The benefits of inhaling salt air have been known since the time of the ancient Greeks. The Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, who lived between 460 and 375 BC, was one of the first on record to endorse the practice. European monks, in medieval times, also saw this as a beneficial practice when observing the effects of salt caves on those having respiratory problems.(1) However, the establishment of salt therapy as a practice did not gain full ground until a legendary incident in 13th century Hungary.

Once upon a time, there lived a girl named Kinga. Kinga had caught the eye of Boleslaw V, a Duke in Poland. After Boleslaw had received permission from Hungarian King Bela V, her father, to marry Kinga, Boleslaw gifted her with an engagement ring.(2)

Following tradition concerning marriage, King Bela was to give Kinga a dowry of gold and jewelry. However, she rejected these things, citing that Boleslaw was wealthy, hence these types of riches would not be needed. As an alternative, Kinga requested that she be given rock salt as Poland lacked salt mines.(3)

Responding to the request, King Bela brought her to the largest salt mine owned by Hungary in Marumuresz. Seeing the mine, Kinga began to wonder how one would be able to move such a thing to Poland. She knew this was impossible. Instead, she prayed for guidance. As if her prayer were answered with some sort of command, she took the ring that Boleslaw had given her, and tossed it into the mine.(4)

After the marriage, Kinga requested Boleslaw to show her around his kingdom in Krakow. He granted her request and took her around the land. While exploring an area in Wieliczka, Kinga asked her servants to start digging into he ground. When they did, they hit a rock. At Kinga’s request, one of the servants handed her the rock, to which she realized was a chunk of salt. Kinga had the chunk split open, and to their amazement, out fell the engagement ring that she had thrown into the mine back in Marumuresz. This was seen as a miracle that brought salt to Poland, hence establishing the Wieliczka Salt Mine.(5)

While parts of this story may be but legend, Kinga’s founding of the Wieliczka Salt Mine set the stage for modern salt therapy to take ground. In 1843, Polish physician, Dr. Felix Boczkowski decided to visit the famed Wieliczka Salt Mine that Kinga had once established. There, he wrote down his observations concerning the miners.(6) Boczkowski noticed that they were not inflicted by the same respiratory issues as miners elsewhere. From this he concluded that the dust of salt in the air had some sort of health benefit.(7) This discovery would later lead his pupil, Mstislav Poljakowski, to open the first salt clinic in Krakow, Poland.(8)

Decades later, the Wieliczka Salt Mine would become a clinic of its own. Before this, during World War II, German physician, Dr. K.H. Spannahel, had made similar observations that Boczkowski had first made. He had noticed those who used salt mines as a means of cover from the bombings had a healthy respiratory system. By 1949, with the help of Hungarian geologist, Dr. H. Kessler, Spannahel proposed to make the Klyutert cave, in Germany, an inpatient facility. This was to preserve the natural conditions of the cave in order to reap the respiratory benefits. Following Spannahel’s idea, years later in 1958, Mieczyslaw Skulimowski began treating patients in the Wieliczka Salt Mine.(9)

In 1964, Skulimowski eventually opened the Kinga Health Resort Hospital within the mine. This inspired others in Europe and the Soviet Union to do the same. This would later lead Russia, in 1985, to conduct stories and create the first salt therapy device. This device would artificially create the salt air usually found within the salt mines. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, knowledge of these studies and devices would spread worldwide, hence establishing salt therapy clinics elsewhere.(10)

Sources:

1 Mukhina, M.Y., Nevzorov, A.Y. (2013). “Speleotherapy as a form of alternative medicine”. Бюллетень медицинских Интернет‐конференций, 3(2), 177.
2 Lefond, S.J. (1969). Handbook of World Salt Resources. New York: Plenum Press
3 Bedekovic, G. (2015). “The Legend of Saint Kinga – Patroness of Krakow Miners”. The Mining-Geology- Petroleum Engineering Bulletin, 30(2), 133
4 Ibid, p. 133
5 Ibid, p. 133-134
6 Gallicchio, V.S. (2014). “Use of Trace Elements and Halotherapy in the Treatment of Human Diseases” In F. Atroshi (Ed.). Pharmacology and Nutritional Intervention in the Treatment of Disease. Rijeka: InTech
7 De Taillac, V., Touhami, R. (2018). An Atlas of Natural Beauty: Botanical Ingredients for Retaining and Enhancing Beauty. New York: Simon & Schuster
8 Medvecová, D. (2005, April 05). V soľnej jaskyni sa cítil dobre aj Peter Dvorský. Hospodářské noviny, Retrieved from https://hnonline.sk/
9 History & Background (2018). Retrieved from: https://www.salttherapyassociation.org/history- background
10 Ibid.

The History of Dry Salt Therapy

What is Salt Therapy?