Taking the Waters

Taking the Waters PDF Author: Alev Lytle Croutier
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Illustrated with a diverse collection of historic and contemporary artwork, travel posters, and photographs, this irresistible volume traces the evolution of spas from the sacred springs of prehistoric times to the Roman baths to the fabulous waterholes of elite society. 140 illustrations, 60 in full color.

Taking the Waters

Taking the Waters PDF Author: Alev Lytle Croutier
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Illustrated with a diverse collection of historic and contemporary artwork, travel posters, and photographs, this irresistible volume traces the evolution of spas from the sacred springs of prehistoric times to the Roman baths to the fabulous waterholes of elite society. 140 illustrations, 60 in full color.

Taking the Waters

Taking the Waters PDF Author: Caitlin Davies
Publisher: White Lion Publishing
ISBN: 9780711232389
Category : Hampstead Heath (London, England)
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Taking the Waters is a celebration of four unique swimming spots on Hampstead Heath: the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond, the Highgate Men’s Pond, the Mixed Bathing Pond, and the Parliament Hill Lido. People have swum at the ponds for over 200 years – from champion swimmers and world famous divers, to international film stars and hardy year round bathers – while the Lido is one of London’s few remaining outdoor pools. Together they attract over a quarter of a million visits a year. How and why did they come to be and what stories do they have to tell? This book is an illustrated history full of personal memories, archive images and stunning modern photography.

Florida's Healing Waters

Florida's Healing Waters PDF Author: Rick Kilby
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813066530
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
A colorful look at a forgotten era of Florida tourism Filled with rare photographs, vintage postcards and advertisements, and fascinating writing from over 100 years ago, Florida's Healing Waters spotlights a little-known time in Florida history when tourists poured into the state in search of good health. Rick Kilby explores the Victorian belief that water caused healing and rehabilitation, tracing the history of "taking the waters" from its origins in the era of Enlightenment. Nineteenth-century Americans traveled from afar to bathe in the outdoors and soak up the warm climate of Florida. Here, with more than 1,000 freshwater springs, 1,300 miles of coastline, and 30,000 lakes, water was an abundant resource. Through the wealth of images in this book, Kilby shows how Florida's natural wonders were promoted and developed as restorative destinations for America's emerging upper class. The rapid growth in tourism infrastructure that began during the Gilded Age lasted well into the twentieth century, and Kilby explains how these now-lost resorts helped boost the economy of modern Florida. Today, these splendid health spas and elaborate bathing facilities have been lost, replaced by recreational amenities for a culture more about sun and fun than physical renewal. In this book, Kilby emphasizes the value of honoring and preserving the natural features of the state in the face of continual development. He reminds us that Florida's water is still a life-giving treasure.

Health, Hedonism and Hypochondria

Health, Hedonism and Hypochondria PDF Author: Ian Bradley
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0755626664
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Delve into the history behind the glamorous baths and spas of Europe to reveal the hidden past of alternative treatments. Popular with people from Romans to royalty and hypochondriacs to holiday-makers, natural water spas have been a common feature in society since the first century. Even today, we periodically abandon the cities to 'take the waters'. In their heyday, Europe's spas were the main meeting places for aristocracy, politicians and cultural elites. They were the centres of political and diplomatic intrigue, and were fertile sources of artistic, literary and musical inspiration. The spas epitomised style and were renowned for their cosmopolitan atmosphere in a glittering whirl of balls, gambling and affairs, as much as for their healing waters. Health, Hedonism and Hypochondria reveals the hidden histories of traditional spas of Europe, including such well-known resorts as the original Spa in Belgium; Bath, Buxton and Harrogate in Britain; Baden-Baden and Bad Ems in Germany; Vichy and Aix-les-Bains in France; Bad Ragaz in Switzerland; Bad Ischl and Baden bei Wien in Austria and Karlovy Vary and Mariánské Lázne in the Czech Republic. At once luxurious sanctuaries of relaxation and resorts of the upper classes, these spas were also the haunts of melancholics, scoundrels and those seeking escape and excitement.

Healing Springs

Healing Springs PDF Author: Nathaniel Altman
Publisher: Inner Traditions / Bear & Co
ISBN: 9780892818365
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
An abundance of medical evidence shows that in addition to relieving stress, mineral waters can help the body heal itself from liver and kidney problems, skin diseases, arthritis, and a host of other ailments. This guide to "taking the waters" presents more than 200 of the best hot springs and mineral springs in the world.

