History of Bathing

[Michi]

This gonna be a quite lengthy post as I include here an English transcription from the following Youtube video:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=BVYJy6ExZu8

• you may turn on subtitles and then choose English as target language

I translated the transcription from the following web page: https://www.ob-ki.de/badegeschichte.html
(Unfortunately, when visiting that site, an security prompt warning is shown, as the owner used a self-signed ssl cert.)
For the translation I used Deepseek and for the formatting translation I used the BB converter: https://any2bb.com/

History of Bathing
Most people suffer from their illnesses. They suffer from pain, weakness, and those who are overweight suffer from the rush of blood at the slightest exertion. They suffer from weak knees and side stitches when they engage in the exercise prescribed by their doctors. Additionally, they suffer from the unpleasant sight they present, just as men with bald heads and elderly people with wrinkled skin suffer from their appearance.

Why a Combination of Diet and Exercise is So Ineffective
Most improvement programs primarily focus on dietary changes. In addition, there are detoxification tactics like exercise or fasting, which mainly burden the urinary tract and intestines. However, what is often neglected is that it is very difficult to remove the existing amounts of acid from the body. For a 50-year-old today, about half of their body mass consists of acid. For example, a man weighing 90 kilograms has 45 kilograms of acid. That’s 45 kilograms of waste that cannot simply be starved or exercised away. An average 50-year-old is made up of half waste, which is also present in the bones (making them more prone to fractures), in the tendons (reducing flexibility), in the muscles (reducing strength), and in the joints (causing joint pain). The body becomes weak at this age because it lacks alkaline substances, which are replaced by potassium salts (since potassium is the most common alkaline mineral in conventionally produced foods) and uric acid (as even moderate meat consumption introduces a lot of uric acid into the body). When bone tissue contains many of these acidic salts or free acids, bones break more easily. Therefore, it’s not just about losing mass; the body must actively release these substances from deposits and fill the gaps with alkaline substances. Neutralizing, diluting, and excreting these acids would likely take centuries if done solely through proper alkaline nutrition—at least as long as one has lived an acidic lifestyle, which in this example is 50 years. Additionally, for excretion, three times the amount of pure, reactive alkaline substances is required, which remain after digestion from alkaline-rich foods. Since the production of healthy body tissue also requires these excess alkaline substances after digestion, it is estimated that for detoxification, an average of 20 milligrams of alkaline substances are available from one kilogram of alkaline-rich food (such as organic fruits and vegetables). The amount of food required would be enormous, leading to the conclusion that it would take centuries to fully correct dietary mistakes. To excrete such an amount of acid through normal means, a person would need to consume about 7,000 tons of alkaline-rich food. At a daily food intake of 3.5 kilograms, this would take two million days—5,479 years. If we assume that the body also excretes free acids when drinking three to five liters of pure water daily or through acute excretions like colds, the time is significantly reduced, as the body can rid itself of a larger amount of acid at once.

Example: A 50-Year-Old Person, Acid Content Half of Body Weight (90 kg): 45 kg of Accumulated Acids
● 45 kg of accumulated acids
● 135 kg (45 kg x 3) of necessary alkaline substances for excretion via urine and stool
● 7,000 tons of purest food required—theoretically 5,479 years needed for excretion through alkaline nutrition
● Practically, through drinking plenty of water and exercise, it can be faster—"only" 50 to 100 years
The cleansing time through consistent alkaline nutrition would still be at least 50 years.
The long time it takes to see results is why diets are not sustained. Moreover, most diets are far from alkaline-rich, meaning they worsen the acid balance. As a result, people feel helpless, accepting their illnesses and obesity as God-given, fate, or heredity, and return to their normal diet.
All diets lack an important component: the best, fastest, and most pleasant way to directly eliminate acids and toxins. When this component is integrated, results are noticed immediately, from the first day. There is less struggle with adjustment symptoms, and the body of a 50-year-old can be cleansed to that of a 20-year-old in about five years. The feeling of life also becomes as fresh, spontaneous, and energetic as it was in youth. This important component is the start of rejuvenation. It is alkaline body care.

