While this use of water as a form of torture is documented back to at least the 15th century,[4] the first use of the phrase water cure in this sense is indirectly dated to around 1898, by U.S. soldiers in the Spanish-American war,[5][a] after the phrase had been introduced to America in the mid-19th century in the therapeutic sense, which was in widespread use.[6] Indeed, while the torture sense of the phrase water cure was by 1900–1902 established in the American army,[7][8] with a conscious sense of irony,[9] this sense was not in widespread use. Webster's 1913 dictionary cited only the therapeutic sense.[10]