● ● ● between two new modes of treatment which she had not yet tried. One of these was hydropathy or the water cure. Back on December 2, 1861, while Patterson was still with her, she had written a letter to a Mr. and Mrs. Taylor of Hill, New Hampshire, where the Vail Hydropathic Institute was located:
If I should go in to Dr. Vail’s establishment . . . could you take me? . . . I am rather better than when I applied to you for board last Autumn. . . . I want to board near a Water Cure, so if necessary I could call for aid. My husband I believe knows Mr. Taylor and thinks your quiet family just the thing for me. . . . My food is of the simplest sort. I take nothing for breakfast but Graham bread (Wheat meal bread) and a little thickened milk cold, in the shape of toast gravy. Eat but two meals a day no meat or butter I do want to come and board with you very much and let dear husband attend to his profession which calls him away.105
Now that Patterson was away so irremediably, she decided definitely to go to the Hydropathic Institute, and there she accordingly moved sometime in June.
Dr. William T. Vail, founder of the institute, was a buoyant, sensible, open-minded man, gentle and kindly. He has been described by his friend Dr. John A. Tenney, who was an orthodox practitioner, in these words:
He relied much upon mental influences in his treatment. The first rule posted in the rooms was to the effect that patients should never talk to each other about their ailments. In one of his consultations with his physicians he said there were a number of patients under his care that could be cured by simply talking to them. He balanced their minds by helping them to get rid of their fears.106
106 John A. Tenney, statement, 1919.001.0053, LMC. Cf. Charles Fayette Taylor, Theory and Practice of the Movement-Cure (Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1861), pp. 36–37:
The special influence of the mind and will upon the general bodily nutrition is daily manifested and acknowledged by every physician. . . . Hope to the sick man brings life and health; despair to the well man brings disease and death. . . . Bad news impairs the appetite. . . . . Melancholy destroys the action of the bowels, causing constipation. . . . Now, all this indicates that there may be a Medical Psychology.