water doctors

Noun

water doctor (plural water doctors)

1. (archaic) A physician who treats diseases with water; a hydropathist or hydrotherapist.
   • All that the water doctor need do, is to souse, dip, plunge and soak his patient in very cold water, and wrap and pack him until the heat of the body is well nigh extracted, or every vital part drowned, and the patient frozen as stiff as a poker, when soaking in hot water will thaw his refrigerated...1860, Simon Mohler Landis, Who are the quacks?
2. (archaic) Someone who claims to be able to prognosticate or divine diseases by inspection of the urine.
   • Without resorting to the plan of testing the urine, by which that water doctor and his brethren of the craft no doubt recognised the presence of sugar, he could learn a great deal from its simple appearance.1892, The Lancet

   Synonyms:

   uroscopist, uromancer, urinomancer