It’s interesting to read how cold therapies are all the rage (see SB17/4 pages 44-46), but in fact they are nothing new. European spas were based on the belief that exposure to water – in particular contrasting hot and cold water – could effectively treat disease. In the 19th century, at the height of the hydrotherapy revolution, spas even promoted themselves as being able to cure tuberculosis and syphilis!
Kick-started by Vincenz Priessnitz and Sebastian Kneipp, the concept of applying hot and cold water onto the body has left us with treatments that are still around today. Kneipp baths – walking barefoot in shallow hot and cold foot baths filled with pebbles – are commonplace in European spas. There is also the ‘Scottish spray’, where high-powered jets of water are fired at your naked body from a distance of 3 to 4 meters, first at the deceptively comfortable temperature of 38oC, then after 30 seconds, a sinister lever is pulled and the temperature drops to 16oC for 10 seconds. This is repeated several times – and is not for the fainthearted.
So why has cold-water therapy stood the test of time? In heat, the blood vessels dilate and the blood pressure reduces. If the body is then exposed to extreme cold, these vessels react with an aggressive constriction that pushes out the blood to the ‘twig ends’ of the blood vessels (the extremities of the capillaries) – hence that wonderful tingling sensation you feel after jumping into a plunge pool after a sauna, which is a natural circulation boost.
Cold therapies are now coming into vogue in spas; however, in Europe they never went away. I regularly use the old Turkish thermal baths in Budapest, first the unbearably hot pool at 42oC for as long as I can stand, then I drift off after in the cool 32oC pool feeling as if I have been tranquilized – unbeatable!