The first rheumatism and depression treatment centre opened in Boulogne-sur-mer in 1800 but French enthusiasm for thalassotherapy only really took hold in 1822 with the opening of the first warm water spa in Dieppe.
Thanks to the Duchesse of Berry, who was a fearless swimmer, Dieppe became known as the leading fashionable beach and launched its resort in 1824. 10 years later, the mayor of Dieppe estimated that 400 people bathed for medical reasons each season. Baths were therefore seen as a challenge and a cleansing process.
In 1847 in Sète Mademoiselle Hirsch created the first establishment combining seawater treatment with a sea and sun therapy.
1860 marked the arrival of maritime sanatoriums, the ancestors of our seaside rehabilitation centres, which anchored the notion of therapeutic sea bathing by the end of the 19th century. One year later the first Maritime hospital was created in Berck-sur-Mer by Drs Lhoste and Perrochaud.
1865 was the definitive year for the beginning of sea baths as Docteur La Bonnardière invented the term “Thalassotherapy” from the Greek words “thalassa” meaning sea and “therapeia” meaning treatment.
As such, thalassotherapy not only advocated seawater but also seaweed, sand and the maritime climate. In the same vein, in 1866 the biologist René Quinton showed the similarity between blood plasma and seawater as an isotonic and in 1904 he published a vital work in sea bathing history ‘Ocean water, organic medium’.
In 1894, a growing interest in thalassotherapy united 150 doctors at the first international congress of thalassotherapy and hydrology in Boulogne-sur-Mer.
In 1899, Dr Bagot searched for land to build a “marine institute”. He chose to build the first thalassotherapy centre in Roscoff because of the setting and the air and water quality.