Health Spas » The History Of Sea Therapies
The History Of Sea Therapies
Sea plants, seawater, sea salt
and oceanic clay have long been popular physical-therapy ingredients in
Europe. Recommended as medical therapeutic agents as early as 1578, seawater
and sea derivatives were administered for rheumatism and general rehabilitation.
In 1753, The Uses of Sea Water, by English author and physician Charles
Russel, explained the various therapeutic properties of seawater. In search
of those therapeutic benefits, the European elite sought out ocean-side
resorts with bathing facilities.
With marine hospitals, which started in England in 1780, the seawater
craze quickly became French domain. The first French
marine hospital, Petit Berck, opened in 1861. In 1865 Joseph La
Bonardière coined the term thalassotherapy (from the Greek
thalassa for "sea" and therapeia for "care")
and began a tradition of serious study regarding the health benefits
of seawater. In 1899 Louis Bagot started balneotherapie (bath therapy)
treatments at the clinic at Roscoff called the Institut Marin de
Rockroum. This was the first true thalassotherapy clinic in Europe.
French scientist René Quinton
devoted much of his life's work to the study of seawater and in 1906 published
L'eau de Mer, Milieu Organic ("Sea Water, Organic Medium"),
which demonstrated the chemical similarity between blood plasma and seawater.
Quinton's colleague Claude Bernard discovered that the body is comprised
of 70 percent water. Working from Bernard's findings regarding the makeup
of blood, intracellular fluid and lymphatic fluid in the body, Quinton
stated in 1897 that the human system is analogous to the systems found
among marine life: "In the internal environment of our system, and
only there we find the same mineral make-up, the same physiognomy, as
that of sea water".
From this notion that seawater
is a complete mineral source came multiple ideas of the healing powers
of seawater. Quinton's study indicated that seawater and human plasma
are almost identical in their composition of mineral salts, proteins and
various other elements. Quinton also established that human cells could
continue to live in seawater, while they break down and disintegrate almost
instantly in any other medium.
This original connection between
seawater and the healing benefits brought through its trace elements and
molecular structure expanded over the years. Various forms of seaweed
were scrutinized for healing properties, and many different types of therapies
sprouted from the balneotherapy and thalassotherapy treatments that were
popularized in the 1800s.
Today, the same healing principles
apply.
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