Cold water cures

Floating ice, Jökulsárlón Lagoon, Iceland.

Note well: these are not recommended.

One mixed 10 drachms of powdered Ash-Coloured Ground Liver-Wort and 4 drachms of black pepper, ground to a powder. The powder was divided into six doses, one to be taken each morning in half a pint of warm milk. To be extra sure, a cold bath or a dip in a cold river was recommended. This was afterwards referred to as the pulvis antilyssus.

— Cases and Cures of the Hydrophobia, selected from the Gentleman's Magazine, 1807.

[For Burn or Scald] Immediately plunge the part into cold Water. Keep it in an hour, if not well before. Perhaps four or five hours. Tried. Or Electrify it. If this can be done presently, it totally cures the most desperate burn.
— John Wesley, Primitive Physic, 1785, 34.

[For Deafness] Be electrified through the Ear. Tried. Or use the Cold Bath. Or put a little Salt into the Ear. Or drop into it a Tea-spoonful of salt Water.
— John Wesley, Primitive Physic, 1785, 50.

[Blindness] Is often cured by cold bathing. Or, by Electrifying. Tried. This has cured a Suffusion of sixteen years standing, and a Gutta Serena of twenty-four.
— John Wesley, Primitive Physic, 1785, 55.

[For The Falling Sickness] Be Electrified. Tried. Or, use the Cold-Bath for a month, daily.
— John Wesley, Primitive Physic, 1785, 59.

Nothing tends more to prolong an Ague, than indulging a lazy indolent Disposition. The Patient ought, therefore, between the fits, to take as much Exercise as he can bear; and to use a light Diet; and for common drink, Lemonade is the most proper. Or drink a Quart of cold Water, just before the cold Fit. Then go to bed and sweat.
— John Wesley, Primitive Physic, 1785, 22.

[For asthma] Take a pint of cold Water every Morning, washing the Head with water immediately after, and using the Cold Bath once a Fortnight.
— John Wesley, Primitive Physic, 1785, 28.

[For measles] "Patients afflicted with it must be kept a little warmer than is necessary in cases of small-pox, but not too warm; they ought to breathe pure air and drink elder-flower tea; and great care is to be taken that they do not expose themselves to cold air or sudden gusts of wind."
— B. C, Faust, MD, Catechism of Health, London: 1794, 153–4.

[For The Palsy] Be electrified daily for three months, from the places where the nerves spring which are brought to the paralytic part. If the parts beneath the head are affected, the fault is in the spinal marrow. If half the body, half the marrow is touched. A Palsy may be cured in spring or summer, but rarely in winter. Or use the cold bath, if you are under fifty, rubbing and sweating after it.
— John Wesley, Primitive Physic, 1785, 82–3.

[For Palpitation Drink a pint of cold water. Or apply outwardly a rag dipt in Vinegar. Or be Electrified. Tried. Or take a decoction of Mother's-Wort every night.
— John Wesley, Primitive Physic, 1785, 83.

Electrifying: …in a proper Manner, cures St Anthony's fire, Blindness, Blood extravasated, Bronchocele, Burns or Scalds, Coldness in the feet, Contraction of the limbs, Convulsions, Cramp, Deafness, Falling sickness, Feet violently disordered, Felons, Fistula Lachrymalis, Fits, Flooding, Ganglions, Gout, Head-ach, lmposthumes, Inflammations, Involuntary Motion of the Eye-Lids, King's-evil, Knots in the flesh, Lameness, Wasting, Weakness of the legs, Restores Bulk and Fulness to wasted Limbs, Locked jaws or joints, Leprosy, Menstrual obstructions, Ophthalmia, Pain in the stomach, Palsy, Palpitation of the heart, Rheumatism, Ring-worms, Sciatica, Shingles, Sinews shrunk, Spasms, Stiff joints, Sprain, however old, Surfeit, Swellings of all sorts, Sore Throat, Tooth-ach, Ulcers, Wens.
— John Wesley, Primitive Physic, 1785, 118–119.

Nothing tends more to prolong an Ague, than indulging a lazy indolent Disposition. The Patient ought, therefore, between the fits, to take as much Exercise as he can bear; and to use a light Diet; and for common drink, Lemonade is the most proper. Or drink a Quart of cold Water, just before the cold Fit. Then go to bed and sweat.
— John Wesley, Primitive Physic, 1785, 22.

[For asthma] Take a pint of cold Water every Morning, washing the Head with water immediately after, and using the Cold Bath once a Fortnight.
— John Wesley, Primitive Physic, 1785, 28.

[For Plague] Cold Water alone, drank largely, has cured it. Or an ounce or two of the juice of Marigolds. Or after bleeding fifty or sixty ounces, drink very largely of water sharpened with spirit of Vitriol. Or a draught of brine as soon as seized. Sweat in bed. Take no other drink for some hours. Or use Lemon juice largely in every thing.
— John Wesley, Primitive Physic, 1785, 85.

[For sciatica] Is certainly cured by a Purge taken in a few hours after it begins. Or use cold bathing, and sweat, together with the flesh-brush twice a day. Or boil Nettles till soft. Foment with the liquor, then apply the herb as a poultice. I have known this cure a sciatica of forty-five years standing. Or apply Nettles bruised in a mortar. Or a mud made of powdered pit-coal and warm water. This frequently cures sores, weakness of the limbs, most disorders of the legs, and swellings and stiffness of the joints. It cured a swelling of the elbow-joint, though accompanied with a fistula, arising from a caries of the bone.
— John Wesley, Primitive Physic, 1785, 92.

The cold bath may be considered as an aid to exercise. By it the body is braced and strengthened, the circulation and secretions promoted, and, were it conducted with prudence many diseases, as the rickets, scrophula, &c. might thereby be prevented. The ancients, who took every method to render children hardy and robust, were no strangers to the use of the cold bath; and, if we may credit report, the practice of immersing children daily in cold water must have been very common among our ancestors.
— William Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 1790, 29.

[For nose bleed] If the genitals be immersed for some time in cold water, it will generally stop a bleeding at the nose. I have not known this fail.
— William Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 1790, 333.

[For insanity] The practice of pouring cold water upon the head while the body of the patient is immersed in the tepid bath, is frequently resorted to with manifest benefit in insanity, and threatened apoplexy. In the latter disease, cupping, and the exhibition of purgative medicine, may be beneficially employed with it. Tepid bathing is particularly indicated in old age, the chillness, stiffness, and debility of which state, it is well calculated to lessen and remove. Franklin, [Erasmus] Darwin, and other eminent philosophers, speak in high terms of the benefit they received in their advancing years, from the frequent use of the tepid bath. The best time of using it is in the morning, any lime between ten and one o'clock, and gentle exercise should be taken afterwards. In general, the period of immersion should not be less than twenty minutes, nor exceed one hour.
— Thomas John Graham, Modern Domestic Medicine, 2nd edition, 1827, 124.

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