Heroic Irrigations

E.S. Turner

  • The English Spa 1560-1815: A Social History by Phyllis Hembry
    Athlone, 401 pp, £35.00, October 1990, ISBN 0 485 11374 0
  • The Medical History of Waters and Spas edited by Roy Porter
    Wellcome Institute, 150 pp, £18.00, September 1990, ISBN 0 85484 095 8

In Europe the health-seeker may still go barefoot in dew-treading meadows, as enjoined by Father Kneipp, or sniff the gentle mist from rows of brine-soaked hedges, as at Bad Kreuznach, or wallow in the black mud laid on at almost any decent spa. What the British call sea-bathing is available as thalassotherapy, or, with added sand, as thalassopsammotherapy. Less agreeably, the spas offer heroic irrigations not to be described. The inhalatorium and the gargling-room beckon, and so do the salles de pulvérisation. It is all there for those who have not lost their faith. The Rheumatism Map of France and the Faulty Nutrition (Overeating) Map of France are studded with welcoming old spas, their resources judiciously updated.

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Vol. 12 No. 23 · 6 December 1990 » E.S. Turner » Heroic Irrigations (print version)
Pages 21-22 | 2584 words