ABSTRACT
The invention of a new form of hot-air bath in Blarney, Ireland in 1856, variously known in its lifetime as the Roman-Irish or Turkish Bath, acted as the starting point for a the production of a globalised therapeutic landscape. Tracking the diffusion of the Roman-Irish bath template from its local invention in Ireland to a global reach across the Victorian world and recognizing its place within a wider hydrotherapeutic history, this paper frames that diffusion as a valuable empirical addition to assemblage theory. The specific empirical history of the spread of the Roman-Irish/Turkish bath idea is drawn from primary archival and secondary historical sources. It is then discussed and, drawing from work on assemblage theory, analyzed against three broad themes: mobile networks, socio-material practices and contested emergence. The emergent relational geographies of the Roman-Irish Bath identify important roles for the diffusion and transformation of specific medical settings, identities and functions. These were linked in turn to competing social-healing pathways wherein bodies were technologically and morally managed, to produce a more inhabited form of therapeutic assemblage. In all cases the differential diffusion of the bath idea, it's shifting and fractured material forms and multiple inhabitations and discourses were contested and mobile and spoke to an assemblage approach which has ripe potential for exploration across a range of medical/health geography settings.
Subject(s)
Steam Bath/history , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , Humans , IrelandABSTRACT
The article describes the measures taken against the threat of typhus epidemic in Finland during the Second World War. Comparisons between countries at war and their different typhus prevention methods are made. The main method of typhus prevention in Finland consisted of regular sauna bathing, which was culturally acceptable and very efficient when combined with heating of the clothing. The Finnish troops remained virtually louse-free by ecological and traditional methods, and thus the spread of typhus fever in the army could be prevented.
Subject(s)
Disease Outbreaks/history , Typhus, Epidemic Louse-Borne/history , World War II , Disease Outbreaks/prevention & control , Finland , History, 20th Century , Humans , Military Medicine/history , Steam Bath/history , Typhus, Epidemic Louse-Borne/prevention & controlSubject(s)
Steam Bath , Finland , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , Humans , Russia , Steam Bath/adverse effects , Steam Bath/historyABSTRACT
Hot baths have been popular at different periods in different countries, although the sauna in Finland, has been popular for two thousand years. Bathing practices and the use of the sauna differ, though a common feature is inducing sweating followed by cooling off to create a sense of wellbeing. But in many places the sauna has been used to mask other practices, including those which pander to people's sexual appetites. It would be advantageous therefore for supporters and advocates of the sauna to try to correct the abuses.
