Foley, Ronan
(2014)
The Roman-Irish Bath: Medical/health history as therapeutic
assemblage.
Social Science and Medicine, 106.
pp. 10-19.
ISSN 0277-9536
Abstract
The invention of a new form of hot-air bath in Blarney, Ireland in 1856, variously known in its lifetime as
the
Roman
e
Irish
or
Turkish Bath
, acted as the starting point for a the production of a globalised thera-
peutic landscape. Tracking the diffusion of the Roman
e
Irish bath template from its local invention in
Ireland to a global reach across the Victorian world and recognizing its place within a wider hydro-
therapeutic history, this paper frames that diffusion as a valuable empirical addition to assemblage
theory. The speci
fi
c empirical history of the spread of the Roman
e
Irish/Turkish bath idea is drawn from
primary archival and secondary historical sources. It is then discussed and, drawing from work on
assemblage theory, analyzed against three broad themes: mobile networks, socio-material practices and
contested emergence. The emergent relational geographies of the Roman
e
Irish Bath identify important
roles for the diffusion and transformation of speci
fi
c medical settings, identities and functions. These
were linked in turn to competing social-healing pathways wherein bodies were technologically and
morally managed, to produce a more inhabited form of therapeutic assemblage. In all cases the differ-
ential diffusion of the bath idea, it
’
s shifting and fractured material forms and multiple inhabitations and
discourses were contested and mobile and spoke to an assemblage approach which has ripe potential for
exploration across a range of medical/health geography settings.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Ireland;
Assemblage;
Therapeutic landscapes;
Turkish Baths;
Hydropathy; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography |
| Item ID: |
8759 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.12.030 |
| Depositing User: |
Dr. Ronan Foley
|
| Date Deposited: |
06 Sep 2017 16:07 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Social Science and Medicine |
| Publisher: |
Elsevier |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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