Water  is one of the most important elements  needed  for survival for every living being. Water also has invaluable benefits when used in various types of therapies for human beings. There are documents that demonstrate the knowledge and use of hydrotherapy in old Chinese villages, but their use spread itself only from the nineteenth century, when Protestant pastor Sebastian Kneipp systematized it .

Etymologically, we find the origin of the word in the Greek terms’ Hydor ‘(water) and’ Therapeia ‘(therapy).

Although hydrotherapy techniques were used in ancient times, Hippocrates (460 to 337 BC), for example, mentions some of them; they were abandoned for a long time and only started to create a buzz in the eighteenth century through the work of doctors Sigmund Hahn (1664 1742) and his son Johann Sigmund Hahn (1696-1773). From this work, Vinceriz Priessnitz (1799-1851) created  the cold water therapy by associating it to sudorific implement . But who really renovated modern hydrotherapy was the Protestant pastor Sebastian Kneipp (1821 -1897), whose basic tenet was that the disease in humans happens when their natural force is undermined by an inadequate diet and unnatural lifestyle. His methods, known today as the “Kneipp cure” included not only complete and partial baths of hot and cold water, but jets of water, exercise, use of medicinal herbs and a healthy diet. (more…)