Nature-cure is not something new to this country, though it was in Europe that it received a scientific bias, so as to be made acceptable to the modern man, whose sense of reasoning had considerably awakened with the coming up of renaissance in Europe. Man stopped believing in myths any more and began exploring reasonable background to every natural phenomenon, or happening. During his search for truth, he came upon many discoveries. Even a casual drop of apple from a tree gave a jolt to the awakened mind of Sir Isaac Newton—and in this simple happening he discovered the law of gravitational force and so on.
Nature-cure, in its present scientific form, too, was such a discovery in Europe. It so happened that a German gentleman, Louis Kuhne, in his fondness for hunting, had been to the forest one day, where he shot at a deer. The animal ran away with his wounded leg and went into a pond of cold water, Kuhne observed that the deer kept his leg immersed in the water of the pond for some time and then ran away. The next day, as Kuhne came to the same place, he saw the same wounded deer standing in the pond, before running away after some time. This happening kept Kuhne brooding over. Any other person in his place, could have thought of it as a providential or mystic happening. But not so for Kuhne, whose mind was awakened.
A SHOT IN THE ARM
Kuhne went on musing over the incident, when suddenly he jumped to the conclusion that it was the COLDWATER that had given relief to the animal and had obviously cured him. In a way the one shot of the gun, shot at random at an animal, came as a shot in the arm for Kuhne. Returning home, Kuhne took to experimentation. Wherever he saw a horse or a dog with an injured or affected leg, he would make the animal stand in water. He was encouraged to see that his way of treatment succeeded in bringing relief to the animals. This inspired him with further research and thus he laid the principle of Nature-cure.
Kuhne was joined and followed by others who further advanced the study of this science. These were Kneipp, Sebastian, Arnold Rikki and many others who gave Nature-cure a scientific bias and established it as a new Science of Healing.
In the course of next hundred years, this Science of Healing travelled beyond the confines of Europe, that is, from Germany, France and Austria, to America, such that America today is considered to be the HOME of Nature-cure. We hear of Naeuro-paths like Dr. Tinden, Dr. Kellog, Dr. Trail and Dr. Lidhah, some of whom were themselves medical practitioners, but who, after their personal experiences on themselves and their patients with Nature-cure treatments, bade good-bye to their age-old orthodox medical profession and turned to adopt Nature-cure as their viable method of treatment for their patients.
In INDIA, the science of Ayurveda, as expounded by its ancient exponents, like Charak and Shushrut, did base their treatment on natural methods, use of herbs and Yoga, but it seems that no effort was made to make Nature-cure as a distinct branch of medical science, and, if at all made, its mention was of a casual nature. However, the credit for giving a boost to Nature-cure goes to MAHATMA GANDHI, who not only practiced it, but wrote meaningful literature on the principles and practices of Nature-cure, which was followed, in inspiration from him, by others, like Shri Modi and Shri Poddar, etc., who opened Nature-cure homes, or Ashrams. The movement spread so much that today we have available Naturo-paths and Nature-cure Homes almost in every district, if not every town, in India.