By his enthusiastic advocacy of the water cure, Uhlig gained an
influence over me in another direction, and one which was of long
duration. He brought me a book on the subject by a certain
Rausse, which pleased me greatly, especially by its radical
principles, which had something of Feuerbach about them. Its bold
repudiation of the entire science of medicine, with all its
quackeries, combined with its advocacy of the simplest natural
processes by means of a methodical use of strengthening and
refreshing water, quickly won my fervent adherence. He
maintained, for instance, that every genuine medicine can only
act upon our organism in so far as it is a poison, and is
therefore not assimilated by our system; and proved, moreover,
that men who had become weak owing to a continuous absorption of
medicine, had been cured by the famous Priesnitz, who had
effectually driven out the poison contained in their bodies by
expelling it through the skin. I naturally thought of the
disagreeable sulphur baths I had taken during the spring, and to
which I attributed my chronic and severe state of irritability.
In so doing I was probably not far wrong. For a long while after
this I did my best to expel this and all other poisons which I
might have absorbed in the course of time, and by an exclusive
water regimen restore my original healthy condition. Uhlig
asserted that by persevering conscientiously in a water cure, he
was perfectly confident of being able to renew his own bodily
health entirely, and my own faith in it also grew daily.

At the end of July we started on an excursion through the centre
of Switzerland. From Brunnen, on the Lake of Lucerne, we
proceeded via Beckenried to Engelberg, from which place we