Healing Waters

Healing Waters PDF Author: Loring Bullard
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826264182
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Missouri's mineral springs and resorts played a vital role in the social and economic development of the state. In Healing Waters, Loring Bullard delves into the long history of these springs and spas, concentrating particularly on the use and development of the mineral springs from 1800 to about the 1930s. During this period, there were at least eighty sites in the state that could be described as resorts. Because so many people were drawn to the springs by their faith in the healing virtues of the springwater, towns were frequently founded at the mineral springs. These places fought hard to capture the attention of Missourians who were seeking better health, relaxation, or good times in the late 1800s and early 1900s.Bullard first examines the development of mineral water resorts in Europe from ancient times, early spa traditions in America, and Missouri's frontier spas. He then discusses the establishment of saltworks at the state's saline springs and the importance of the early salt trade; the brisk business that grew around the bottling of mineral waters; the use and development of mineralized groundwater resources; the geologic and biologic factors that create Missouri's mineral waters; and public and professional belief in the curative values of mineral waters.Healing Waters also traces the demise of Missouri's mineral water resorts and towns. Well into the twentieth century, when modern medicine had seemingly taken hold, many physicians and scientists continued to proclaim the medicinal virtues of mineral waters. However, by the second quarter of the twentieth century, medical science and popular opinion had discounted the immediate medical usefulness of mineral waters. As advances were made in microbiology and biochemistry, and with the inherent promise of drug cures, orthodox medicine began to turn a cold shoulder on mineral water treatments. Spa treatments, with their long regimens, also did not fit well with the increasingly fast-paced lifestyles of the public. By visiting the sites, gathering local historical accounts, interviewing local citizens, and photographing remaining artifacts, Bullard has done a masterful job in providing the answers to why these vibrant social centers came to be and why they faded.

The Secret History of English Spas

The Secret History of English Spas PDF Author: Melanie King
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781851244539
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
English spas have a long and steamy history, from the thermal baths of Aquae Sulis in Bath to the stews of Southwark, the elegant pump rooms of Cheltenham and Buxton to the Victorian mania for hydrotherapy and Turkish hammams. 'The Secret History of English Spas' is an informative but light-hearted social and cultural history of our obsession with drinking and bathing in spa waters. It tells the stories of the rich, the famous, the poor and the sick, all of whom visited spas in hopes of curing everything from infertility to leprosy and gonorrhoea. It depicts the entrepreneurs who promoted these resorts - often on the basis of the most dubious scientific evidence - and the riotous and salacious social life enjoyed in spa towns, where moral health might suffer even as bodies were cleansed and purged. And yet English spas also offered an ideal of civility and politeness, providing a place where social classes and sexes could mingle and enjoy refined entertainments such as music and dance - all part of the fashionable pastime referred to as 'taking the waters'.

Medical Hydrology

Medical Hydrology PDF Author: Sidney Licht
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Health resorts
Languages : en
Pages : 744

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Book Description


Taking the Waters in Texas

Taking the Waters in Texas PDF Author: Janet Mace Valenza
Publisher: Univ of TX + ORM
ISBN: 029276796X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
This historical study reveals a fascinating yet forgotten aspect of life in nineteenth century Texas—its once-famous mineral spring health spas. Southern Texas once boasted an enviable variety of mineral waters. Though most are closed and nearly forgotten today, Texas spas and resorts once drew thousands of visitors from across the country. They came seeking rejuvenation of body and spirit in the healing mineral waters. This book offers the first comprehensive history of Texas’ healing springs. Janet Valenza tracks the rise, popularity, and decline of the "water cure" from the 1830s to the present day. She follows the development of major spas and resorts, such as Mineral Wells and Indian Hot Springs near El Paso, as well as smaller, family-run springs. Valenza also describes how mineral waters influenced patterns of settlement, transportation routes, commerce, and people’s attitudes toward the land. Period photos and quotes from those seeking cures offer vivid glimpses into the daily life at the springs, which Valenza lists and describes county-by-county in the appendix.

Mineral Springs Resorts in Global Perspective

Mineral Springs Resorts in Global Perspective PDF Author: John K. Walton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134920032
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Spa resorts were a favoured destination for affluent seekers after health and comfortable leisure in opulent surroundings from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, although in the railway age they began to suffer from competition from new fashions in leisure and tourism, especially the seaside holiday. During their heyday the leading spa resorts became hotbeds of political and diplomatic intrigue, and gathering-points for high society. As such, they also became important businesses, and distinctive, carefully-managed urban environments. ‘Taking the waters’ at a mineral springs resort fell into eclipse over much of the Western world in the mid-twentieth century, only to revive in more diffuse guise as ‘health and wellness tourism’ in the new millennium. This book examines an important body of practices and experiences from the perspectives of health, pleasure, conspicuous consumption and display, urban governance, culture and politics across a quarter of a millennium, drawing its examples not only from the British Isles, France, Spain and Central Europe, but also from the United States and Australia. An international team of distinguished historians puts this neglected theme back on the historical map, at a time when spas and their treatments have never been so popular and visible in contemporary society. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Tourism History.