Fürdők – Fürdőhelyek, Magyarország fürdői (Budapest, 2008)

BATH PLACES IN HUNGARY " none of the countries were blessed with such great mineral water as well as in quality as in quantity like Hungary" Manó Hasenfeld, a bath doctor of Szliács wrote in his book "Foreign and domestic mineral waters and medical places" in 1892. Due to the special geological and ecological conditions, there are unique mineral water sources hidden under the Carpathian Basin. These mineral and medical water sources arose along the ruptures or sprung up as a repercussion of volcanic activities. Medical water is the kind of water that contains more salt and gas than usual, it has compounds that arc rarely occurring or it has higher temperature than the normal mineral water has. There are two types of medical waters; natural and artificial ones. The artificial medical waters are often gained from artesian drillings from which we can find 190 here in Hungary and we also have the opportunity to choose between 55 qualified thermal places to cure our health problems. The culture of these bath places was influenced by other nations' cultural traditions, like the Roman or the Turkish and it was also formed by hundreds of decades through the time of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy when the social life of the civilians changed and became more vivid even in the fashionable bath places. The public interest for the medical and mineral waters rose during the 18th century. Its origin was the bulletin of Maria Theresa in December of 1762 in which she ordered the mineral waters' examinations of the HabsburgMonarchy as she intended to get them into trade. Joseph II. went a little further as he disposed several health and bath regulations. It was his merit that the bath life of the Habsburg-Monarchy started to bloom. The biggest supporter of the Hungarian resort and bath places was Joseph, Palatine of Hungary who had two favorite places; the first one was Balatonfüred, the second was the Margaret Island in Budapest. Besides the guide of the Hungarian aristocracy in the 19th century, development of the bourgeois was the prerequisite of the mass interest for bath places. The craze of going on holiday evolved in the other half of that century and as a survey showed in 1863, there were already 30 high standard and first class bath places in Hungary. Balatonfüred, Párád, Pöstyén, Bánkfürdő, Bázna, Bártafürdő, Borszék, Felixfürdő, Harkány, Herkulesfürdő, Kovászna, Parádsasvár, Szováta, Tátra, Trencsénteplic and in Buda, baths like the Császár, Lukács and Rác were the best. A bath doctor must had been hired in these places and in 1876 even a law of public health came out that clarified the orders and laws about mineral waters and about how to run a 'modern' medical bath. Budapest became the capitol of "Balneological Organization of the Countries of the Saint Crown" in 1891.