic Societies of America and changed the name to the American Naturopathic Association. 

Lust’s New York enterprises grew. His new facility house the Naturopathic Institute, Clinic, and Hospital; the American Schools of Naturopathy and Chiropractic; the “Original Health Food Store”; the New York School of Massage, as well as Lust’s many publishing enterprises. Between 1912 and 1914 Lust took an “education sabbatical” and attended the Homeopathic Medical College in New York, which granted him a degree in Homeopathic Medicine in 1913 and a degree in Eclectic Medicine in 1914. He traveled to Florida and obtained a Medical Doctor’s license on the basis of his earlier Homeopathic training. At the same time he established two large and luxurious treatment facilities, the Youngborn Sanitarium at Butler, New Jersey, and Quisisana in Tangerine, Florida. 

In 1914, with the assassination of the Archduke of Austria (once Kneipp’s patient), the Great War broke out in Europe, and three years later the United States went to war against Germany. All associations with Germany were discouraged and restricted. Lust published the first issue of his Universal Naturopathic Directory and Buyer’s Guide (a “Yearbook Guide to Drugless Therapy”), with no mention of the German priest’s methods. 

During the 1920s and 1930s Lust authored books and edited magazines on the subject of Naturopathy, seldom mentioning Kneipp or hydrotherapy. Lust’s battle was against the growing chemical and drug trusts. His advocacy of Naturopathy and dramatic challenges against established academic medicine forced his arrest no less than sixteen times. His trials and tribulations deserve further consideration, but this is another story. Benedict Lust died on September 5, 1945, a tired but successful businessman. 

The success Lust achieved in America, coupled with his confrontational style, antagonized traditional allopathic American medicine. Because of Lust’s earlier association with Kneipp, most of Kneipp’s American critics directly associated Kneipp with Lust’s Naturopathic cause. This was unfortunate since Kneipp’s basic and complementary principles contain many practical methods worthy on their own merit. 

Over one-hundred years ago Father Kneipp recognized that health was dependent upon one’s mode of living. If one’s mode and way of life could have a detrimental effect on health, then changing one’s mode and way of life could restore health. Kneipp developed a comprehensive system of physiotherapy based upon spiritual depth, natural elements, and scientific knowledge. A tradition of service to the Spirit of God and humanity was instrumental; it still is. God, nature, and science are integrated into a cohesive health care method based upon five fundamental principles which include the systematic application of water, herbs, diet, exercise, natural rhythms and cultural order. Kneipp’s comprehensive system of physiotherapy based upon spiritual depth, natural elements, and scientific knowledge needs to be re-examined and experienced by contemporary American massage therapists and health care practitioners. Many helpful natural therapeutic services will be found for treating many modern day disorders.