Reglementările legislative balneare la limita dintre secole (al XIX-lea și înainte de primul război mondial) | [Legislative balneary regulations at the limit of centuries]

Abstract

The paper debates the legal issues as the basis of medical balneal activity in the late nineteen century and early twentieth century (before the First World War), also summarizing the dilemma of the absence of specific balneal legislation and underlying the difficulties of medical practice in the context of lacks and legal contradictions inside the historical, legal and economical context of arising the new medical specialty of balneal and spa therapy. Regulations issued in the nineteenth century establish legal and administrative activity in bathing facilities, as follows: starting from two Civil Codes that subordinate health (Code Calimach in Moldavia and Caragea Code in Wallachia), through the Organic Regulations of 1832 and the Health Law of 1885, then the laws of management and operation of the Spa state's area (Law of 1886 and The Regulation of 1888). Other laws mark the end of the nineteenth century by discouraging initiative and private investment in resorts and spa facilities in Wallachia. Only in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the state began to worry about preparing the legislative package and the adoption of organizational measures to promote and encourage the development of balneology and climatology in our country. The early twentieth century marked the new balneal resorts, officially recognized through legislation and the administrative and research structures of mineral resources, funded by credits (Law of Organising the Ministry of Trade and Industry passed by Parliament in March 1909, Law of Exploitation of Balneal State Area, passed in March 1909, The New Law of Health passed in December 1910) and by transferring the necessary logistic to research field (Romanian Geological Institute). While bringing a new breath and concern for legislative regulation of exploitation and use of mineral springs and natural factors resorts’ medical activity and the attitudes toward balneology in the early twentieth century is deeply marked by unfavorable and disadvantageous legal issues which will delay the transforming balneology in a medical activity conducted by specialized doctors and will delay the modernization of conservation, exploitation, and management of mineral springs, balneology development, and balneal research in early Romania.