El cuerpo humano, las enfermedades y el uso del agua en el Mundo Clásico: El caso de las Thermae y Balnea en la Roma Antigua

Abstract

The human body was the object of attention in the Greco-Roman world by people dedicated to a plurality of activities, including art, philosophy and medicine. Diseases also caused great concern in those distant times and many efforts were made to overcome them, a task in which a plurality of substances were used, including water. The medical knowledge developed by the Greeks was brought to Rome, where water was also used for medicinal purposes -as in the case of mineral waters- and for simply hygienic and social purposes. For this, a large number of buildings called thermae and balnea were erected, whose use became a custom that, by virtue of the Romanization, was taken to a large number of the territories dominated by Rome.