the state, and he helped to reactivate the South Carolina State Medical Association, serving as president. He held a position on the faculty of the South Carolina State Medical College, and he was chairman of the Board of Health, later renamed South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. However, Baruch grew increasingly dissatisfied with the indiscriminate use of unproven medical remedies. He studied the healing philosophies of Austrian physician Vincent Priessnitz (1799–1852), and in particular, the success of a therapeutic spa in the Silesian Foothills. The remedies were largely predicated upon frequent bathing and irrigation of the gastrointestinal tract; an alternative form of medicine called hydrotherapy. Patients recuperated in a restful, calm environment, ate a prudent diet, eliminated alcohol and tobacco, and engaged in physical activity. Later, Baruch also credited Wilhelm Winternitz for his pioneering work in hydrotherapy. Baruch would go on to introduce medicinal spring therapies, known as balneology, and hydrotherapy to the United States of America. In 1881, Baruch took up residence in New York City with his wife Belle, and their four sons, Hartwig ("Harty") Nathaniel (1868–1953), Bernard Mannes (1870–1965), Herman Benjamin (1872–1953), and Sailing Wolfe (1874–1963). He became known as an active public health advocate and medical writer. He also gained professional credibility for diagnosing the first case of perforating appendicitis successfully operated on, and in the widely publicized "child cruelty" case involving the musical prodigy Josef Hofmann, Baruch was the consulting physician. After examining Hofmann, Baruch recommended the boy musician rest and resume the lifestyle of a child. In 1892, Baruch became a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. As a physician and scholar, Baruch's enduring interest in hydrotherapy guided many his professional and civic pursuits. He published the standard texts, The Uses of Water in Modern Medicine (1892), Therapeutic reflections: a plea for physiological remedies (1893), and The Principles and Practice of Hydrotherapy (1898). From 1903 to 1913, he taught a course in hydro-therapeutics, or methods of using water to treat various diseases, at New York Post Graduate Medical School and Hospital of the University of the State of New York. He resigned when hydrotherapy was made an elective subject of study. In 1910, Baruch wrote Lessons of half a century in medicine. In 1920, he authored Epitome of hydrotherapy for physicians, architects and nurses. Notably, Baruch's interest in hydrotherapy led to his role as the country's foremost municipal bath advocate.