Since the dawn of time, man has lived on this round planet with this mysterious, elusive and indispensable element: water. But it’s the soothing warmth of water that has undoubtedly fascinated mankind the most. Hence the birth of thermalism. Over the centuries and millennia, thermalism has developed everywhere. Fashions, rituals and setbacks have accompanied the history of spas. The Etruscans, Egyptians and Greeks used them long before the Romans. Then history tells us that hot baths became a veritable art of living for the Romans. When they conquered Gaul and its hot springs, both scorching and fragile, the Romans left us many traces of their passage.

The importance of water in nature is obvious. Our constitution and everything around us, our bodies and our food, are mainly made up of water.

Today, water is the most studied molecule in science (10,000 publications per year), yet it continues to preserve its mysteries about its structure and properties, and to surprise scientists. There is nothing simple about the elusive water. As early as the 18th century, Goethe said that “water is a universal that is not yet fixed”. Consequently, its changing nature points to so many mysteries yet to be discovered.

Indeed, one of the intrinsic qualities of water is its extreme sensitivity to the information it absorbs from its surroundings. It is both fragile and inseparable from its natural medium. If it is removed from its medium, the basic information it needs to sustain life can be erased or even disappear.

A hot spring is a perfect representation of this living and fragile environment, which combines the 3 elements of soil, fire and air. In fact, as the water from a hot spring trickles down into its natural medium, it naturally interacts with these 3 elements of nature:

• The soil, which, due to its microbial nature, is a living, reducing medium (as opposed to an oxidising medium). This living medium, rich in micro-organisms, is the source of life and health. You can also read our article “The soil, the base layer and living medium of a hot spring“, which goes into more detail on this subject.
• The fire here is invisible at first. It smoulders beneath the ground and heats the thermal water. Then the hot water patiently makes its way towards the light. On the surface, the sun’s fire continues to feed the hot spring with energy and energise it. The sunlight also delights the thermal plankton, a veritable concentrate of living micro-organisms, which can flourish thanks to it.
• The crisp, clear air that the water finds at the surface allows a continuous and reciprocal exchange of certain gases. This exchange is necessary because the water has to breathe.

The meeting of these four elements in balance – water, soil, fire and air – is perhaps the secret of a preserved hot spring where this one can flourish freely and create this wonderful alchemy of life. Along with the sun, earth and air, whose vital principles it absorbs, water is one of the most powerful agents of physical regeneration. In this way, people can discover all the simple pleasures that nature has to offer.