Microbial biofilm community structure and composition on the lithic substrates of Herculaneum Suburban Baths.

In this work, we want to investigate the impact of different substrates and different environmental condition on the biofilm communities growing on plaster, marble, and mortar substrates inside the Herculaneum Suburban Baths. To do so, we measured environmental conditions and sampled biofilm communities along the walls of the baths and used culture-dependent and -independent molecular techniques (DGGE) to identify the species at each sampling sites. We used the species pool to infer structure and richness of communities within each site in each substrate, and confocal light scanning microscopy to assess the three-dimensional structure of the sampled biofilms. To gather further insights, we built a meta-community network and used its local realizations to analyze co-occurrence patterns of species. We found that light is a limiting factor in the baths environment, that moving along sites equals moving along an irradiation gradient, and that such gradient shapes the community structure, de facto separating a dark community, rich in Bacteria, Fungi and cyanobacteria, from two dim communities, rich in Chlorophyta. Almost all sites are dominated by photoautotrophs, with Fungi and Bacteria relegated to the role of rare species., and structural properties of biofilms are not consistent within the same substrate. We conclude that the Herculaneum suburban baths are an environment-shaped community, where one dark community (plaster) and one dim community (mortar) provides species to a "midway" community (marble).

Showers: from a violent treatment to an agent of cleansing.

In the early nineteenth century, physicians designed the first manufactured showers for the purpose of curing the insane. Sustained falls of cold water were prescribed to cool hot, inflamed brains, and to instil fear to tame impetuous wills. By the middle of the century showers had appeared in both asylums and prisons, but shower-related deaths led to their decline. Rather than being abandoned, however, the shower was transformed by the use of warm water to economically wash the skins of prison and asylum populations. In stark contrast to an involuntary, deliberately unpleasant treatment, by the end of the century the shower was a desirable product for the improvement of personal hygiene and population health.

[From the Russian Balneological Society to innovative technologies of spa and health resort-based treatment. The 95th anniversary of the Pyatigorsk State Research Institute of Balneology].

This article is dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the Federal state budgetary institution "Pyatigorsk State Research Institute of Balneology", Russian Federal Medico-Biological Agency. The main stages of the development of the institution are described with special reference to its scientific achievements and the principal lines of current activities.

[Collaboration between Physician Emerich Lindenmayer and Architect Jan Nevole in Restoring the Sokobanja Turkish Bath].

The Sokobanja Turkish bath is an exceptional example of two-section baths and quite particular in its style, structure type and technology used. It is one of the two of the same type that remained in Serbia and the only one that has retained its original function. About its construction we learn from the Vidin sanjak defter from the second half of the 16th century. In the lavish built heritage inventory, Turkish baths are quite unique secular public structures, playing a prominent role in the development of health culture. Based upon their specific function, these baths possess a special architectural expression, are often monumental, decorative and imaginative in their forms and ornamentation. Prince Milos initiated repair works of the Soko Banja baths and spa springs immediately after the settlement became a part of the Serbian Principality in 1834. When work on restoring the men's baths started, a separate room with a tub was built for Prince Milos, while the women's bath remained in ruins. In 1847, the Ministry of Interior sent Dr Emerich Lindenmayer and architect Jan Nevole, as an expert team, to assess the state of the hammam so that it could be included in the undertakings funded from the state budget. After the assessment and review of the existing issues and upon a detailed report submitted to the Ministry of Interior, complex repairs were conducted in 1850, according to Nevole's architectural design and his constant supervision. The approach implemented in the architectural renovation process was based on highly regarded principles of the time, thus preserving both the hammam's original function and its valuable architecture.

Taking the (southern) waters: science, slavery, and nationalism at the Virginia springs.

'Taking the (southern) waters' argues that, in the pre-Civil War period, the space of Virginia's mineral water resorts and the philosophy of southern hydropathic medicine enabled--indeed, fostered--white southerners' constructions of a 'nationalist,' pro-slavery ideology. In the first half of the paper, the author explains how white southern health-seekers came to view the springs region as a medicinal resource peculiarly designed for the healing of southern diseases and for the restoration of white southern constitutions; in the second half, she shows how physical and social aspects of the resorts, such as architectural choices and political events, supported and encouraged pro-slavery ideologies. Taken together, these medical-social analyses reveal how elite white southerners in the antebellum period came to associate the health of their peculiarly 'southern' bodies with the future health of an independent southern nation, one that elided black bodily presence at the same time that its social structures and scientific apparatuses relied upon enslaved black labor.

Wieland's nude bathers: visual pleasure and the female gaze.

In her essays on Wieland, written around 1980, Elizabeth Boa went against contemporary fashion both by praising a neglected writer and by vindicating the role of pleasure in the reception of literature. She noted how Wieland varies a literary topos ­ a man watching a woman bathing naked ­ by letting women watch men bathing naked. This topos most often occurs in the pastoral, a popular eighteenth-century genre. Various examples are examined to show that they suggest equality rather than male dominance in relations between the sexes: men watching women bathing in James Thomson and Gottfried Keller; an example involving cross-dressing in Kleist; and finally women watching men bathing naked in Swift, Voltaire and Wieland's Idris und Zenide.

Germanidade e banhos medicinais nos primórdios dos balneários no Rio Grande do Sul / Germanism and medicinal bathing in the early days of health resorts in Rio Grande do Sul

Nos primórdios dos balneários no Rio Grande do Sul, encontravam-se alguns imigrantes alemães, não apenas entre os banhistas, mas também entre os empresários do incipiente ramo do curismo-turismo. Era um grupo pequeno de imigrantes de origem urbana que, em geral, já conhecia as vantagens curativas ou revigorantes dos banhos em balneários europeus. Entre eles destacavam-se os médicos, importantes emissores de um discurso científico em prol dos balneários. As práticas terapêuticas de banhos de mar chegaram ao Brasil meridional pela imigração européia da segunda metade do século XIX, embora sua difusão só tenha ocorrido na primeira metade do século seguinte, quando se desenvolveram as primeiras praias balneárias no Rio Grande do Sul.

Germanidade e banhos medicinais nos primórdios dos balneários no Rio Grande do Sul / Germanism and medicinal bathing in the early days of health resorts in Rio Grande do Sul

Nos primórdios dos balneários no Rio Grande do Sul, encontravam-se alguns imigrantes alemães, não apenas entre os banhistas, mas também entre os empresários do incipiente ramo do curismo-turismo. Era um grupo pequeno de imigrantes de origem urbana que, em geral, já conhecia as vantagens curativas ou revigorantes dos banhos em balneários europeus. Entre eles destacavam-se os médicos, importantes emissores de um discurso científico em prol dos balneários. As práticas terapêuticas de banhos de mar chegaram ao Brasil meridional pela imigração européia da segunda metade do século XIX, embora sua difusão só tenha ocorrido na primeira metade do século seguinte, quando se desenvolveram as primeiras praias balneárias no Rio Grande do Sul.(AU)

[The Hammam in manuscripts and ancient works of the Arabic medical literature]. / "Le Hammam" a travers des manuscrits et autres ouvrages anciens de la littérature médicale arabe.

The first hammams appeared under the dynasty of Omeyyades. Having described the premises, the authors clarify the functioning of a hammam, then the beneficial effects of the bath.