The Use of Spring Water in Ancient Musculosskeletal Diseases and its Reflections on Today's Balnotherapy Practices

Abstract

Throughout history, people have benefited from spring waters in various ways such as religious purification, relaxation, cleaning, and treatment. Treatment with spring waters is an ancient art, probably one of the oldest medical procedures. In ancient times, diseases that occurred due to the overuse of musculoskeletal system because of the struggle for survival and severe conditions were quite common. Today, the development of technology and sedentary lifestyle have brought musculoskeletal disorders to the forefront. In this context, the treatment of musculoskeletal diseases gains importance in both ancient and modern times, and treatment with spring waters contains surprisingly similar methods, and still maintains its importance today. Most of the pathological disorders seen in skeletons were determined to be musculoskeletal diseases, reviewing the archeometry results of the years 1995-2019. In this study, the information on ancient medicine given by ancient writers such as Celsus particularly, Hippocrates, Plinius the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus), Soranus, Suetonius, Vitruvius, Strabo, Herodotus and Homer, archaeological data and modern medical literature were used. The main purpose of this article is to determine the similarities between the use of spring waters and treatment approaches in the treatment of musculoskeletal diseases in ancient times with today's modern medical practices. The idea that many of the innovations applied to further improve the quality of life today date back to prehistoric times is a remarkable detail about the importance of the study.