ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 examines the complexes associated with public bathing, including hammam, hydropathic resorts, sea baths, public baths and wash-houses, and swimming pools. The association of health and healing with water has a long history, dating back to Ancient Greece and Rome and even further in Asia. By the eighteenth century, physicians were recommending ‘taking the waters’ – both bathing and drinking – as a cure for many diseases and disorders, from gout to arthritis. With Sanitary Reform in the Victorian period, public baths were viewed less as health resorts solely for the wealthy, and more as facilities associated with cleanliness for lower classes, with laundry facilities, or wash-houses, increasingly provided.
