Thalassotherapy

Thalassotherapy: The notion that sea bathing is beneficial in treating physical and mental condition.

                         

                Thalassotherapy is a therapy based on the belief that bathing in the sea is beneficial to health. Practionioners believe that the trace elements of calcium, iodide, magnesium, potassium and sodium found in sea water are absorbed through the skin. The minerals are thought to boost blood and lymph circulation thus accelerating the metabolism and eliminating toxins. Thalassotherapy is carried out in both the sea and in spas that use hot sea water; sometimes marine mud or sea weed are applied. The therapy is aimed at arthritis, depression, eczema, muscular pain, psoriasis and rheumatism. 

              Sea bathing dates back to ancient times, but English physician Richard Russell (1687-1759) was thw first to document the medical benefits of sea water. A rsident of  Lewes in Sussex, England, he went to Brighton to test his theories in 1747. Three years later he published a dissertation in Latin, de tab glandurali sive de usu aquae marine in morbis glandularum, which advocated the use of sea water to cure an enlarged lymphatic glands. This appeared in English in 1752 as "Glandular Diseases or a dissertation on the use of sea water in afection of the glands: particularly the scurvey, jaundice, king's - evil, leprosy and the glandular consumption." 

               Russel's sea water cure was so popular that it initiated the development of sea side resorts, with wealthy Londoners flocking to towns on England's south coast such as Brighton. The practice spread to the continent and a French physician Joseph La Bonnardiere (1829-87) invented the term "Thalassotherapy" in 17865 drawing on the Greek words Thalassa (sea) and therapia (treatment).