The history
200 years from a Silesian water cure to Gandhi's village ashram and India's Naturopathy Day.
Nature cure began in 19th-century Europe with cold baths, fresh air and plain food. A German book reached India in the 1890s and found its most famous follower in Mahatma Gandhi, who turned it into a movement for village health. Today it is part of India's AYUSH system, with its own institute, degree and national day, while science tests which of its parts really work.
1822
First water-cure spa
Vincenz Priessnitz, Gräfenberg (now Czech Republic)
1895
Word 'naturopathy' coined
John H. Scheel, New York
c. 1894
First translation of Kuhne into an Indian language
D. Venkatachalapathi Sarma, Telugu
1989
First college of naturopathy and yogic sciences in India
SDM College, Ujire, Karnataka
18 November 2018
First Naturopathy Day
Ministry of AYUSH, India
1816 – 1890
Healers in the mountains of Central Europe treat patients with cold water, wet wraps, sun, air and simple food.
1822
1822 (treating neighbours from about 1816)
A young farmer who had healed his own broken ribs with wet bandages began treating neighbours with cold water. In 1822 he rebuilt his father's house as a spa: cold baths, wet wraps, fresh air, walks and plain food.
Why it mattered. It started the European 'water cure', the root of the hip baths and packs used in naturopathy today.
1839
About 1,500 patients arrived in a single year, among them a duke, princes and counts, and 120 doctors came to study the method. Priessnitz had received an official licence the year before.
Why it mattered. Water cure became a fashion across Europe and spread to Britain and America.
1886
A priest who believed cold baths in the Danube had helped him recover from tuberculosis wrote 'Meine Wasserkur'. It taught cold affusions, walking barefoot in wet grass, herbs, exercise and simple food, and was translated into many languages.
Why it mattered. Kneipp's book made nature cure a household idea, and his 'five pillars' still shape spa therapy.
1890 – 1910
Kuhne and Just write the books, the word 'naturopathy' is born in New York, and the ideas arrive in India in Telugu, Hindi and Urdu.
1891
Kuhne's 'Die neue Heilwissenschaft' (The New Science of Healing) claimed that every illness is one thing, a build-up of 'foreign matter'. His cure: cold hip and friction sitz baths at about 10 to 14 °C, steam baths and a raw vegetarian diet.
Why it mattered. His 'unity of disease' idea and his hip bath became the backbone of Indian nature cure.
1894
c. 1894
Kuhne's book was translated into Telugu, one of its earliest translations into an Indian language. Nature cure groups grew in Andhra, Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.
Why it mattered. Indian naturopathy counts this translation as its starting point.
1902
1901–1902
A German migrant trained in Kneipp's methods bought the name from Scheel and used it for his American School of Naturopathy and his magazine. He is called the father of naturopathy in the United States.
Why it mattered. In America naturopathy later grew to include herbs, homeopathy and supplements, unlike India's drug-free nature cure.
1905 – 1950
Gandhi tests earth and water treatments on himself, writes Key to Health, and opens nature cure to villagers.
1913
c. 1906–1913
In South Africa Gandhi read Kuhne and Just and tried hip baths, mud packs and diet changes on himself, his family and friends. He wrote a series of health articles in his paper Indian Opinion, later printed as 'A Guide to Health'.
Why it mattered. It began Gandhi's lifelong advocacy of nature cure.
1942
27 Aug to 18 Dec 1942 (published 1948)
While held in prison during the Quit India movement, Gandhi wrote short chapters on the body, food, air, water, earth, sun and akash (space), and on self-control. Navajivan published the book in October 1948.
Why it mattered. It set out nature cure in plain words for millions of Indian readers.
1945
18 November 1945
Gandhi became founder-trustee and chairman for life of the All India Nature Cure Foundation Trust, signing a deed to make nature cure available to all, especially the poor.
Why it mattered. India's Naturopathy Day is held on this date.
1946
22 March to 1 April 1946
Gandhi came to the village of Urulikanchan and set up a nature cure centre for rural people, with village sanitation, clean water, diet, mud and water treatments. Local people gave land for the trust.
Why it mattered. The Nisargopchar Ashram still treats thousands of patients a year.
1950 – today
India builds a research council, a national institute, a degree, a ministry and a Naturopathy Day.
1978
30 March 1978
A joint research council for Indian medicine and homoeopathy was split into separate councils, one of them the Central Council for Research in Yoga & Naturopathy (CCRYN).
