Winternitz

WINTERNITZ, Wilhelm (Wilhelm Winternitz, 1835-1917), professor at the University of Vienna, is rightly considered the founder of modern scientific hydrotherapy. For the first time as a naval physician (1858-1861), he became convinced of the effectiveness of hydrotherapy in some febrile diseases. After leaving naval service, Winternitz studied the same questions in Gräfenberg with the follower of the famous empiric Prissnitz (Vincent Prissnitz), Dr. Schnidler. As a result of his first observations, he published the work: 'Zur rationellen Begrundung einiger hydrotherapeutischen Prozeduren' (1865). Around the same time, he founded the hydrotherapy institution 'Kaltenleutgeben' near Vienna, which later gained worldwide fame and became a model for similar institutions created later. In 1871, W., together with a group of young associate professors at the University of Vienna, founded a polyclinic where he established a hydrotherapy department, which became the basis for his scientific and teaching activities. In 1891, W. founded the specialized journal 'Blätter für klinische Hydrotherapie und verwandte Heilmethoden', Vienna, 1891-1901. W. authored a large number of works, primarily on issues of hydrotherapy. His views on the course of the vascular reaction, although they require certain corrections and additions, remain fundamentally correct even for our time. His teaching on the febrile state and the role of the skin in it was largely elucidated by W. Winternitz understood hydrotherapeutic effects as a profound influence on the functions of various organs, making it possible to increase the body's protective forces. Just before his death, he published his last work 'Wasserkur und natürliche Immunität', dedicated to this question. Winternitz's work 'Die Hydrotherapie auf physiologischer und klinischer Grundlage', published in Vienna in 1877 and subsequently issued in several editions, has been translated into various languages (including Russian, St. Petersburg, 1893).