PRIESSNITZ, VINCENZ, the originator of the water-cure, was the son of a farmer, and was born at Gräfenberg in Austrian Silesia in 1799. He had not attained to manhood when circumstances occurred which were the means of leading him to his great discovery. The death of his father compelled him at an early age to take an active part in the management of the farm. One day as he was out in the fields driving a cart, the horse knocked him down, and the wheel passed over his side. The medical man who was called in found two of his ribs broken, and expressed a fear that he would be a cripple for life. It was then that Priessnitz resolved to try a new method of curative treatment. Having adjusted his broken ribs by expanding his chest to the utmost, he began to employ the regimen of drinking water plentifully, and applying wet cloths to the bruised parts of his body. His experiment proved successful. In a few days he was able to walk about, and at the end of a year he was performing his part in the labours of the farm. Similar cures were then applied to the maladies of his neighbours, and were attended with similar results. All the opposition of the medical faculty and of the enemies of innovation could not prevent the new science of hydropathy from gradually gaining a footing in the credit of the public. At length, in 1829, Priessnitz established cold baths at his native place, and became a hydropathist by profession. His efficiency in his new vocation was abundantly testified by the steadily-increasing popularity which he continued to gain. The Austrian government, so intolerant for the most part of all empirics, not only permitted him to practise, but even gave him their patronage. The number of patients who resorted to him annually from all parts of Europe increased in course of time to hundreds. The farm of Gräfenberg, on the slope of one of the Sudates, expanded into an extensive hospital of many houses, where invalids sought to regain health by means of sweating, pure air, exercise, plain diet, and lively conversation. The example spread; and before Priessnitz died in 1851, he had the gratification of seeing several hydropathic establishments in different European countries. (See Claridge's Hydropathy, London, 1842; and Selinger's Vincenz Priessnitz eine Lebensbeschreibung, 12mo, Vienna, 1852.)