Health-resorts

Health-resorts, frequented for combating disease or invigorating the comparatively healthy, fall into several well-marked groups. (1) Seabathing quarters have long been in vogue amongst civilised nations, though the periodical exodus from cities is of modern origin. (2) The remedial and invigorating agency of mountain air has been more recently recognised, but is now fully established. Hence the popularity of many inland highland districts in Scotland, Switzerland, and Norway. (3) Curative wells—thermal, muriated, alkaline, sulphated, chalybeate, sulphureous, calcareous—have been frequented from the earliest times, and are found in many countries. The various kinds of water and their beneficial qualities are dealt with in the article MINERAL WATERS. (4) Climatic health-resorts at a high altitude, such as Davos Platz, Andermatt, Meran, &c., have of late come into favour because of their value for persons recovering from acute illness, and who are able to take active outdoor exercise; and specially for those in the early stages of phthisis, or in chronic phthisis unaccompanied by fever or blood-spitting. When there is hæmoptysis, such a climate is disadvantageous or dangerous—as it is also in cases of heart-disease, chronic bronchitis, and chronic rheumatism. (5) Residence for longer or shorter times in exceptionally temperate, mild, or warm climates is recommended for pulmonary diseases, particularly phthisis. Such favoured regions are Bournemouth, Torquay, and other places on the south coast of England and the Isle of Wight, the Riviera (Menton, Nice, &c.), Hyères, Pozzuoli and other sheltered places in south Italy, Palermo, Madeira, Algiers, and Upper Egypt. Florida, southern California, and the pine-woods of Georgia are in favour with Americans. The climate of Colorado, bracing though not altogether mild, is also beneficial to bronchial and pulmonary weakness. In hot countries the sanitariums are usually cool hill-stations—thus, in India, Simla, Darjiling, Naini Tal, Utakamand, Pachmarhi. (6) Climatic resorts where additional help is obtained for special treatment—such as the grape cure in phthisis (Meran), the whey cure (Gais in canton Appenzell), and the goat's-milk, ewe-milk, or cow's-milk cure. The influence of the pine-woods at Arcachon is supposed to be favourable to consumptive patients. Also such special devices as warm mud-baths, or the sun-bath cure (exposure of the uncovered person to the sun's heat and light), as practised at Veldes in Carinthia. (7) Hydromatic establishments generally. (8) Sea-voyages may also be here noted, as suitable for persons in the early stages of phthisis, and in cases of nervous exhaustion. See BATH, HYDROPATHY, MINERAL WATERS; the articles on the most notable health-resorts; and Charteris, Health Resorts at Home and Abroad (1885); J. Burney Yeo, Climate and Health Resorts (1885); Upcott Gill's Dictionary of Watering Places (1885); and Fraser Rae's Austrian Health-resorts (1888).