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Mineral spa

Summary

Mineral spas are spa resorts developed around naturally occurring mineral springs. Like seaside resorts, they are mainly used recreationally although they also figured prominently in prescientific medicine.

Spa Luhačovice in Czech Republic (Hotel built by Dušan Jurkovič).

Origins edit

 
The walls of the Roman spa town Hisarya (Bulgaria).

Spas were used for millennia for their purported healing or healthful benefits to those wealthy or close enough to partake of their waters. This was called a mineral cure and gave let to phrases such as taking a cure and taking the waters. There has always been a mixture of recreational and medicinal connotations involved, from rest and relaxation, stress relief, and convalescence to more specific notions such as humorism. These phrases are sometimes used as a euphemism for one trying to kick a drug dependency.

In many cases, mineral spas were located in mountainous locales that gave an additional excuse to leave the drudgery of a hot house in warm weather during summer's onset and were seasonally populated by the well-to-do. They eventually became early vacation spots with the counter-Victorian work ethic 'rationale' of health as an excuse to have fun and mix with one's peers in recreation.

Subsequently, many became the seed stock for today's modern vacation resorts. Locations such as Steamboat Springs, Vail, St Moritz, Mineral Wells first became popular for the questionable health benefits of mineral or soda-water soaks, ingestion, and clean outs during the hey-day of patent medicines and backward medical knowledge. United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt suffered a paralytic illness, and regularly visited Warm Springs and other hot springs for restorative soaks. While his cousin Theodore Roosevelt was known as a physically active and healthy person, he had asthma and used physical activity as well as occasional visits to mineral spas as attempts to address his asthma.[1]

The name "spa" comes from the Belgian town Spa.

Evolution of the resort edit

As the Victoria era ended, the influences of the industrial revolution created more and more varied members of the upper middle class. The concepts of vacationing, tourism, and travel became less the property of the old monied classes and more shared by an increasing population base of those who could afford holiday trips, like the rich.

Such adventures had much allure before any audio-visual entertainment outside a live orchestra. Thus, the spas began attracting more local patrons and those from afar when the burgeoning numbers could take advantage of the automobile and the now extensive railways throughout most of Europe and the United States.

The spa towns already had infrastructure and attractions to assuage such desires, and the modern tourist trip began to take its familiar form. Other technologies came into play (skis, ski boats, etc.)

Notable mineral spa and spring areas edit

Africa edit

 
Slides and pools in the hot springs camp in Bela-Bela (South Africa).

South Africa edit

Asia edit

 
Hot springs of Pamukkale (Turkey).

China edit

India edit

Vajreshwari Temple, Maharashtra

Japan edit

South Korea edit

Turkey edit

Europe edit

 
Spa (in Belgium), the water city.
 
The Napoleon Spa in Piešťany (Slovakia).
 
Thermal Badehaus und Kurhaus in Bad Neuenahr (Germany).

Albania edit

Armenia edit

Austria edit

Azerbaijan edit

Belgium edit

 
The Slatina Spa in Slatina, Republic of Srpska, BiH

Bosnia and Herzegovina edit

Bulgaria edit

Czech Republic edit

France edit

Georgia edit

Germany edit

Hungary edit

Poland edit

Romania edit

Russia edit

Serbia edit

Slovakia edit

Slovenia edit

Spain edit

Sweden edit

Switzerland edit

United Kingdom edit

England edit

Ukraine edit

Americas edit

 
Milk River Bath (Jamaica).
 
Warm Springs, Virginia (U.S.).

Brazil edit

Canada edit

Costa Rica edit

Jamaica edit

Mexico edit

Uruguay edit

United States edit

Oceania and Australia edit

Australia edit

New Zealand edit

References edit

  1. ^ Camargo, Carlos. "The Misunderstood Asthma of Theodore Roosevelt". The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice. 3 (5): 696–701. doi:10.1016/j.jaip.2015.06.010. PMID 26271837. Retrieved 1 April 2024.

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