Sauna Bath

Hydrotherapy, once called hydropathy, is the oldest form of medical treatment. It is the use of water for easing pains and treating diseases. It has been used in ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian civilizations. The Romans had public baths for their citizens and Egyptian royalty bathed with flowers and essential oils.

Hot water springs improve health by increasing the circulation. In fact, baths of spring water have been prescribed by Hippocrates for sickness. During the 19th century, a Dominican monk, Sebastian Kneipp, revived hydrotherapy with a book that he wrote called My Water Cure. It was published in 1886 and translated into many languages.

Hydrotherapy has been used to treat rheumatic diseases. Hydrotherapy is still used today to treat arthritis, burns, ankylosing, spondylitis, spasticity, spinal cord injuries, stroke patients with paralysis, and musculoskeletal disorders. It is also used to treat neurological and orthopaedic conditions in horses and dogs. Hydrotherapy has always been popular. Thousands of years of treatments have built a large amount of experience; however, the proposed benefits have had little supporting evidence until about 30 years ago. New research focuses on the effectiveness of hydrotherapy versus other types of treatment.

Hydrotherapy comes in various forms. Packings of hot, cold, general, local, sweating and cooling can be used. Other forms include hot air or steam baths, general baths of hot or cold water, sitz, spinal, head and foot baths, bandages or compresses of wet or dry material, and fomentations and poultices of hot or cold, sinapisms, stupes, water potations of hot or cold water and rubbings.

In hydrotherapy, packings consist of either a wet sheet that envelops the body with a number of dry blankets packed tightly over it. After about an hour, these coverings are removed and a general bath is given. The pack is a cutaneous excretion that is a derivative, sudorific, sedative and stimulator. Packings have numerous modifications, such as the cooling pack and local packs.

With hot air baths, or saunas, exposure is generally from twenty minutes to two hours, although longer has occurred. The temperature is generally set to 150° for curative purposes. Exposure is usually followed by a general bath. It causes sweating, which has been said to be a secretion of the body's impurities.

General baths include showers, plunge, douche, wave and sponge baths. Hot and cold water is used in these types of baths, especially in sponge baths where they are combined.

Local baths, including the SITZ bath, douching, spinal, foot and head baths also use hot or cold water, alone or in combination, successive or alternately. The application of cold is effective for reducing inflammation for such conditions as meningitis and sunstroke. It is also used in other methods using tubes.

Compresses or bandages are two kinds of cooling using wet material left exposed for evaporation. Poultices, are identical in action with the heating bandage and are only greater in the warmth and subsequent vital activity their application to the skin ensures.

Also largely employed are fomentations, hot or cold, sinapisms, stupes, rubefacients, frictions, kneadings, irritants, callisthenics, electricity and gymnastics.

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