When Going to the Beach Was Doctor's Orders

Before the Georgian period in England (1714-1837), seaside accommodations were seen as fit only for fishermen. But as the 18th century—and the Napoleonic Wars—wore on, Great Britain’s oceanside resorts swelled in popularity thanks to limited travel options and a growing health industry that touted the benefits of bracing water and salty air.

The ‘Sea Cure’ was prescribed for everything from melancholia to cancer to leprosy. Fueled by famous patients like King George III, a medical tourism industry arose to accommodate sea bathers in search of healing waters and ocean views.

“The medical industry in Georgian England could be described as a free-for-all,” says Caroline Rance, author of What the Apothecary Ordered: Questionable Cures Through the Ages. “There were some institutions, like the Royal College of Physicians and the Surgeon’s Company, which was only separated from the Barbers’ Company in 1745. Outside of that, pretty much anybody could set up shop and do healing,” she says.

In addition to lax regulation, “a doctor’s education was largely theoretical, focusing on classical authors like Hippocrates and Galen,” says Rance. “There was not a lot of clinical practice.”

Medical knowledge was still based on the ancient Greek theory of the four humors, which blamed illness on an imbalance between blood, phlegm and yellow and black bile in the body. Medical treatments sought to restore this balance through practices like purging and bloodletting. It’s no wonder that a day at the beach sounded like… well, a day at the beach in comparison.

Dr. Richard Russell’s A Dissertation on the Use of Sea Water in the Diseases of the Glands; Particularly the Scurvy, Jaundice, King’s-Evil, Leprosy, and the Glandular Consumption was the book that launched a thousand sea bathers. First published in Latin in 1750, it was so popular that it went through six editions. It claimed sea water could cure everything from gonorrhea to tumors.

In one patient success story, Russell reports: “A Clergyman in Oxfordshire was strangely afflicted with scrophulous ulcers and swellings. He had used all the Helps from Surgery and Physick a long while in vain. At length he went annually… to drink and bathe in the Sea Water, from which he found Relief without taking any other Medicines.”

In another, Russell advises a 12-year-old girl from London with facial swelling to “leave off all Remedies, and to stick to bathing in the Sea Water, to drinking it.” He records that “in fifteen Months, by persisting in the same Method, she grew perfectly well, and returned Home.”

Russell identified salt as the critical ingredient that differentiated sea water from mineral waters in resort towns like Bath and Baden-Baden. “It receives a remarkable increase in virtue from the purging salt… the very Nitre wherewithal the cold baths of the ancients… were saturated,” he writes. For a society where “the ancients” were the pinnacle of medical knowledge, this was an intentional play for pedigree. And it worked.

In 1753, Russell built a grand home on the beach where he could oversee his patients’ bathing regimens. Wealthy clientele followed. “Russell transformed Brighthelmstone from a fishing village into Brighton Resort,” says Robert Ritchie, author of The Lure of the Beach.

To preserve their modesty, Georgian women entered the water through bathing machines—sheds on wheels that were drawn into waves by staff. It shielded them from prying eyes as they changed their clothes and were dunked underwater by assistants called “dippers.” Men were more likely to bathe nude and were dipped by professionals called “bathers.”

In an 1804 letter, Jane Austen described a session with her enthusiastic dipper, Molly, in Lyme: “The Bathing was so delightful this morning & Molly so pressing with me to enjoy myself that I believe I staid in rather too long.”

Georgian patients were encouraged to sea bathe in the colder months to maximize health benefits. A letter from Jane Austen’s cousin, Eliza, describes a trip to Margate in January and February 1791 to treat her son: “The sea has strengthened him wonderfully, and I think has likewise been of great service to myself. I still continue bathing notwithstanding the severity of weather and frost and snow.”

Austen’s contemporary, novelist Fanny Burney, wrote that the first time she went sea bathing, “the shock was beyond expectation great,” but it left her with a “glow that was delightful—it was the finest feeling in the world.”

Patients with respiratory illnesses were advised to breathe the salt air. “You are dealing with premodern cities having trouble managing water systems, sewage and garbage,” says Ritchie. “Fresh air and water provided real benefits.”

Doctors even encouraged patients to drink seawater. Dr. Russell promises: “Sea water will gently open the bodies of the phlegmatic, strengthening the stomach…and will revive the appetite.” He advises “half a pint of sea water drank at night going to bed, and repeated in the morning.”

Dr. John Awister claimed drinking seawater could cure infertility. His 1768 Thoughts on Brighthelmstone Concerning Sea-Bathing and Drinking Sea Water, with Some Directions for Their Use included recipes to improve the taste of all that salty medicine going down.

The British economy was booming in the 18th century, according to Ritchie. “You had the profits of empire on one hand. On the other hand, you had the beginning of a new mechanistic economy fueled by an emerging textile industry,” he says. “It profits elites more than others, but it filters down. There was time and income for leisure like never before.”

Medical tourism transformed fishing villages like Lyme Regis into resort towns. “Newspapers were full of advertisements for bathing facilities and accommodations convenient for sea bathing,” says Rance. Speculators built hotels, libraries and assembly rooms to entertain visitors. “There was a lot of money to be made,” Rance says.

By 1815, there were enough seaside destinations to merit a guidebook. John Feltham’s A Guide to All the Watering and Seabathing Places provided itineraries and maps to tourists.

“Brighton was the closest resort to London, and was therefore taken over by the aristocracy first,” says Ritchie. This first wave included luminaries like the Duke of Marlborough, Samuel Johnson, and historian Edward Gibbon, who reported: “the air gives health, spirits and a ravenous appetite.”

Brighton gained a reputation for satisfying unsavory appetites when the Prince of Wales (the future King George IV) built his infamous Royal Pavilion there to indulge in his passions for women and gambling. “Having the prince was a huge coup for Brighton,” says Rance.

Rival Weymouth was soon able to boast of its own royal guest: In 1789, King George III sought treatment there for his mental health. Eyewitness Burney reported that as the King was dipped in the sea for the first time, a band of fiddlers in an accompanying bathing machine struck up “God Save the King.” The visit was such a success that the king returned to Weymouth 14 times, bringing the court and court business with him. The Queen herself said the King was “much better and stronger for the sea bathing”—the ultimate five-star review .

While doctors no longer recommend drinking sea water, time spent on the beach has been linked to health benefits from reduced cortisol levels to increased Vitamin D and overall happiness. Medicines derived from marine life are being studied as treatments for everything from viral infections to cancer. Maybe those Georgians were onto something after all.