waste
not, want not!
A
remarkable conversation took place recently
in Darwin Gardens between myself and two visitors from abroad. They
enquired about the history of the white buildings on the moor above
and what kind of bathing took place. It transpired they came
from Czechoslovakia knowing of the Priessnitz cures and Grafenburg
exceedingly well, names synonymous with Ilkley’s hydropathic era.
Today
Priessnitz cures are virtually unheard of in these parts but in
Grafenburg they are still part of daily life, being used for a wide
range of ailments. One using a ‘cure’ to aid relief
of asthma, while the other spoke highly of a ‘Priessnitz Bandage’
to ward off symptoms of the common cold and sore throat. It would
seem what Silesian farmer Vinzenz Priessnitz practised in the early
nineteenth century is still as efficacious today. We have much to
learn from the use of water in our daily lives, time for developers
to think again in providing their modern des-res with multitudinous
water wasting paraphernalia. Such is progress.
