Meanings
- historicaluncountableA system of alternative medicine introduced by Russell Thacher Trall that grew out of hydropathy, adding lifestyle changes such as abstinence from tobacco and alcohol, a vegetarian diet, fresh air, exercise, and sexual restraint.
Hygeiotherapy restores the sick to health by those means which in well persons preserve it.
1873, R T Trall, S W Dodds, Diseases of the Throat and Lungs and Principles of Hygeiotherapy, →ISBN3 more examples
In America Kneippism soon expanded to embrace other natural therapies, and in 1900 was rechristened naturopathy, though it differed in no important way from Trall's hygeiotherapy.
1985, Douglas Stalker, Clark N. Glymour, Examining Holistic Medicine, page 45American naturopathy appears to have derived most directly from the Kneipp water societies and spas established shortly before the turn of the century; these, in turn, grew from an earlier movement called hygeiotherapy, a refinement of hydropathy […] Although hygeiotherapy had virtually disappeared by the time of Trall's death in 1877, it underwent a resurgence in the 1890s inf the form of Kneippism.
2001, Hans A. Baer, Biomedicine and Alternative Healing Systems in America, →ISBNOther groups discussed in this book include hydropathy (water therapy) whose advocates opened medical schools and formed a national association in 1850; Grahamism, after the Presbyterian preacher Sylvester Graham (1795-1851), who introduced vegetarianism, diet, hygiene, and moderation in all things; and hygeiotherapy, a variation of hydropathy that expanded water therapy to include calisthenics, diet, sexual hygiene, and social reform.
2003, Pharmacy in History - Volumes 45-46, page 86
Cite this entry
hygeiotherapy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hygeiotherapy
“hygeiotherapy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hygeiotherapy. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hygeiotherapy,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hygeiotherapy.
Source: hygeiotherapy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.