Spa Boom

After the Ottoman centuries the baths of Buda continued in modest form. In the nineteenth century, as Budapest grew into a major city, they were rebuilt on a much larger scale. This chapter explains why: the rise of the water cure across Europe, the growth of a middle class that could pay for it, the new science of mineral waters, and a city government that saw baths as public investment. Names, dates and figures are from general knowledge and flagged for checking. Nothing here is medical advice.

A Growing City

In 1873 the towns of Buda, Óbuda and Pest were united as Budapest (check the date), and in the following decades the city grew very fast, with new bridges, boulevards, public buildings and a population many times larger than before (check the figures). It became a second capital of Austria-Hungary, with the ambition to rival Vienna. Baths were part of this ambition: a city that wished to be thought modern and healthy built public baths and spa hotels.

The Water Cure

Across nineteenth-century Europe, "taking the waters" became fashionable. Towns such as Bath and Harrogate in Britain, Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary) and Baden-Baden on the continent, grew up around springs (check the examples). Doctors prescribed stays at spas for many ailments, and those who could afford it travelled for weeks at a time.

• Bathing. Immersion in warm mineral water, often at set times and temperatures on a doctor's advice.
• Drinking. Mineral water drunk in measured amounts at a pump room or fountain. Some Budapest waters were bottled and sold as medicinal drinks (check the examples, such as Hunyadi János, a bitter water).
• Hydrotherapy. A broader movement using water in various forms, including cold baths, wraps and showers, associated with figures such as Vincenz Priessnitz in Silesia and Sebastian Kneipp in Bavaria (check the details and what was claimed).

The Science and the Doctors

In the nineteenth century chemists began to analyse the springs and list their mineral contents, and doctors wrote guides recommending particular waters for particular conditions (check the Hungarian figures involved). This gave the baths a scientific authority, even when the claims were stronger than the evidence (see Chapter 8 for what modern research says). Hungarian medical writers also promoted the springs abroad.

The Big Bath Complexes

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the construction of the large baths that are now the city's best known (check each date):

See Hungarian Architecture for the buildings as architecture. Here the point is the purpose: they combined bathing halls, treatment rooms, swimming pools and, often, a hotel, designed to be used by large numbers of people.

The Role of the City

The city council and the state played a large part, buying springs, commissioning buildings and later running the baths as public institutions (check the arrangements and the institution's name). Ownership has changed several times since (see Chapter 10 for the present position). The idea that the baths belong to the public as well as to those who run them is an old one and still shapes debate about prices and access.

Exercises