Hydrotherapy

The first information about hydrotherapy came to us in the Indian epic of the Rigveda( 1500 BC).Water was used not only as a means of washing the body with hygienic purposes, but also served as a remedy for Hindus and Egyptians. In the literature there are indications that with the therapeutic purpose it was used by the Assyrians, the Babylonians and the Jews. From Egypt, the method of treatment was moved to Greece by Pythagoras( 582-507 BC), where it was improved by Hippocrates( 460-377 BC).

From Greece, the teaching of Hippocrates about water therapy was moved to Rome by the doctor Asklepiad( 114-59 BC).In Rome, water treatment has become widespread, as evidenced by numerous remnants of the ancient Roman baths. Rome was famous for public baths, which had a large number of rooms: for washing with warm water, washing with hot water, bathing in cold water, for rest and entertainment. These baths were called "balnium."From the word this happened in the future "balneotherapy."Especially valued bathing-balnium, which had mineral water.

In the "Canon", created in the X century. Abu Ali Ibn Sina( Avicenna), among other remedies, water is also mentioned as a means of preserving health. In India, balneological procedures were prescribed to patients both with external and internal diseases. It was very common sweating treatment for swelling on the face, limbs, with general dropsy and in all cases when, according to the doctor, the patient's body was full of dampness, moisture and phlegm. Popular were mud treatment, rubbing, baths, fumigation with smoke and fumes, warming compresses, hot wet and dry poultices;with skin diseases, especially if they were accompanied by itching, the patients were bathed in artificial sulfur baths or natural mineral springs.

During the Middle Ages, which replaced the ancient culture, the development of hydrotherapy, as well as a number of other achievements of the ancient world, was suspended. The revival of hydrotherapy refers to the second half of the 15th and the first half of the 15th century, when it began to develop in a number of European countries. However, even by the end of the XX century.this method of treatment has not yet received sufficient scientific justification. For a long time, the use of hydropathic procedures was built only on purely empirical representations. Empiricists, enamored with the success of their therapeutic activities, as A. A. Lozinsky noted( 1916), often reached their curiosity in their methods. They prescribed patients to sweat in a steam bath or in a hot stove for 15 days in a row, keep the sick in the water not only during the day, but also at night or forced them to drink up to 80 glasses of mineral water a day. To diversify the long stay of patients in the water, swimming pools with snacks were placed in the pool for water therapy. Such fanaticism could not promote the development of hydrotherapy as a science.