Scarborough in the 1730s - Spa, Sea and Sex.

Abstract

After a long tradition that begins in pre-Roman times and after the assimilation of a Roman and Muslim thermal culture, the Spanish spas re-emerged strongly in the eighteenth century. A number of obstacles prevented the successful development of the Spanish thermal tourism in the first two thirds of the nineteenth century. Thus, a new treatment paradigm began to settle in the Spanish society of the early nineteenth century. At the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, there was already a deeply rooted spa-going habit among the Spanish people. Although its management was still burdened by excessive insecurities especially related to the lack of regulation of the activity and to legal vagueness about property rights in mineral springs. The government also promoted Spanish spas abroad, with financial aid to support the installation of pavilions at international expositions, which had been started by the radical governments in 1868 and was continued by the politicians of the Restoration.