An original bathtube with clothes and other tools used for bath therapy in psychiatric institutions can be seen in the Museum Dr. Guislain in Ghent. Water-bath therapy was a “treatment method used in the first half of the twentieth century. Restless mentally ill patients were kept in a bath full of luckewarm water, usually after administration of a sedative (bromide or chloral), for hours at a time and sometimes for days on end. For very restless patients who could not be kept in the bath, a camisole or a wooden top cover was fitted”1.
- Photos by Luca Borghi @ (August 2009), courtesy of Museum Dr. Guislain.
- Locate the item on this Google Map