History of Body Care
For thousands of years, body care was alkaline. People used alkaline products for washing the body, clothing, and for moisturizing. Known from general historical knowledge is the anointing with valuable oils. The purer the oil, the more alkaline it is. Alkaline products were also used for the living environment, cleaning, and washing dishes. Of all this variety, only the alkaline pH of toothpaste has survived in commonly available products today, but it contains so many toxic substances that it no longer has an alkaline effect.

The Long Baths
Beyond the purposes of washing, moisturizing, and cleaning, there was the bathing culture. It was the path and key to health and well-being. In all cultures of the world, there are references to hours-long alkaline baths, described as the most effective medical application (Kaiser 2005, Leinberger 2005, Jentschura 2000). Only in some regions of countries as far apart as Mexico and Japan has the bathing tradition been maintained to this day (Hörnicke 1957, Leinberger 2005). The fact that this implies a world culture that must have existed 10,000 years ago is already astonishing. Even more astonishing are the effects of the baths, where they are still described, and the abilities that such strong health brings, which are unknown today.

The Mythical Fountain of Youth
The means of rejuvenation was the legendary Fountain of Youth. These were springs with alkaline water where people bathed for long periods. In Egypt, there were a series of alkaline lakes in Wadi Al Natrum, which gave rise to the name "natron," referring to the carbonate compound of sodium (sodium bicarbonate). People traveled to the alkaline water, took multi-day or multi-week bathing cures, and the result was rejuvenation. On its shores, the alkaline compounds natron and soda (sodium carbonate) were deposited as white powder, which the Egyptians called "trona" and used for alkaline baths at home. Trona was very valuable (Kaiser 2005), indicating that the Egyptians knew the importance of high water pH for bathing.
For unknown reasons, people stopped bathing in Wadi Al Natrum. Perhaps because the water level dropped? Several times, the salt lakes completely dried up in the summer. But trona was also no longer used. By Cleopatra's time, shortly before Christ, the effects of natron and soda were no longer known in the Mediterranean region, having been forgotten. The famous beauty had to resort to baths in milk and sugar to achieve at least a somewhat alkaline effect. The early Christians, however, knew the importance of alkaline baths. They founded 50 monasteries in the 30-kilometer-long Wadi Al Natrum (Müller 2005). This location provoked fierce resistance from the Roman Empire, which repeatedly destroyed the monasteries.

The Most Famous Bathing Doctor: John the Baptist
2,000 years ago, another bather gained worldwide fame. John the Baptist used alkaline baths for baptism. Through the physical purity of the baths, the spirit was also clarified, and the first Christians became open to the spiritual messages of Jesus. John the Baptist cleansed his clients so well in multi-week cures that a new consciousness naturally emerged. This was a threat to the ruling system, which in different realms (Judaism, the Egyptian Empire, and the Roman Empire) essentially transported a single value system that still exists today. The bathing cures had been forgotten in the Mediterranean region for centuries, certainly with some help, as someone who bathed was difficult to control. Only the Greeks still bathed in alkaline water, as did the strong opponents of the Romans in Gaul, Central, and Eastern Europe.
Within the Roman Empire, John the Baptist began again with alkaline baths and achieved such good results that the rulers had him beheaded. His patients were no longer tolerant and obedient. They became rebellious, insurrectionary, and revolutionary. They were on the path to freedom, and if they had been allowed to continue, the imperial thinking of the Mediterranean peoples would have dissipated 2,000 years ago: the rulers would have had no more subjects. Therefore, it was necessary for the powers that be that bathing was no longer practiced in their cultural sphere, not even in the Christian movement, which, however, could hardly be stopped.

