Scarcely ever has a book found its way through Europe and the whole civilized world in so incredibly short a time as the little volume of which this is a translation. Finding help nowhere and lacking both physical and mental strength due to his failing health, the young author was left to spend his time in the royal library. Here one day an old little book attracts his curiosity, he opens it, it treats of water-cures. This moment was to be a turning-point in his life. The contents of the small unsightly volume were to be the rough outline of a plan which, in its completion, has become a blessing for numbers of his fellow-creatures who, laboring under more or less grievous disease, were restored to the full possession of bodily health and mental vigor; for as soon as the author in this early period of his life had experienced the salutary effects of water, it seemed but natural to his noble heart to make as many as possible partakers of the benefit he then enjoyed in the sense of undisturbed health. Since his endeavors in this respect had for their sole objects the glory of God and the good of poor sufferers, since he sought neither honor nor any other earthly reward, he was well armed against the temptation to give up a work which, besides adding considerably to the exertions imposed on him by his sacred office, earned for him much contradiction and ingratitude. "The Kneipp-Cure" is not only a fantastic read, but for many sick people a way into a much brighter and healthier future. This book is illustrated.