Great men of thalassotherapy
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Doctor Louis-Eugène BAGOT
Louis-Eugène Bagot, a marine doctor, was passionate about climatology.
After a stay in Somalia and a trip to Guadeloupe he set up as a GP in St-Pol-de-Leon, Brittany in 1887 and created an additional practice in Roscoff a few kilometres away.
In (...)
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Doctor René BAGOT
A former Paris hospital intern, in 1934 he practised at the Hotel Dieu working in professor H. Dausset’s physiology department. In 1935 he passed his viva for his thesis: ’the prevention and treatment of disabling rheumatism through methodical mobilisation’. Member of the French League against Rheumatism, the French Physical Medicine Society and The French Hydrology and Climatology Society, in (...) -
Louison BOBET
Louison Bobet was born Louis Bobet on the 12th of March 1925 in Saint-Méen-le-Grand. A French professional cyclist from 1947 to 1961, he achieved 122 victories, bringing home the world champion title in 1954. After suffering trauma in a car accident he was amazed by the effects on his body after a seawater treatment at Roscoff. “The results on my weakened organism were so marked, so (...) -
Doctor LA BONNARDIÈRE
Even though the benefits of the sea had been known for centuries it wasn’t until the 31st of December 1865 in Montpellier that Doctor La Bonnardiere presented his thesis entitled “Introduction to thalassotherapy” meaning “sea therapy” using the Greek words thalassa, the sea, and therapeia, therapy. He practiced in Arcachon using the sea to treat, and from then on, thalassotherapy not only (...)
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Doctor John FLOYER
Sir John FLOYER was an English doctor who was born in Hinters, Staffordshire in 1649. A student at Oxford, he qualified as a medical doctor in 1680 then practiced in Litchfield where he was well respected. To reward him for his skills, the king of England gave him a knighthood. In favour of cold baths, he recommended them for their usefulness and widespread use, especially in chronic (...) -
Doctor John LATHAM
Doctor John Latham was born in England in 1761. An English doctor, he was president of the Royal College of Physicians from 1813 to 1819. He published two works: ‘Dissertation on Asthma’, 1810 ‘Notebooks on therapeutics’, 1811 Convinced of the benefits of the seaside on the body, he founded the first English marine hospital in (...) -
Doctor Denis LEROY
Denis LEROY, an honorary doctor of the Medicine and Pharmacy faculty in Rennes, was passionate about the rehabilitating benefits of the sea. In 1950 he diverted his therapeutic interest towards thalassotherapy by combining it with rehabilitation thereby giving kinebalneotherapy a wider scope. -
Ambroise PARÉ
Born in Laval, Mayenne in 1510, Ambrose Paré was the son of a farmer. He joined the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in 1529, as a ‘compagnon’ surgeon and became one of the fathers of modern surgery. During the 16th century Ambrose Paré advocated the astringent, warming and desiccating and anti-infectious properties of seawater and prescribes sea baths to his patients. The French doctor and anatomist died in (...)