Distorted Images of the Nature of Baptism
In historical accounts, the actual baptism was distorted into a dull gesture. It was no longer clear what water was used (namely, alkaline water) and how a baptism was supposed to take place. At some point, the church was placed in the service of the rulers (then the Romans), and the important sacrament of baptism became a kind of membership ritual, a little sprinkling with normal (approximately pH-neutral) water. John the Baptist would hardly have achieved overwhelming fame and been dangerous to the rulers of the Mediterranean if he had simply been a kind of manager for a religious association with a twenty-minute initiation ritual. No, the Baptist convinced through his baptism. The result of the baptism was a completely different thinking, feeling, and looking person than before. The rulers, the Roman emperors, twisted the messages of the church when they realized they could not prevail against it. They installed a superficial baptism ritual with a handful of water in all congregations. Only some new church offshoots recall the knowledge that one should at least immerse the whole body. But even these groups have not rediscovered the full meaning of baptism; bathing duration and water quality do not come into play. Bathing duration and water quality, more precisely a pH value of over 8.5, were the variables that made baptism an important cleansing and healing path. In the Bible, there are indeed references to the technique of John (Markquart 2005).


The Mythical Fountain of Youth—How Europeans Bathed
While alkaline bathing was being rediscovered in the Mediterranean region around the time of Jesus Christ, Europeans had not yet forgotten it. Bathing in certain sacred springs was part of the culture of the Celts and Germans and ensured their resilience. People bathed ten to twelve hours a day for three to four weeks. Or they stayed in the water for two to three weeks continuously, depending on the indication and treatment plan of the bather. They had floating pillows for the head, meals were taken on floating trays. One could socialize and was cared for by the bath master. It was an effective and also pleasant and comfortable way of healing. The strong attraction of the baths gave rise to the myth of the Fountain of Youth.
This knowledge was later outlawed and persecuted. The painter and sculptor Lucas Cranach the Elder tried to preserve this ancient knowledge through art. Cranach the Elder was close to the persecuted nature religions and is said to have designed the symbolic relief at the pagan sanctuary of the Externsteine (Ritters, 1997). The most famous painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder is "The Fountain of Youth" (1546, Late Renaissance). It depicts a spring that flows into a basin where many people bathe. On the left, old people enter the basin, and on the right, they emerge young, beautiful, and healthy. In all commenting art guides, the impression is given that it was wishful thinking, an idea, and that the rejuvenation in this myth would have happened in a very short time. Neither is correct. These baths really existed, but the rejuvenation took several weeks or months.

The Reputation of the Bather
The baths were so effective that in Europe, only one word was used for the doctor, healer, or medic: "Bader." The Bader was the one who determined the composition and bathing plan based on the condition and symptoms of the patients. He enjoyed a very high reputation in pagan cultures, and his competence was unquestioned. A bit of this myth has survived in the reputation and rank of spa towns: spa towns are still allowed to adorn themselves with the addition "Bad" or "Spa." But in pagan times, it was only certain springs that made a place a famous bath. They contained alkaline thermal water.
Many settlements were established near such valuable springs. This allowed people to bathe regularly. Until recently, the habit of bathing on Saturday persisted, simply to be clean for Sunday. This habit has its origins in pagan times when people wanted to celebrate holidays in purity. Today, a holiday is usually a day when one poisons oneself with alcohol and bad food, and it starts the evening before. In the past, one wanted to be able to perceive energetic shifts on a holiday; the celebration took place on a finer, higher level, difficult for us to describe and understand today. The bath before the holiday was as normal as going out to eat on Saturday is today. In addition, certain regularity in bathing was observed.

