Peat

Healing from the Earth

Active Peat sachet, Single or Treatment size 16 sachets

Peat brings to mind a dry mixture used to create the right soil blend for your garden. The peat in your garden, though, is extremely different from the peat mud used as a therapeutic agent. For centuries, peat and mud have been used faithfully in Europe in balneo therapy. Balneo therapy is the use of natural thermal and mineral water for the purpose of its prophylactic, rehabilitative, or curative effects. Modern peat therapy methods have been in use since the early 19th century in Central Europe, where the oldest spas, still active today, are located. Early nature cure clinicians and teachers such as J.H. Kellogg of rational hydrotherapy fame did not embrace peat therapy. Kellogg wrote, “the benefit [of mud therapy] is not greater than might be obtained from the scientific use of water without the mud” (1903, p. 569). To understand these differences, a rapidly emerging and substantial body of clinical and theoretical information helps us differentiate among therapeutic approaches. For example, clinicians such as Bellometti (2005), Karagűlle (2005), Prát and Brožek (1963), and Licht and Kamenetz (1963) are among a significant international community studying and documenting the clinical effectiveness of balneotherapy. In North America, a spa generally conjures up images of estheticians lathering elite clients with beauty products. In Europe, however, a spa is a medically supervised facility with numerous therapies centered around a thermal spring. Each thermal spring conducts an analysis of the mineral content of its water resources. To be classified as a “thermal and mineral spring,” the waters must be at least 20°C and have a minimum of 1 g of ionic minerals per liter of water. Mud’s harvested from the springs have significant levels of minerals. Peat mud and suspension baths as well as poultices are the most common types of peat application in balneotherapy. The International Peat Society reports that over 90% of peatlands are in the temperate and cold belt in the Northern Hemisphere. Yet, in North America, peat mud therapy is not known or implemented. Peat itself is a heterogeneous mixture of more or less decomposed plant (humus) material that has accumulated in a watersaturated environment and often in the absence of oxygen. However, without the help of microorganisms and algae, the therapeutic properties of peat would not occur.

100% Torf Natural Peat