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Mud Mousse. At Bad Meinberg, sufferers from circulatory disorders are locked into therapeutic gas chambers that are pumped full of carbon dioxide. At Bad Neuenahr, one of West Germany's biggest health resorts, patients with respiratory ailments are sealed in transparent oven-wrap and gently parboiled in an "inhalatorium" full of thermal steam. One of the traditional cures is the Lehmbad, or dirt bath, in which the patient sits in a hole in the ground and marinates himself in a kind of mud mousse. After weeks of exposure to mud and sun, Germans acquire curiously even, cornflake-colored suntans that look as if they had been applied with a paint roller.
For treatment of liver, kidney and other intestinal disorders, Badeärzte (bath doctors) make patients lie naked on a couch while an attendant pats piping hot mud pies over the affected area. After a few days of such torture, patients often complain that they feel worse than when they arrived. They are then said to be suffering from Badekoller, the bathhouse blues, which, explain cheerful spa doctors, only proves that the regimen is having some effect.
It must, for Germans have been drinking and dunking in thermal springs for 2,000 years, since the Roman legionnaires first used them to recuperate from the wars. New springs are still being discovered, though the latest and hottest (125° F.) at the new Bavarian resort of Bad Fussing had to be closed recently when the waters turned out to be rich in bacteria. Doctors have learned curiously little about the medical or psychological effects of the Kur, though a lavishly endowed Institute of Balneology, which opened at Bad Nauheim last month, aims to make long-term studies of this branch of healing. However, the vast majority of patients need no scientific evidence to convince them that the Kur really cures. Like the masochist who bangs his head on the wall because it is so pleasant when he stops, Germans say solemnly: "You can only appreciate the improvement after you get home."
*The word spa comes from a Belgian spa called Spa.