But in the 18th and 19th centuries, for many people, there was a summer ritual with a very different form. It was the season for “taking the waters,” which meant traveling to a countryside spa town like Harrogate in England or Karlsbad in Germany and spending the next few weeks or months under the care of a doctor, who would prescribe personalized treatments. These might be mineral water showers or baths, cold-water enemas, or just drinking 3 glasses of stinky, sulfurous spring water daily before breakfast, while strolling and engaging in pleasant conversation on a landscaped promenade.
Often, the day started early. You might get up at 6 a.m. and head straight to the pump room, where water from a local healing spring—Harrogate had around 100, with 36 bubbling up in a single field—had been piped in. A pump room attendant would fill you a glass of the water prescribed by your doctor.
As they waited for the waters to take effect, Köhler explains, “people would walk up and down the promenade, or in the park…talking to other people, chatting, that sort of thing. Then the day would start.”
What did people do all day?
Many spas, in addition to landscaped parks and gardens, also had theaters, reading rooms, restaurants, and grand casinos. “The buildings are often too big for the size of the town,” says Köhler. “These are buildings that—in terms of their size, of their grandeur—belong in cities, and yet they're in those small little valleys. It's one of those distinctive features of spa architecture.”
As medicine grew more intertwined with the burgeoning science of chemistry, the medical benefits of spas came under scrutiny. “Water with iron in it was seen as fortifying, the sulfur waters were seen as good for rheumatism and respiratory problems, and some of the waters were seen as good for fertility, as well,” says Vasset. But scientists’ search for why these substances would have had these effects often came up empty.
Looking back on the practice now, it seems logical that leaving a polluted city and engaging in regular exercise, alongside adequate hydration, healthy eating, and having a shared experience with others, did have beneficial effects on health, regardless of what was in the waters.
Is there a modern equivalent to taking the waters?
Perhaps the closest analogue, Köhler speculates, are wellness retreats. She speaks of one colleague who goes regularly to a retreat in Sri Lanka. “It's about cleansing with waters, it's about yoga exercises, it's about all these things—she feels that she sort of renews herself.”
At the same time, however, a common thread running through modern retreats and historical spas is that both provide succor for people who have ailments for which standard medicine might not have an answer yet, Köhler continues. In those days it might have been syphilis or tuberculosis, and today it might be burnout or Long Covid. She thinks this may be a universal need, consistent across time. “You do need this kind of institution that takes up the people and the conditions that cannot be cured in hospital,” she says.
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