Johann Schroth (1798-1856)

Johann Schroth (February 11th 1798 – March 26 1856) was a natural healer and founder Spa Dolní Lipová.

He was born on February 11, 1798 in the village Česká Ves in the family of small farmer Melichar Schroth (house no. 114). Johann came from his father's second marriage, and a few years later his brother Florian was born. In 1805, the father died and the family farm became the property of Josef Schroth, son of the farmer Melichar from his first marriage. Johann's mother remarried the widower Ignác Gröger, a farmer from Dolní Lipové and together with the children she moved in with her second husband.

Young Johann attended a trivial school in what was then Frývaldov (today Jeseníku) and here he befriended his later great competitor Vincencem Priessnitzem (1799–1851). Gröger was very fond of his stepson Johann, even though he had his own son from his first marriage, but he was sickly and not suited to run the farm. He therefore appointed Johann as the heir to his Lipov property. Johann left for a short time to the nearby ones Adolfovice, where Gröger's brother had a carriage business. However, he was soon called back to Lipová and, while still very young, became his own landlord on the farm. Because he did very well in the farm and had a lot of experience in working with horses, he soon gained a reputation in the wider area as a good healer of domestic animals. Not even Johann could avoid the war, he had to enlist for three years Cuirassier. But the stepfather was not enough to manage the farm by himself, so Johann returned home to the farm after a year. After his return, he learned that his beloved Terezie Priessnitzová, the sister of his former classmate and friend Vincenzo, had married. However, Johann also married soon and happily Marriage had six children.

Schroth's experience in treating domestic animals expanded further during his military service when he was assigned to a veterinarian as a nursing assistant horses. As a twenty-year-old, he began to apply his experience, verified by treatment on pets and sick patients. He became adept at fixing broken limbs by applying splints and later also began treating wraps and poultices. A year 1817 Schrotha kicked the horse in the knee so that he almost resigned himself to the fact that he would remain a cripple for life. On the advice of a mysterious monk traveling through the region, he began to wash his injured knee several times a day with fresh cold water and put a wet bandage on the wound. After ten weeks, the swelling disappeared and the flexibility of the knee gradually returned. However, to what extent this rumor about the advice of the mysterious monk is true, it is difficult to decide today, because there is a similar story about the beginnings of the treatment of V. Priessnitz. Anyway, the beneficial action of moist heat was the first step in Schroth's treatment.

Using many hour-long total wet wraps and a dietary system alternating dry days of fasting and drinking days—not water, however, but wine—completed the healing regimen. Johann Schroth based it on his own observations that horses fed hay performed better than those given a lot to drink. These findings and the fact that sick animals refuse food became the basis of Schroth's diet system. However, the young healer was fully aware that the application of these methods in treatment brought certain risks. From the beginning, he only gave advice to patients who turned to him for help, without interfering in the treatment process himself. The first therapeutic successes came, which his former classmate and friend V. Priessnitz was particularly unhappy about. Spa brochures from the years ​ 1840–1850 they are the best proof of the fierce competition between the two natural healers. Schroth, for example, strictly condemned Priessnitz's drinking of cold water, especially in the morning. He also rejected morning mouthwashes and described Priessnitz's cold baths as "the product of a sick brain".

Schroth's healing method was something completely unusual, incomprehensible and, in the minds of some people, dangerous in its time. The treatment required considerable willpower and self-denial from the patients. Only in this way was it possible to undergo eight-hour wraps, dry and drinking days, etc. It is therefore not surprising that at the beginning only patients who were, according to the medical opinion of the time, incurable, were treated in Lipová. ​

Johann Schroth tried with his demeanor patients to make their stay as pleasant as possible and to set an example for them with their lifestyle. He himself ate very little, he was a resister soup a Sauce. His favorite food was a piece stewed Beef with Vegetables a chleba. He was a great lover wine, which earned him the nickname bun and wine doctor. His enemies and opponents of Schroth's treatment sought to make him a notorious drinker, citing his trembling hands. This claim was only a manifestation of the competitive struggle and hostile intentions of the opponents. Johann Schroth was a stout figure with extraordinary strength, but, like V. Priessnitz, he was no orator.

Spa brochures from 19. i 20th century they uniformly state that Lipov Spa were founded in 1829. However, the reality is somewhat different. The effort to place the establishment of the spa as far away as possible was apparently motivated by the desire to match the fame and traditions of the spa on ​ Gräfenbergu. The actual start of treatment is a year 1837, when Magdalena Bartschová from Šumperk, která léta trpěla tzv. krticemi, obvyklou tehdejší dětskou nemocí. Like Priessnitz and Johann Schroth, he came into conflict with the authorities thanks to his unusual treatment methods and was accused by the then Medicine from tinkering. But Schroth's patients, according to his daughter-in-law's account, gave no incriminating testimony against their healer. Only on the basis of the testimony of a hired spy was Schroth accused and sentenced to Prison. However, Johann Schroth did not let this intervention discourage him and continued his treatment. Finally the year came 1840 between the Lipov healer and the state authorities to an agreement. Schroth received May 5th Court Office Decree No. 6735 permits him to operate a spa treatment on the condition that he observes the established police regulations and that his patients are under professional medical supervision. In the first years of the spa's existence, the number of patients was not large, so the spa doctor could come from ​ Jeseníku. After the death of the spa doctor, his son was to join Lipová, but he was a staunch opponent of Schroth's treatment method. According to Johann Schroth's daughter-in-law, he greeted each new patient with the words: "So you also want to go through this nonsense?"

On March 26, 1856, Johann Schroth died of an incurable heart defect.

Source: Wikipedia