History

The first steps in salt treatment (known more commonly as halotherapy, from the Greek word halos for salt) were taken during the middle ages, when monks treated the sick in salt caves. Salt dust was produced by grinding evaporate (or salt deposit) rocks against each other. This dust was then directed to the alveolar (breathing) air of the patient. Also, salt treatment that takes place in salt mines is called speleotherapy, from the Greek word speleos for cave.

In the mid-1800s, Felix Botchkowski, the state authority for occupational health in Polish industry, noticed that people who worked in salt mines only rarely suffered from lung-related diseases. In 1843 he published a book that presented his findings on the effects of salt dust. His successor, Mstislav Poljakowski, went on to establish a halotherapy clinic in Velicko, near Krakow.  During World War II, salt mines in Germany were used as bomb shelters. During bombings, people often had to remain in the mines for extended periods of time. Upon leaving, many asthmatics felt able to breath much easier.

In the former Soviet Union, speleotherapy started in 1968 in the village of Solotvino, in Carpathia. An allergy hospital was set up at the bottom of Mine Number 8.  During the last twenty years, several hundreds of so-called salt rooms have been built in Central European hospitals and treatment facilities. Interest in salt rooms in other parts of Europe has also noticeably increased in the last few years. Despite this more modern and advanced form of treatment, it still goes by the traditional name of halotherapy.