[History of healing; bath treatment as psychiatric therapy (1900-1950)].

During the first decade of the twentieth century the prolonged bath treatment was introduced as a therapy for restless patients in Dutch psychiatric institutions. They were kept for hours or days at a stretch in lukewarm water, in order to calm them down. It became a common treatment, which nevertheless was gradually replaced by occupational therapy. The rise of psychopharmacology during the fifties of this century marked the end of the prolonged bath treatment.