OxTalks will soon be transitioning to Oxford Events (full details are available on the Staff Gateway). A two-week publishing freeze is expected in early Hilary to allow all events to be migrated to the new platform. During this period, you will not be able to submit or edit events on OxTalks. The exact freeze dates will be confirmed as soon as possible.
If you have any questions, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Histories of climatic medicine have emphasised the allure of the natural landscape as a therapeutic space in the nineteenth century: health resorts set in the rolling hills, spa towns selling healing waters, and seaside towns keen to capitalise on their “ozone-laden” air. This paper addresses an artificially-constructed therapeutic environment that both capitalised upon, and distanced itself from, this naturalness: the compressed-air batch. In taking the “pure” air of the country resort and compressing it, the bath’s advocates drew on established discourses of climatic medicine while simultaneously altering that environment to treat patients with a hybrid form of air.
As physical objects, compressed-air baths were also difficult to reconcile with the landscape around them, and it is this incongruence between technology and natural environment that forms the central theme of this paper.
Coffee is available from 14.00
