In a century characterized by dramatic health-care remedies—bloodletting, purging, and leeching, for example—hydropathy was one of the most celebrated alternative forms of medical care. Unlike these other cures, however, hydropathy, which entailed various applications of cold water, also staunchly advocated the reformation of such personal habits as diet, exercise, dress, and way of life. Susan E. Cayleff explores the relationship between this fascinating sect of nineteenth-century medicine and the women who took the cure. Wash and Be Healed investigates the theories, practices, medical and social philosophies, institutions, and the most prominent proponents of the water-cure movement and studies them in relation to the diverse reform networks of the nineteenth century. Documenting the popularity and importance of hydropathy among female activists, Cayleff argues that the water-cure movement was overpowered by allopathic (or orthodox) medicine which viewed hydropathy as a crackpot therapeutic largely because of its close association with nineteenth-century social activism. The book gives us an alternative view of social and sexual relationships which should contribute to the growing awareness among scholars that the history of health and healing must be more than the history of allopathic medicine.

Modern spas are wellness resorts that offer beauty treatments, massages and complementary therapies. Victorian spas were sanitariums, providing "water cure" treatments supplemented by massage, vibration, electricity and radioactivity. Rooted in the palliative health reforms of the early 19th century, spas of the Victorian Age grew out of the hydrotherapy institutions of the 1840s--an alternative to the horrors of bleeding and purging. The regimen focused on diet, rest, cessation of alcohol and foods that upset the stomach, stress reduction and plenty of water. The treatments, though sometimes of a dubious nature, formed the transition from the primitive methods of "heroic medicine" to the era of scientifically based practices.

Progressive nineteenth-century Americans believed firmly that human perfection could be achieved with the aid of modern science. To many, the science of that turbulent age appeared to offer bright new answers to life's age-old questions. Such a climate, not surprisingly, fostered the growth of what we now view as "pseudo-sciences"—disciplines delicately balancing a dubious inductive methodology with moral and spiritual concerns, disseminated with a combination of aggressive entrepreneurship and sheer entertainment. Such "sciences" as mesmerism, spiritualism, homoeopathy, hydropathy, and phrenology were warmly received not only by the uninformed and credulous but also by the respectable and educated. Rationalistic, egalitarian, and utilitarian, they struck familiar and reassuring chords in American ears and gave credence to the message of reformers that health and happiness are accessible to all. As the contributors to this volume show, the diffusion and practice of these pseudo-sciences intertwined with all the major medical, cultural, religious, and philosophical revolutions in nineteenth-century America. Hydropathy and particularly homoeopathy, for example, enjoyed sufficient respectability for a time to challenge orthodox medicine. The claims of mesmerists and spiritualists appeared to offer hope for a new moral social order. Daring flights of pseudo-scientific thought even ventured into such areas as art and human sexuality. And all the pseudo-sciences resonated with the communitarian and women's rights movements. This important exploration of the major nineteenth-century pseudo-sciences provides fresh perspectives on the American society of that era and on the history of the orthodox sciences, a number of which grew out of the fertile soil plowed by the pseudo-scientists.

There have always been mail-order brides in America. In this book Zug starts with the so-called "Tobacco Wives" of the Jamestown colony and moves forward to today's modern same-sex mail-order grooms to explore the advantages and disadvantages of mail-order marriage. It's a history of deception, physical abuse, and failed unions. It's also the story of how mail-order marriage can offer women surprising and empowering opportunities.