Physiotherapeutic device for hydro-massage with light emission "AVERS Shower"

Since very long time ago, water was used for medical purposes not only for drinking but also for cleaning the body and separate body parts. The amount of water taken in by an adult on average comes to 63% of the total body mass and the loss of that water (2500-2600 grams) is replenished by food and drinks. Therefore water plays a vital role in human life. Water was also worshiped just like the Indians had the Gang River and the Egyptian’s Nile River. Water was considered to be a celestial being that had the power to strengthen health and cure illnesses. On the river banks, priests have built their temples, gather up suffering people and treated them with water and prayers.

The first person to discover the curing properties of water was Hippocrates (454 BC). Just as lack of liquid in the body lead to poor health, plenty of water cured those conditions. He was also very aware of different physiological effects of water at different temperatures. He also expressed the idea of cold water warming up and hot water cooling down. Also he knew about cold water showers for strengthening the immune system. As for the cosmetic purposes of water then Hippocrates had a completely revolutionary for that time. the first question asked by the medic is, “ what is the quality of the water, does it come from a swamp or is it clean, is it hard water or soft and where is the source of it. All these principles went into the basics of hydro-therapy for years to come for the other successors of Hippocrates. The water does not only have positive effects with its mineral content but also with its temperature difference and if it is in motion or in a static state. In medical practice water is used in all 3 states of solid, liquid and gas.

Similar to water, light also has had the closes treatment properties. The successor of Hippocrates (The father of history) Herodotus, during his trip to Persia he wrote, “I have seen a great miracle. From the remaining skulls of the fallen during war of Pelusium (525 BC) Persians were soft and the skulls of the Egyptians were hard. It only took a very small stone to put a hole in the Persian’s skull where as the Egyptian skulls were hard to even break with a large boulder. The secret is that the Egyptians from birth shaved their heads and did not wear any hats or head gear therefore their skulls were naturally strengthening from the sun. On the other hand the Persians were wearing hats and from birth lead an “inside the house” lifestyle.

The ancient people of Assyria, Germany, Greece and Rome rose rang of Sun Light to celestial level. Eskulap, god of medicine, was the son of Feba, the goddess of light. The temple of Eskulap in Epidaurus had open veranda connected to the bedrooms of the sick that served the purpose of irradiation treatment where the priests provided patients with sun therapy.

Medics of the Roman Emperors age already started doing the sun therapy research. They recommend walking under the sun with no clothes on and describe the painkilling effects and treatment of open wounds and broken bones of different degree. This old Roman method of sunbathing after a meal has remained in small villages in the Alps. Just like that in Tessin, the tradition of sunbathing after a meal remains to this day and the population lives to a very old age. The Italians have a saying “Dove va il sole, non va ail medico” which translates as “where the sunlight reaches, is where the doctor does not go”.

During the Middle Ages, with the fall in personal hygiene and importance of therapeutic sun effects lead to forget that form of medicine. And only in 1815, the first work in years, Heliotherapy was written by Loebel and Cauvins. And by 1916,in Vienna, the professor of chemistry Doebereiner has published work where light baths were analyzed from a scientific point of view. The work laid out the basis for our modern light therapy methods.

The amassing discovery of L. Pasteur, the process of fermentation and the also the illnesses caused by the smallest living creatures, bacteria, lead to investigating the reasons for their appearance and ways of fighting and preventing them.

In 1877 Downes and Blunt determined that is cable of destroying bacteria, or to be exact, the short waves can. Based on this discovery, Finsen in 1893 to 1896 built his actinic therapy. During treatment with the short wavelengths, Finsen method remained surface treatment, dermatosis treatment. His method of lupus treatment became one of the great scientific achievements.

In 1891, Russian medic Minin, recommended the use of a light with a blue reflector to ease a number of medical conditions. This gave a push to the evolution of chromotherapy. However, light having medicinal effects was not the most interesting factor. Another experiment has shown that light has the ability to “activate” nonliving objects like food stuffs, medications and other chemicals.