Why it mattered. Yoga and naturopathy got their own national research body.
1986
22 December 1986
Dr Mehta's trust handed its clinic to the government, and the National Institute of Naturopathy opened in the house where Gandhi had stayed.
Why it mattered. NIN trains therapists, treats patients and promotes nature cure across India.
1989
India's first college of naturopathy and yogic sciences opened, offering what became the 5½-year BNYS degree, including a one-year internship.
Why it mattered. Naturopathy gained a full professional degree course.
2014
9 November 2014
The Department of AYUSH, formed in 2003, became a full ministry for Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa and Homoeopathy.
Why it mattered. Naturopathy now sits in a national ministry with its own institutes and research council.
2015
21 June 2015
The UN General Assembly adopted India's proposal on 11 December 2014, backed by 177 countries. The first day was held on 21 June 2015, with a record mass session on Rajpath, New Delhi.
Why it mattered. Yoga, the partner of naturopathy in AYUSH, became a worldwide annual event.
2018
18 November 2018
India marked 18 November, the date of Gandhi's 1945 trust deed, as Naturopathy Day, with health camps, talks and walks.
Why it mattered. It honours Gandhi's role and promotes drug-free healthy living.
1960 – today
Physiology explains what fasting and water really do, and fair tests check which therapies work.
1967
By measuring blood going into and out of the brain of fasting volunteers, the team showed that after several weeks ketones made from fat supply most of the brain's fuel.
Why it mattered. It explained how people survive long fasts, and why fasting shifts the body onto fat.
1991
Using magnetic resonance, the team measured liver sugar stores in people fasting for 68 hours. New glucose made by the liver supplied 64% of blood sugar in the first 22 hours and 96% later on.
Why it mattered. It showed exactly how the body keeps blood sugar steady without food.
2015
A review of the evidence found almost no good clinical trials of detox diets, and none showing that they remove specific toxins from the body.
Why it mattered. It supports what physiology says: the liver and kidneys already do the cleaning.
2022
November 2022
A review of 21 trials with 2,223 people, several of them run in India, found yoga gave a small improvement in back pain compared with no exercise, and about the same as other back exercises.
Why it mattered. A fair look at one of the best-studied parts of yoga and naturopathy.
2024
May 2024
India's nutrition institute issued 17 guidelines: a plate rich in vegetables, fruit, pulses and whole grains, at most 5 g of added salt a day, little sugar and few ultra-processed foods, and regular exercise.
Why it mattered. Much of it matches nature cure's advice on diet, and it is backed by evidence.
Did you know?
The word 'naturopathy' was coined in 1895 by John Scheel in New York, and Benedict Lust bought the rights to use it.
Gandhi wrote 'Key to Health' in prison in 1942, but it was published only in 1948, after his death.
There are two 'NIN's: the National Institute of Naturopathy in Pune, and the ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad.
Kuhne's hip bath used water at about 10 to 14 °C, with the legs kept out of the tub.
In a fast, the liver makes about 96% of the body's new blood sugar by the third day.
The people
1799 – 1851 · Farmer and water-cure healer · Gräfenberg, Austrian Silesia
Began the water cure that nature cure grew from.
1821 – 1897 · Priest and hydrotherapist · Bavaria, Germany
His 'My Water Cure' (1886) made cold-water treatment world famous.
1835 – 1901 · Nature cure teacher · Leipzig, Germany
Taught the 'one disease, one cure' idea and the hip bath.
1859 – 1936 · Nature cure writer · Harz, Germany
His 'Return to Nature' taught Gandhi mud treatment.
1872 – 1945 · Naturopath · Germany, worked in New York
Made the word 'naturopathy' famous in America.
19th – 20th century · Translator · Andhra region, India
Translated Kuhne into Telugu around 1894.
1869 – 1948 · Leader of India's freedom movement · Porbandar, India
Nature cure's most famous advocate; founded the Urulikanchan ashram.
1903 – 1993 · Naturopath · Pune, India
His clinic, where Gandhi stayed, became the National Institute of Naturopathy.
1920 – 1993 · Social worker · Gujarat, worked in Maharashtra
Ran the Urulikanchan ashram after Gandhi and built rural development work around it.
Where it happened
Sources
Dates marked “c.” are approximate, and historians sometimes disagree about who was first. If you spot a mistake, tell us.
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