It may be the least-looked-for but most-welcomed prescription a physician can give: "You really need to get away for your health. Three weeks at the seashore ought to do it."
Since ancient times, people in search of a cure for what ails them have made pilgrimmages to places promising improved health and well-being. "Salubrious Destinations: Spas, Sanitoria, and other places of Medical Retreat," an exhibit examining the allure of these health resorts, will be on display through Oct. 10 in the rotunda of the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library.
Visitors to the exhibit will be taken on a "tour" of some of the most popular health resorts. "You will see how the therapeutic value of high altitudes, ocean breezes, mineral waters and sea brine has been analyzed, prescribed and commercialized by medical experts for the good of their patients," says Wanda Brubriski, an art historian who is serving as guest curator of the show.
"You will get a glimpse at some of the towns and self-contained complexes where achieving better health meant yielding to a regimen of the body as well as to a frame of mind," she adds. "You will also visit the space that accommodated a rigorous schedule of water treatments, exercise and diet."
The show features some of the materials -- including medical treatises and journals, guidebooks, maps and promotional brochures, period prints, photographs and picture postcards -- "that steered health-seekers toward these salubrious destinations as well as shaped their curative experiences," says Ms. Bubriski. The objects were culled from the collections of Yale's Medical Historical Library and Seely G. Mudd Library, as well as a private collection.
The Medical Library, located at 333 Cedar St., is open 8 a.m.- midnight, Monday-Thursday; 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday; and 11 a.m.-midnight Sunday.