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The doctors of the waters of Montecatini Terme
Water doctors
Description
The discovery of the healing properties of the waters of Montecatini probably dates back to Roman times. This would be confirmed by the discovery of some statuettes in the second half of the 18th century during the excavation works of the crater of the Terme Leopoldine, most likely votive offerings thrown into the spring to thank the gods for the healing.
However, certain information on the characteristics of the springs dates back to the 15th century, when the doctor Ugolino Caccini (Montecatini Alto, 1345 – Florence, 1425), also known as Ugolino da Montecatini, published the results of his research in the treatise De balneorum Italiae proprietatibus ac virtutibus (1417), a review of the most important Italian spas where he precisely lists the therapeutic qualities of the thermal waters of Montecatini that he himself experimented with, while indicating the best ways to take them in relation to the various pathologies.
We are in front of the founder of Italian hydrology.
We are faced with the first complete text of medical hydrology and thermal hydrotherapy.
In fact, already in the 15th century "the baths" were equipped with efficient systems and visited thanks to their beneficial potential.
From this first treatise others drew inspiration for further and detailed observations such as, for example, in his De Balneis Montis Catini Commentarius (1580), the doctor Pompeo della Barba who treated Pope Pius IV with Tettuccio water.
Also in the second half of the 16th century, professors of medicine at the universities of Pisa and Florence such as Gabriele Falloppio and Andrea Bacci, Francesco Redi and Giovanni Maria Lancisi, doctor of three popes and advisor to the Sun King, extolled the therapeutic properties of these thermal waters.
In the following two centuries, further research was carried out by the doctors of the Baths of Montecatini Gaetano Livi, Giuseppe Petri, Placido Dei, Antonio Dani.
But it is in the 18th century that this very important hydromineral basin that is Montecatini is adequately valued. The enlightened Pietro Leopoldo, Grand Duke of Tuscany, arranged for an efficient channeling of the spring waters and ordered the reclamation of the marshy area to make the air healthy. Furthermore, making use of the expertise of a group of famous scholars, such as the eminent naturalist doctor Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti (Florence, 1712-1783), the reformist prince created the actual City of Baths, commissioning the construction of the Bagno Regio (1773), the Terme Leopoldine (1775) and, finally, starting the construction of the Stabilimento Tettuccio (1779).
These were the years in which the waters of the Baths were the object of study by Alessandro Bicchierai (Lastra a Signa - FI, 1734 - 1797), an important Florentine doctor, author of the treatise Dei Bagni di Montecatini (1788) commissioned by the Grand Duke. The text reports the studies on the waters of these springs, the historical sources - Ugolino da Montecatini is often cited - and the therapeutic results obtained in a series of patients and, together with the analysis of the waters, records a whole series of pathologies that can benefit from these springs.
Between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, the study of the waters of Montecatini was based on modern scientific bases.
In 1889, thanks to the International Medical Congress of Florence, the city paved the way for activity in the field of thermal medicine. In the same year, the urban project proposed and started by Pietro Leopoldo was expanded and improved.
From 1901 Pietro Grocco (1856 - 1916), an illustrious clinician and director of the Royal and New Spas, began scientific production with a clinical focus with excellent experimental work conducted by the Montecatini spa doctors Paolo Casciani and Carlo Fedeli. He reworked and specified the rules for the correct use of water and baths, and arranged for the springs to be arranged according to modern hygienic criteria and, on his initiative, in 1913, the Institute of Treatment and Scientific Research was opened which from July to September each year welcomed 240 selected patients from all over Italy as well as, a few decades later, 40 children from the university pediatric clinics of Genoa directed by Professor De Toni and Pisa directed by Professor Gentili.
Pietro Grocco was succeeded, from 1916 to 1931, in the Health Management of the Spa by Professor Giovan Battista Queirolo who illustrated in memorable lessons the properties and therapeutic indications of the waters of Montecatini[1].
He was replaced by the famous medical clinician Professor Cesare Frugoni who founded, at the Institute of Care, a 'Scientific study and research center on the effectiveness of the thermal waters of Montecatini' entrusting its direction to Professor Pietro Rondoni, pathologist, who in 1938 was replaced by Professor Mariano Messini, professor of medical hydrology at the University of Rome who would then direct this institution for the next thirty years.
In 1946, the Hydrological Society ‘Ugolino da Montecatini’ was also founded in the city, a scientific group for the evaluation and discussion of the results of the main clinical research. An important contribution came in 1962-64 from the lessons that Nobel Prize winner Daniel Bovet gave at the Health Institute on the effect of the thermal waters of Montecatini on biliary and plasma cholesterol.
Then, from 1949 to 1976, the prestigious ‘Montecatini Medical Days’ were the occasion in which the best Italian researchers shared the results of their clinical research on the various actions of the waters of Montecatini.
In the last decades of the twentieth century, with Ennio Gori as the delegated advisor of the Spa - and Dino Scalabrino as medical directors first, Arcangeli and Alberto Scalabrino later -, particular contributions on the effects and therapeutic efficacy of the waters of Montecatini came from the Bologna School of Clinical Medicine of Professor Labò, from the Florentine School of Hepatology of Professor Gentilini, from the Roman School of Gastroenterology of Professor Gasbarrini, and from that of Professor Capurso of Bari on the efficacy of Regina water in combating cholesterolemia, from the rheumatologist Professor Bianchi of Genoa and from the hydrologist of Rome Professor Messina, together constituting the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Terme di Montecatini between 1960 and 1990, chaired for a long time by Professor Beretta-Anguissola, former president of the Superior Council of Health.
Such scientific validity and therapeutic efficacy makes the thermal waters of Montecatini a precious asset for everyone's health, both yesterday and today.
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[1] Professor Giovan Battista Queirolo justified the need to access the water drink with a medical prescription as follows: “A rule that is particularly necessary in Montecatini because no spa, neither Italian nor foreign, has a series of waters of different strength and, therefore, different efficacy such as our spa has, which has strong waters (Tamerici, Torretta), medium waters (Regina), weak waters (Tettuccio and Rinfresco), waters so different that they cannot be indifferently suitable for the different illnesses that are treated here with marvelous efficacy, such as illnesses of the stomach and intestines, of the liver and metabolism”.
[1] Professor Giovan Battista Queirolo justified the need to access the water drink with a medical prescription as follows: “A rule that is particularly necessary in Montecatini because no spa, neither Italian nor foreign, has a series of waters of different strength and, therefore, different efficacy such as our spa has, which has strong waters (Tamerici, Torretta), medium waters (Regina), weak waters (Tettuccio and Rinfresco), waters so different that they cannot be indifferently suitable for the different illnesses that are treated here with marvelous efficacy, such as illnesses of the stomach and intestines, of the liver and metabolism”.
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