Cultural Adaptation—Advertising Campaigns for Unhealthy Eating
As long as Europeans bathed, they were invincible to the Romans. The Roman Empire at that time tried to conquer the Celts, Germans, and Slavs north of the Alps through both conquest campaigns and cultural adaptation. What was cultural adaptation? They occupied individual legion fortresses in the territory of the pagans and imposed their cultural goods and views on the locals, transporting customs, manners, linguistic expressions, farming methods, and products into the area, promoting their wine just as the Americans promote their cola today. One can imagine it somewhat like in the Asterix comics; it was a centuries-long coexistence where there was sometimes conflict, then the Romans invited the locals to feasts and thus spread the unhealthy Roman eating habits. From then on, the baths gained immense importance, so important that the Roman strategists later included them in their strategy. The baths cleansed the errors of a moderately unhealthy diet in a relatively short time. Because they were regularly repeated, Europeans could maintain their physical superiority permanently. In the old reports of Roman explorers to their metropolis Rome, there are often passages about the properties of Europeans that seemed almost eerie to the Romans and would likely seem suspicious to people today. (Literature examples). The strong physical strength is mentioned several times, which is also the basis of the Asterix stories. The Asterix authors Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny researched precisely: the Gauls were indeed astonishingly strong compared to the well-trained Roman soldiers, and the Celtic women were astonishingly beautiful (Schubert 2001). Those who eat alkaline and take alkaline baths can experience today that physical strength increases after a few years. Plutarch writes that the Britons had bare arms and legs in summer and winter and did not freeze. Caesar writes that the Celts fought their battles naked except for a helmet and spear and won. Special longevity is also reported.

Roman Baths—Without Effect
The Romans had seen this bathing culture in the centuries since 400 BC among the Celts, against whom they repeatedly lost conquest wars. The Romans were brutalized and had forgotten all culture, even soap. Although soap was so well known in antiquity that the Sumerians and Egyptians recorded their best recipes in writing, the Romans only learned about it from the Celts (Pliny the Elder, quoted in Kaiser 2005). Around 91 BC, the Greek physician Asclepiades of Prusa was abducted to Rome as a slave and introduced part of the Greek knowledge of baths to the hated occupiers, enough to secure his release (Griesshaber 2004). He also achieved modest prosperity by running a teaching institute and thus founded Roman bath therapy, "balneotherapy," which is widely used again today. Through this balneotherapy, bathing became truly known in Rome. The Roman emperors hoped to have found the means to achieve high physical strength.
The famous Roman baths, the Thermae, were built everywhere in Rome, but they lacked the essential—alkaline water. Water with a pH value so alkaline that it is suitable for alkaline baths does not spring everywhere. The pH value must be over 8, only then does osmosis occur. The springs that met this condition were the sacred thermal springs of the European natives, known under the old name Irminsul. Not everything that is transparent and wet deserved this name. Nevertheless, the springs with this special water were relatively numerous. These springs made the European natives strong even when the new Roman neighbors had invited them to feasts. In the alkaline baths, they could cure their hangovers. Strong and invincible, they were so for 400 years. The defeat came from within, through seduction with alcohol, similar to the North American Indians, only in ancient Europe it was the supposedly noble wine. In the wake of the feasts with wine came also the customs, manners, and views of the new neighbors into the consciousness of the locals. The Celts and Germans lived vegetarian. In their kitchen waste, archaeologists find no animal bones, but they do find plenty of fruit and vegetable scraps, nut and acorn shells, beech nut husks. At the feasts with the Romans, they were also served meat, which they did not tolerate and which brought them closer to the weakness level of the Romans. At some point, first in Western Europe, the consistency and regularity of alkaline bathing was lost, so that in 51 BC, Caesar could subjugate Gaul after seven years of war.


In the Name of Christ
The Central European Celts and Germans, as well as the Eastern European Slavs and other pagan peoples, resisted the attacks from Rome for another 600 years. Here, bathing was maintained with great seriousness, and the Roman armies were repeatedly defeated. A changed strategy became necessary. Christianity, established as the state religion in Rome around 300 AD, was used to make the people of Central and Eastern Europe open and pliable, a perversion of the original message of Christ. While the so-called migration of peoples ended the official affiliation of half of Europe to the Roman Empire, the mindset of the conquerors had taken hold. The empire shrank for the next 800 years to the small Eastern Roman Empire, which still occupied half the Mediterranean from present-day Greece, through Turkey to Egypt. But in this refuge, missionaries were trained to instruct especially the princes and kings of the small states now founded according to the Roman model. If one had the prince on one's side, one could more easily convert the astonished people, and where friendly words failed, the pagan slaughterers came in the wake of the feasts with wine and meat, forcibly converting individual recalcitrants.


