title: [Crisis and decline of bath houses].
abstract: For centuries bath-houses and barber-surgeons formed such an integral part of public life that one is mystified by their vanishing from modern view with hardly any trace left. Previous authors have offered a variety of reasons for this disappearance: the bath-houses' notorious reputation, developing fuel-shortage, the "new" fashion of taking the waters and the outbreak of previously unknown contagious diseases are among those mentioned most frequently. While these factors may be valid reasons for a crisis afflicting the "hot-houses" they would hardly explain why fate overtook the barber-surgeons' entire trade. Judging from the sources available one cannot help but feel that the philosophers of the Enlightenment were largely responsible for such a dramatic change of society. Sceptical philosophy discarded the wisdom of the ancient medical authorities replacing traditional steam-bathing with "modern" cold-bathing. Society itself was subject to equally revolutionary changes: the local masters of the trade had to make room for surgeons educated at medical schools setting the stage for a new reality which has become "normal" to us.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Widmann
mesh_terms: D001452:Balneology / Q000266:history*; D019024:Barber Surgeons / Q000266:history*; D001494:Baths / Q000266:history*; D005060:Europe; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D010686:Philosophy, Medical / Q000266:history*