Norway: water and class in nineteenth-century psychiatry

Abstract

Water has long been considered an effective means of therapy for mental disorders. Its use, however, was divided along class lines during the nineteenth century. After presenting a brief background of the general conditions of the insane in Norway around the mid-nineteenth century when modem psychiatry entered the scene, I will present some examples of developments in hydrotherapy - fashionable bath resorts for the rich, and the use of prolonged baths as coercive treatment for asylum paupers.