June
15,
2023
Geothermal baths and healing springs have a millenia-spanning history of medical tourism, from the ancient Roman baths to the spas of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, considered to be the golden age of the so-called “water cure”. Many scholars, in fact, see the rise of leisure travel as directly related to the popularity of “taking the waters” for one’s health. Drawing upon ephemera from locales as diverse as Manitou, Colorado and the Hunyadi Springs of Budapest, Hungary, I will explore the origins of the modern spa vacation, as well as the often fantastical medical claims made by the doctors who staffed these institutions. Advertising booklets and broadsides for healing springs and geothermal baths will inform my discussion of the history of medical tourism, while pharmaceutical ephemera extolling the benefits of water will contextualize the medical field of so-called hydropathy.
Thursday, June 15
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Zoom
This event is the third of the five-part Summer 2023 Kreminar Series:
Highlighting Our Homebase: Stories from the AIHP/UWSoP Historical Collections