Sealed!
The two weapons of missionization and alcohol, as well as the cultural characteristics of the Romans of an almost thousand-year advertising phase (from 500 BC to 500 AD), ushered in the age of disease in Europe. Christianity had distanced itself from the rediscovery of bathing by John the Baptist and treated the pagan bathing culture as an equally great danger. In the early Middle Ages (772–802), all baths were sealed, or "walled up" (Lück 1993, Kinder/Hilgemann 1984). The Carolingian Emperor Charlemagne fought this last battle against the pagans, which went down in history as the "Saxon Wars." The historian Lück writes that "the loss of these fountains of youth [...] was devastating for the 'Celtic' people" (Lück 1993).
Following the sealing of the baths, the nobles were subjected to mass baptisms, and each county was controlled by a secular and a spiritual overseer. These so-called "royal messengers" (Missi dominici) with special powers controlled the count, the religious events, and the administration, so that the tribute-paying tribes were controlled on the one hand by the defected count and the state officials, and on the other hand by two overseers directly accountable to the emperor.
In the name of Christ, who had advocated the spread of alkaline bathing in the Mediterranean, the church sealed the fountains of youth of the Europeans. This was a catastrophe for the Celtic and Germanic peoples, who until then had still behaved rebelliously and unpredictably. They became controllable and predictable.

Inner Pagans
The people tried to continue bathing and to make their bathwater alkaline with alkaline powders (similar to the "trona" of the ancient Egyptians). Over time, they adapted to the new ways of life, and much was new: the administered state with its office structures, the new religion and the new church, the importance of written documents compared to the sung epics, and the new scholarly language Latin. They were deprived of their sacred groves and in their place lifeless churches were erected. But they still maintained the connection to the origins. They had magicians, druids, witches, they gardened according to the moon, they knew about herbs, and they celebrated the solar festivals on February 1, April 30, August 1, and October 31. The best-known festivals are the energetic shifts: on June 24, the energetic shift to shorter days, and on December 24, the shift to longer days. The church introduced the Roman names for the months and the festivals and with great effort attributed a somewhat credible Christian meaning to them, but they could not change the traditional celebrations and customs. The old spring festival with the egg as a pagan symbol of new beginnings could not even be attacked by name; it is still held today in honor of the pagan goddess Ostara.
The people adapted to the new time, and a Christian-pagan mix developed, the bloom of the High Middle Ages from about 1000 to 1200, a time when art and culture reached a relative bloom and repression was no longer as harsh as in the first centuries after Christ. The pagan rituals could only be performed symbolically and very limitedly in the light of day. So the people retreated to the night hours. If one went to church during the day, one could still meet for ritual dances in the mushroom circle at night. Even the bardic tradition seemed to get a second chance in minstrelsy. One was inwardly pagan and outwardly left the pastors and state officials in peace.

Bathing Ban
From about 1200, the church tried to expand its influence: the ban on interest, which had contributed significantly to the economic bloom, was lifted (1179 by Pope Alexander III). The inquisition against people who practiced pagan customs was first episcopal (1215), then papal (1231) by Pope Gregory IX. The death penalty for blasphemy was introduced in France and Germany.
What had the most drastic effect on life expectancy, health, and the spirit of resistance, however, was this: bathing was generally banned by the church at the end of the High Middle Ages, no matter in what water. This was to prevent people from preparing their bathwater themselves with alkaline bath additives. Anyone caught bathing had to expect severe penalties. This step was justified by the claim that bathing was allegedly immoral (Kaiser 2005). In the wake of this ban came the plague and the decline of prosperity.

