duzdag@nakhchivan.az
According to the information provided by World Health Organization approximately 10% of the world population suffers from allergy. Out of this number 1.5-2% falls on the share of bronchial asthma. The information says that there are nearly 300 million people in the world with bronchial asthma.
“Asthma” is a word of Greek origin, which means “asphyxiation, suffocation”. Depending on various etiological factors, bronchial asthma is an allergic and chronic disease affected by extra mucus, bronchial mucosal swelling, bronchial spasm and in the end the appearance of asphyxiation. Speleotherapy – the treatment in salt mine is more effective in healing of various diseases as well as bronchial asthma.
“Speleotherapy” is a Greek word meaning “Spelation”- cave and “therapy” – treatment. A therapy carried out in the salt mine is widely spread in the counties like Italy, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Ukraine, Romania, etc. The first treatment in the salt mine condition was carried out with the patients with rheumatoid polyarthritis in 1871 at stalactite and stalagmite mines of Monsummano settlement of Tuscany province situated not far from Florence city, Italy. The treatment of the patients with bronchial asthma in mine condition appeared in the 40s of the last century by chance. During the World War II the people took shelter in the karst mine in Westphalia of Germany for protection from the attacks of the Soviet air force bombardment. Though the tense neurotic distortions and fear, the ill with bronchitis and bronchial asthma, were feeling themselves well after they stayed there for a long time; their suffocations had stopped and coughing decreased. After the war, a treatment centre was opened in Klutert mine for the patients with respiratory diseases. The karst mine also started to function in Jasovska Cave in Miskolc city of Hungary from 1954. Calcium ions dominate in the mine’s microclimate. There also exist mines which sodium and chloride (Na+Cl+) ions prevail in its micro climate. Such kind of salt mines have been functioning in Krakow city of Poland since 1968, in Solotvino town of Uzhgorod city of Ukraine since 1972, and in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan since 1979. Even during the Soviet period, professor M.D.Torokhtin, the director of Ukraine Scientific Research Institute of Balneology gave it a special reference considering the advantages of Nakhchivan Physiotherapy Hospital in treatment of non-specific respiratory diseases.
