Meskó Csaba: Thermal Baths - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)
traduction of a new subject called The Ethics of Services and, needless to say, the inclusion of newly introduced bathing treatments into the curriculum. In 1950, the basic training programme was extended with an optional six- month course on medical massage. Graduates of this special course practice their profession under medical regulations. To this day, bath masters, medical and general masseurs, and swimming instructors are the key figures of baths and swimming pools, which is why their professional competence, their linguistic skills and general conduct can make a huge difference. The above-mentioned decree issued by the minister of public welfare in 1996 devotes a separate chapter to the discussion of the professional requirements which trained employees working for baths must satisfy. A secondary school diploma is now a fundamental condition of eligibility for training in a medical massage course and the authorities are planning to introduce the same criterion in related fields. On the geology of Bcidapest One careful look at the map of Budapest will reveal the differences between the geographical character of either side of the city divided by the Danube. On the right bank, the Buda side, there is a range of hills, while the left bank, the Pest side, is on the edge of the Alföld or the Great Hungarian Plain, which stretches out into the distance. Between these two halves flows the Danube, where a great north-south fault, one that determines the structure of the crust, provides an ideal bed for the great river. At various times during the Mesozoic era, the region of today’s Budapest was occupied by sea and then by land. About two hundred million years ago, at the beginning of the Mesozoic era, sediments of this sea formed successive layers of limestone and dolomite thousands of metres deep. In about 120 million years, later in the same geological era, the region emerged as land out of the surrounding sea. The earlier deposits of limestone and dolomite now fragmented and cracked as the land emerged and once out of the sea, they gradually crumbled away. In the first half of the Cenozoic era, layers of clay, marl, sand and sandstone were deposited on the decayed surfaces of the Mesozoic limestone and dolomite. During the 65 million years of the Cenozoic era, the region of what is 14