The Christian Church Feared Alkaline Bathing Like the Devil Fears Holy Water
Life expectancy fell sharply in the late Middle Ages and early modern period. This short life expectancy is always referred to today when there is talk of a spectacular extension that we have today. It was forgotten that people before had become much older. In the centuries of short lives, the memory of the times was hardly possible. Added to this was a disinforming school education by the churches, which emphasized mind-numbing memorization of church writings and told the children that the holy festivals of their parents were Christian festivals. Through short-lived generations, through centuries full of disease, war, and oppression, this indoctrination continued. How could a broad awareness of the enormity of this power grab have been maintained? The outrage over the impoverishment must still come through a new history lesson, for the facts are verifiable, old sources have survived, few but enough to provide a clear report.

Declining Life Expectancy Due to Different Eating Habits
People became so sick that they died earlier due to their diet. From the Romans, they got wine, which was soon cultivated in France and Germany to ensure a comprehensive supply. Both ecclesiastically and secularly, the drink was promoted much like cola drinks are today. In every tavern, there was wine, soldiers and merchants always had a supply with them, and soon everyone who was anyone had their selection of wines. Wine was also carried around in skins. In the Middle Ages, people were said to be constantly drunk because they drank wine instead of water whenever they were thirsty (Marquardt 2005, Dombrowsky 2001).
The alcohol propaganda was supported by the increasingly poor drinking water. While the naked natives could once drink sweet water from any stream without worry, the introduction of leather tanning spoiled their appetite for water. They now got clothing and leather for all kinds of applications, something they had not needed before. Until the late Middle Ages, nudity was considered something natural. Only the church, in constant propaganda, pressed a sense of shame, which was initially reluctantly accepted and at least forgotten where it collided with practical considerations. Until the 15th century, for example, the custom of walking to and from the bathhouse naked persisted, as one did not need to store one's clothing and did not need to dry off. People also generally slept naked, even if there were guests in the bedroom. The introduction of clothing first contaminated the drinking water. Above all, the emerging tanneries sent dangerous cadaver poisons from the animal skins down the stream. The alcoholic and acidic wine was the healthier alternative to the wastewater.
The Romans also introduced grain cultivation. In areas where it was too cold for viticulture, they needed a corresponding alcoholic drink to keep the natives as well as their own mercenaries under control (Finouist 2005). So it was not the natives who brewed beer, but beer was also an unwelcome fashion drug.
The Romans also promoted bread made from grain, equally devastating to health. Mills for grinding were already available, as people had previously baked bread from acorns (Pollmer et al. 2001). The oak forests of the Britons, Celts, and Germans were cut down, the exact reason is no longer clear. But certainly, this was to support the dietary change, as the highly alkaline acorns were a staple food at the time. The disappearance of the oak forests also weakened the position of the druids (dru (Celtic) = oak), (Schubert 2001). It is known that life expectancy fell when people switched to grain bread. Pollmer (2001) believes that people "bit the grass" out of sheer necessity because there were no more acorns. He suspects that the demand for wood for shipbuilding during the Viking and Roman times was simply too gigantic.

Re-education: From Alkaline Acorn Bread to Disease-Causing Grain
For a well-thought-out re-education measure, however, the fact speaks that the few remaining oak forests were driven into by pigs for fattening, which had begun to be kept through the new system. The exact reason for the widespread disappearance of the oak forests is no longer clear, but it is a fact that since that time, people no longer know how to bake bread from acorns and rather feed their pigs than themselves with the acorns. People, on the other hand, now ate mainly grain and meat in any form. Bread became the new staple food for a very long time. The average bread consumption was then 1.5 kg per person per day. Almost every rural resident had their fattening animals, even if it was only poultry and a few rabbits. Bread was baked in advance, and attempts were made to preserve meat by smoking and salting. When things began to mold, they were still eaten. The result was a completely disoriented, sick, aggressive, stupid, and ugly population. The mob was born. This was roughly the image that most people still have of the dark Middle Ages, an unfriendly, evil time. Only historically, it was not the Middle Ages, at most the late Middle Ages, but mainly the centuries between 1200 and 1700. This was also the main time of the witch hunts.
While only a few centuries earlier, the natives had still defeated the Roman legions naked, they now stood clothed and weak next to the stakes and watched as the last of their brothers and sisters were executed, who had still lived according to the old traditions. The inquisition was particularly directed against the bearers of the ancient knowledge, the bards, witches, and druids.


