Why would anyone want to go into freezing cold sea water? What medical benefits were they hoping to achieve?
In Jane Austen’s novel Sanditon an entire seaside community is in development to attract visitors to a new watering place for the therapeutic or curative benefit of sea-air and sea-bathing. This involved the process of immersing yourself in freezing cold water. However unpleasant this many sound to our 21st-century sensibilities, it was strongly believed in the 18th and 19th-centuries to have strong physical benefits to a wide range of maladies. Julie at Austenonly blog has graciously investigated the 19th-century medical mindset which instigated this belief and fueled the development of the seaside resorts such as Sanditon. Please visit her great blog and discover why Mr. Parker in the novel Sanditon believes “The Sea air and Sea Bathing together were nearly infallible, one or the other of them being a match for every Disorder” and Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice thinks a little sea-bathing will set her up forever!
Further reading
- Sea bathing at Wikipedia
- Sea bathing during the Regency era – Jane Austen’s World
- The Spas of England and principal sea-bathing Places, by A. B. Granville (1841)
- A Guide to All the Watering and Sea-Bathing Places, by John Feltham (1815)
Upcoming event posts
Day 6 – March 20 Review: Sanditon (Hesperus)
Day 7 – March 21 Sanditon Completions
Day 8 – March 22 Event Wrap-up
Austenprose 
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