The Beach Cure: A History of Healing on Northeastern Shores (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

The Beach Cure: A History of Healing on Northeastern Shores (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

How sun and sea air were prescribed as medicine on America's eastern coast For centuries, the ocean was seen as a place of danger and work, but by the late nineteenth century, northeastern shores of the United States became therapeutic destinations for the sick and weary. Doctors in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other cities began prescribing time at the beach as a remedy for ailments such as tuberculosis, rickets, and exhaustion. In the decades that followed, seaside towns became health havens complete with hospitals that served urban families and children. Meghan Crnic’s The Beach Cure explores how physicians, tourists, and families transformed the coastline into a medical and cultural landscape. Crnic traces how beliefs in “marine medication”―the healing power of the sun, sea air, and saltwater―shaped the development of northeastern coastal tourist destinations and health institutions in Atlantic City, Coney Island, and beyond. Despite advances in germ theory and the rise of laboratory science, the conviction that nature can restore health and well-being persisted and continues to resonate with beachgoers today. This book uncovers the profound ways in which Americans tied health to place, showing how the underlying belief in nature’s therapeutic powers brought people to the seashore as a precursor to the beach becoming a destination for leisure and recreation. The Beach Cure offers fresh insight into the history of environmental health, urging readers to reflect on how landscapes shape well-being. "Crnic provides a lively and affecting history, largely forgotten, of the fascinating discoveries around the healing power of nature, especially for sickly urban children lucky enough to get some time around sun, water, and fresh air. It’s a lesson we are due to remember."―Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative "American pediatrics grew up at the seashore. The Beach Cure tells us how. This beautifully crafted history shows how doctors, nurses, and working-class mothers created ocean-side clinics to counter the dangers of the modern city. Crnic’s story reveals the faith in environmental healing present even in the technology of medicine today."―Conevery Bolton Valencius, author of The Health of the Country: How American Settlers Understood Themselves and Their Land "Crnic’s sharp new book excavates an environmental side to medicine's scientific transformation that upends traditional narratives. In lively prose, she shows how doctors and patients headed not just into hospitals but out to the beach, to harness the healing powers of sand, sun, and surf."―Chris Sellers, author of Crabgrass Crucible: Suburban Nature and the Rise of Environmentalism in Twentieth-Century America Meghan Crnic is associate director of the Edward D. Viner Center for Humanism at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University and assistant professor of family medicine at Cooper University Health Care.