Talk:Water cure (therapy)

Disambiguation or renaming
There is a confusion due to  the article water cure being a form of torture and being a medicinal  treatment known as hydrotherapy. Malvern, Worcestershire was certainly not a centre of torture! I would assume the expression water cure first  and foremost to  have something  to  do with a medical  treatment, and therefore have a higher ranking in the disambiguation. If I have time, I'll sort this out, but maybe someone else from the Alternative Medicine project will get there quicker. If you are expandiing  this article please see  Malvern Water where the are many useful references for water cures. --Kudpung (talk) 09:41, 1 June 2009 (UTC)


 * On further checking, It would appear that many people looking up Water Cure are expecting  to  find a reference to  a form of therapy an not  a form of torture.  I  am therefore  proposing that  the pages be renamed:

Water cure to Water Cure (torture) Water cure (therapy) to Water Cure and that the disambig page be modified accordingly. I have also proposed a deletion & redirect of the stub Water therapy--Kudpung (talk) 00:12, 3 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Clearly both "Water cure (therapy)" and "Water cure" should be redircted to "Hydrotherapy". 173.50.7.252 (talk) 15:44, 31 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Disagree - 'Water cure' as described is clearly not  a form of therapy, hence the suggested dab. Proposed merge of Water therapy to  Hydrotherapy already proposed and declined  2007. see:Talk:Hydrotherapy/Archive 1.--Kudpung (talk) 19:25, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Start with definition
Regarding the above issue, I make the following observations and suggestions. Firstly, the definition of Water Cure, as used in that article is misleading. Not because it is wrong. But because it is incomplete.

The first citation in the Water cure article refers to the Oxford English Dictionary, although no further referencing details are given. As readers will be aware, there are several versions of this dictionary, with the most complete being the multi-volume edition typically found only in libraries, to various abridged versions which are more commonly available (and affordable). The two-volume Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (6th ed., 2007) lists the definition for water-cure on page 3586, under the general listing for water (noun), alphabetically in the sub-listing for phrases. It states:

"Water-cure (a) a course of medical treatment by hydrotherapy; (b) a form of torture in which a person is forced to drink large quantities of water".

Thus, there are two primary uses of water: For therapy, and for torture. And thus, two primary definitions in relation to the the topic of discussion.

I would suggest that this gives us the basis for a solution, which is similar to that proposed by Kudpung (talk), with the exception that Water cure (therapy) remains as is, since the title already captures one of the two primary definitions. Thus:

Water cure to Water Cure (torture) Water cure (therapy) remains as Water Cure (therapy)

This also makes the task easier in the first place. All we need to do is rename the Water cure article. By doing so, we (a) give the reader the two primary definitions, while (b) keeping with the original intentions of the article as being one about the use of water as a form of torture. I hope this is of some help.Wotnow (talk) 02:42, 1 November 2009 (UTC)Wotnow

Merge proposal: Water therapy into Water cure therapies and caveats section
I am proposing to merge the stub article, Water therapy, into the relevant section of Water cure (therapy). This follows a comment from Kudpung in June 2009 and my own observation in November, both on the Water therapy talk page. I subsequently commented on Kudpung's talkpage in December

In my November comment, I noted that the Water therapy article is impoverished, and would be better merged into another article. I noted that "while the article's history is intriguing, the article itself is extremely brief, extremely narrow in scope (certainly not covering the broad category of water therapy) and contains no sources. Its sole merit is that it contains a caveat to mindless drinking of copious amounts of water - i.e. that water intoxication can and does occur", and that "its use then, is as a caveat section in a larger article, which is what I propose to do with it".

In my December comments, I noted that "a review of the article's revision history indicates that anything else, such as redirection or proposed deletion, will result in edit-warring, which is in fact the main history of the article itself", but that "incorporating the relevant part of its content as a caveat in a larger article, will cover all relevant bases".

Per my December comments, I am aware that the Water therapy article has "a revision/edit-warring history, and related sensitivities to take into account. But again, if the main article incorporates the relevant information and spirit, reasonableness should prevail".

I have now incorporated all of the information, having created the Water cure therapies and caveats section in the current article, as well as adding 'see also' links from the Water therapy stub. The next step is to complete the merge of the Water therapy stub, which I propose to do. Regards Wotnow (talk) 01:50, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Merge complete
I have now completed the merge process, and placed a messagebox atop this talk page per merge help recommendation. Per above comments, the information was previously incorporated in full, so it was a matter of waiting a suitable time then completing the process, including tidy-ups such as removal of double redirects, which I have done as best I can for now. Wotnow (talk) 03:08, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Removed "approaching level of water intoxication. as on the water intoxication page of wiki it is recommended to drink 1.2 liters water a day. The levels for water intoxication are "way higher" that than. 1.5 liters is not "way higher" than 1.2 liters. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.198.180.173 (talk) 22:36, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Reliable sources
After saving this comment, I'll replace a citation that was removed as being "not a reliable source". I agree that it's less than ideal. However, it is in fact reliable for the sentence that it is attached to. The sentence pertains to a claim by advocates. The citation is an advocacy website making the claim. Personally, I am not greatly impressed with either this citation source or the Japanese Water Therapy website citation. For any practice that has been around for a while there must be books or articles out there which could be utilised. Books and journals exist for even the dodgiest of therapies, if they have been around a while, as some have unfortunately, adding to the sheer crap people have to wade through in seeiing genuinely useful information for managing their health (a man once said to me "you can't make money out of health. You have to sell something". This fellow was a doctor, author, book distributor, and franchise holder. He knew what he was talking about).

Nevertheless, sometimes a website will do the job in the absence of someone making the effort to find another source. In the case of these two citations, while I am not greatly impressed with either, the 'Water Therapy' source is actually a bit more reliable than the Japanese Water therapy. Why? It is more informative than promotional and refers to information that can be readily verified, being a summation of documented material, some of which is cited within Wikipedia. The documented material of course, such as those of Russell and others, pertain to various things, including observations and claims. The last sentence on this website is a sort of stand-alone claim. However, the claim is not limited to this website - proponents have long made such claims, and these are documented. It does not take much effort to come across material on anything in the various paragraphs on the Water Therapy website. The Japanese Water Therapy website is not as readily verifiable, and indeed comprises both advice and claims, with no clear indication of background sourcing or historical figures (and one doesn't look at it and go "oh yeah, I remember reading about that").

Of the two sources, I personally would regard the Japanese Water Therapy page as the less reliable. I am not saying such a therapy doesn't exist. I am saying there is a known body of literature underpinning the other website, even if it isn't cited on that website - and I'm saying only a lazy researcher or someone who doesn't know how to research, won't stumble onto the underpinning literature. It's true I made an extraordinary effort, but it's also true that in doing so I stumbled onto far more than I had time to review and digest. However, I cannot say the same for the Japanese Water Therapy website, which looks more promotional than informative. If anyone has reliable citations for this, they should feel free to add them. But just knocking out a source without adding a better one, and leaving a dodgier ref as the only source, doesn't help. Wotnow (talk) 02:40, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Great source
W. A. Campbell (June, 1966) James Crossley Eno and the Rise of the Health Salts Trade. University Of Newcastle Upon Tyne Medical Gazette 60(3):350 Reprinted as an appendix pp 259ff in W. A. Campbell. The Analytical Chemist In Nineteenth Century English Social History Thesis presented for the degree of Master of Letters in the University of Durham. Newcastle upon Tyne July 1971

really, read it. crazy interesting about "salts". Jytdog (talk) 07:29, 2 September 2016 (UTC)