Bodies and Climates

Abstract ‘Bodies and Climates’ explores the rise of ‘wintering abroad’ in the nineteenth century, the creation of the ‘Mentone cult’, and the impact of medical guidebooks for travel on patients’ lives. Starting with the work of Dr James Clark in the 1830s, it traces the rise of ideas of medical climatology through to Dr James Henry Bennet, a major figure in nineteenth-century medicine who was acclaimed as the ‘creator of Mentone’ as a health resort. Treatment was for consumption and ‘diseases of the chest’ but also for ‘accidental phthisis’ from the stresses of work. Overworked professionals were encouraged to escape the ‘wear and tear’ of city life, and to enjoy ‘legitimate idleness’ amid the beauties of nature. Treatment was by pure air, exercise, and sunshine, predating later concepts of heliotherapy. Bennet created an extraordinary garden, and matched his contributions to the Lancet with articles in the Gardeners’ Chronicle, treating his patients like plants that could be taught to acclimatize. The chapter also looks at the movement in England to create ‘artificial climates’, and Joseph Paxton’s plans to create a huge ‘sanitarium’, bringing the Riviera to English shores. Health resorts can be self-defeating enterprises. The conclusion looks at the marketing and capitalist overdevelopment of Mentone, and the ‘dance of death’ in its hotels.