New Baths Were Promoted: Pitch and Sulfur
However, this could not dispel the myth of bathing. The excellent reputation of those bathers who could create health and strength still held in that time. The doctors according to the Roman model and the barbers with their barbaric surgical butchering methods could at most deter the population, which now showed more and more morbidity due to the diet. Thus, the image of the charlatan and quack for medicine arose. The population was offered no real alternative.
After a short time, the church gave in to the pressure of the population to counter the growing dissatisfaction. Bathing was allowed again, but it was different from the sacred springs. Baths were promoted and publicized that contained too acidic water, such as the famous Czech baths in Marienbad and Karlsbad, which contain a lot of sulfur. The people threw themselves at the opportunity to take bathing cures like their ancestors. Only the springs were now as ineffective as the Roman thermal baths or even harmful.


Also New: The Ineffective Steam Bath
A second innovation was a different concept for the public bath, which suddenly appears in historical sources. Instead of bathing in water, one now bathed in steam, a method as economical as the shower. The "bath" in hot steam offered the rulers the advantage that it was technically impossible to mix alkaline bathwater here. If the knowledge of the alkaline bath additives was still present, one could do nothing with it in this bathhouse. This bathhouse served as a substitute satisfaction for the people who wanted to bathe so much, but whose sacred springs were still sealed, so long that no one knew where they were actually located. The concept of the wooden bathhouse with a fire, hot stones, and water poured on the hot stones spread in Orthodox Russia, where the baths were also replaced by these bathhouses. From Russia, it came to Finland, was called sauna, and nowadays returns as a "Finnish invention" to Germany. Those who deal with Finnish sauna bathing know that cardiovascular causes of death accumulate in the sauna.


Acidic Baths—Harmful Effects
The introduction of sulfur-containing baths in the 14th century founded many spa towns that have survived to this day as baths. People eagerly resumed bathing. Initially, people bathed in the unsuitable water as in the sacred springs and in the self-prepared alkaline baths, namely ten to twelve hours a day for three to four weeks. Due to the too acidic water, a weeping and itchy rash occurred. This was something new, which had not been known before when the baths were still alkaline. The rash was therefore interpreted as excretion, a misunderstanding, as it was actually an acid congestion due to the low pH of the water (Hörnicke 1957). The skin became inflamed. The cure became extremely strenuous and annoying (Hörnicke 1957).
In contrast, the real alkaline baths are pleasant and refreshing. Especially the skin recovers first in alkaline baths because the acids are released into the bathwater. Walter Sommer describes in his book "Die Jungmühle" the astonishing effect of alkaline long baths: "25 alkaline baths make 25 years younger" (Sommer 1978). 25 alkaline baths of twelve hours each leach the toxins and waste from a quarter of a century. This was actually the effect the bathers expected.
Only in the wrong, sulfur-smelling water did the expected effect fail to materialize. The bathing cures remained unsuccessful. People became increasingly susceptible to infectious diseases and epidemics. Thus, in the 16th century, enthusiasm for bathing waned, and people perfumed their stinking excretions with floral scents, like the "Sun King" Louis XIV, who is said to have bathed only twice in his life (Kaiser 2005). In the 19th century, the last public bathhouses were closed (Hörnicke 1957). In the spa baths, the bathing time was drastically reduced to only half an hour for two to three times a week. The spa establishments rather went over to taking the water as a drinking cure internally. Here, the effect of the acid whip is shown by the addition of a strong acid such as sulfur-containing water: existing waste is cracked, free acids combine with the body's own alkalis or alkalis from food to form excretable waste, which takes the path via urine and stool. The patient may break down the body's own alkaline substance, but at the same time, they lose waste and free acids that caused the complaints the cure was supposed to heal. Similarly, massages that loosen acids and the moderate movement usually recommended during a cure work. The freedom from complaints is considered a seeming healing success. However, a stay at a spa has nothing to do with a healing bath cure.
What remained was a bathing culture that made do with the most economical applications, which still reflected a diffuse glow of the former healing successes and therefore still had attraction, but which no longer understood anything about water quality. The imperially permitted springs were simply tried out. Some symptoms disappeared, which was booked as healing, for which other symptoms came, which was booked as fate.


Pastor Sebastian Kneipp
Pastor Sebastian Kneipp experienced a great influx in the 19th century with his method because the water he used was cold. The pH value is temperature-dependent; cold water is more alkaline than warm. If his method allowed a somewhat long stay in cold water (through movement in the water), particularly strong disease symptoms could actually be alleviated. The feet and calves are also called the "auxiliary kidneys of the body." Especially sick people with a history of stroke, diabetes, and heart problems excrete a lot through the feet to maintain a minimum pH in the body. Open legs, athlete's foot, and swollen feet are only signs of this excretion. The acid and toxins in the feet are quasi already excreted. If this person then comes into even relatively alkaline water, the acids wash off the skin, relieving the overflowing deposits and making them only "full" but no longer "overflowing." This is the small relief that delighted the Kneipp followers. Because the knowledge of effective cleansing was lost, people gratefully accepted this alms. However, Kneipp cures are weak compared to two hours of footbath in very alkaline water.

The Potato as a Mass Food
At about the same time as Kneipp's helpless attempts, general health in Central Europe took a small step out of the deep valley into which civilized living habits with unhealthy food, alcohol, and without effective baths had brought it. The reason was an alkaline-rich plant from America that displaced grain bread as a staple food. Only when potato cultivation began in the 18th century did people find a means that could partially compensate for meat consumption and raise life expectancy by a few decades. The good bourgeois cuisine still includes meat and potatoes today. Before the potato, people ate offal such as liver and stomach as dishes like "Saumagen" to get at least a few alkalis. Before industrially produced feed, this was also a good way if one wanted to eat meat. The internal organs, especially the liver, contain minerals if the animals are not poisoned. And where oak forests were still found, the consumption of offal was a compensation for the otherwise acidifying meat parts. If pigs are fattened with acorns, the liver becomes very pure. Before, people ate the acorns and beech nuts themselves, with the result of overwhelming health.
The cuisine of meat and bread, on the other hand, could just barely ensure the survival of people through the dark centuries from 1300 to 1800 by compensating with offal and a small proportion of vegetables on the menu. Life expectancy fell to just 40 years. From this valley, Frederick the Great led the people a little higher. The potato as a mass food ironed out part of the acid load. To this day, potatoes are the food that enables many sickly children to grow up at all, with the acid load they otherwise absorb from pork chops, fish fingers, yogurt, cheese, chocolate, candy, lemonade, cookies, antibiotics, cold remedies, sunscreen, and last but not least, daily bread.

Alkaline Bathing is Possible—Experience the Effect!
Alkaline bathing is as possible today as it was 10,000 years ago. Make your bathwater alkaline with an alkaline bath powder. Make sure that as few ingredients as possible are contained. Sea salt and Himalayan crystal salt should also not be in the bath powder. They lower the pH value below the physiologically important limit of 8.5, which first makes a sufficient pH gradient to the skin possible. Only then is detoxification by osmosis stimulated. Your bath powder should, however, contain minerals.


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And here are my questions:
Are the claims in that video really true, as

1. Had people many hundreds of years ago really lived healthier and more resilient live by bathing in alkaline water of 8.5 ph many hours in one setting?
2. doesn't one suffer skin drying and irritations problems because of weakening of the skin's acid mantle?
3. isn't the acid-base balance of the body primarily regulated thru respiration and the kidneys?
   
   Would lengthy alkaline rich bathing (8.5) rejuvenate the body?
   Thank you for bearing with me to the end. 😃