Salt contains elements essential to life; iodine, calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, iron, selenium, copper – these are just some of the microelements whose lack or shortage in the body leads to serious problems with physical and mental health. For example, the selenium contained in salt has a huge impact on halting skin aging processes. This is why treatments involving selenium- saturated salt solutions are included in the offering of Polish health resorts and health and beauty centers. Many guidebooks on Poland feature detailed descriptions of the tourist and therapeutic value of the natural salt caves in Wieliczka and Bochnia. The greatest range of treatments can be found at the Wieliczka salt mine's subterranean rehabilitation and therapy center. This center offers comprehensive treatment of asthma, allergies, respiratory diseases, skin diseases and blemishes as well as obesity. The part of this health spa located 135 meters under the surface, in a chamber called Lake Wessel, offers unique therapeutic benefits, but also great aesthetic value. Seven-hour stays in absolutely pure air saturated with therapeutic sodium chlorine, ions of magnesium and calcium, in the expert care of doctors and physiotherapists, are not cheap- but this type of treatment for the body and soul cannot be compared with anything available at a conventional sanatorium.
The salt mine in Wieliczka is unique on a global scale, but the therapeutic properties of salt are successfully used by other centers, in artificial salt caves built exclusively from timber without any metal parts, filled with salt. The special atmosphere of these artificial caves is due to the great care taken to re-create the landscape forms of natural caves, appropriate lighting that brings out the structures of lumps of salt crystals, soft music, and a pleasantly higher temperature and humidity compared to natural caves. Saturation with bioelements precious to human health is many times higher than caves' climate is conductive to absolute relaxation, as obviously they are free of the unpleasant wind and noise of a raging storm. The list of therapeutic effects of staying in artificial salt cave includes positive results in treatment of neuroses and neurotic states, in rehabilitation after injuries sustained in sports or accidents, and in alleviating the effects of physical and emotional exhaustion resulting from working in jobs that involve, foe example, a high level of responsibility for the lives of other people or financial accountability.
"The historic Salt Mine in Wieliczka is the only mining site in the world functioning continuously since the Middle Ages. Its original excavations (longitudinals, traverses, chambers, lakes, as well as minor and major shafts) are located on nine levels and extend for the total of about 300 kilometers: reaching the depth of 327 meters they illustrate all the stages of mining technology development over time."
The quotation comes from the justification for entering the Wieliczka Salt Mine on UNESCO's First World List of Cultural and Natural Heritage, on September 8, 1978 together with 11 other sites from around the world. Indeed, the Wieliczka Mine reflects the progress of mining technology, the development of work organization and management, and the introducing of industry legislation since the Middle Ages.
Since times immemorial salt was the economic foundation of the state. In the times the of old in the Kingdom of Poland it was used as a legal tender, replacing metal coins. Initially, salt was acquired from brine springs through heating the brine and the vaporization of water. It is not known when the excavation of rock salt began; most probably, during the digging of the brine wells, a salt deposit was discovered, and its excavation with primitive tools began. The contemporary Polish monarchs quickly realized what value the white ore had and introduced a monopoly on the mining and even the distribution of salt. They knew that salt was a most important commodity, as it was indispensable for survival. Large amounts of salt were needed for conserving meat, butter, and fish, tanning hides, and later also for the production of gunpowder.
The traces of the first plant in which salt was manufactured from brine date back to the Middle Neolithic period (3,500 BC) and were discovered in the area where the town of Wieliczka was later created. Historical records demonstrate that Wieliczka was the largest salt-making centre in the Małopolska as early as in 10th-11th century, and it was known as Magnum Sal, or Great Salt.
The oldest mining (excavation) shaft, discovered in the courtyard of the Żupny Castle in the town of Wieliczka (now available to visitors as an archaeological mining reserve) dates to the mid-13th century. Large-scale mining of salt in Wieliczka began with the construction of the Goryszowski Shaft, which dates back to the 1280s.
The first surviving written record of rock salt deposits in Wieliczka is to be found in the 1290 foundation charter of the town, which of course does not mean that salt had not been produced here much earlier.
At the end of the 13th century, the "Krakow Mines" company was formed, which included the Wieliczka and Bochnia salt mines along with local salt-boiling manufactures. The company functioned in this form for nearly 500 years, until the first partition of Poland (1772), and was the largest salt-production company in the Polish Commonwealth and one of the largest in Europe.
Salt was the most important mineral in the Polish state and in accordance with the laws in force (the so-called salt regale), it was the property of the ruler. It is estimated that during the reign of King Casimir the Great (14th century) revenue from salt sales accounted for one third of the Treasury revenue. The salt mines of Krakow experienced their golden age between 16th and mid-17th century. In the period, the company employed about 2,000 miners, and production exceeded 30,000 tonnes. In the 17th century, salt was mined at Wieliczka at three levels. During this period, eight shafts were excavated (including the Daniłowicz Shaft, which currently is used for tourism purposes). The first maps of the Wieliczka Mine were also created during the period . However, prolonged wars, plagues, and the accompanying natural disasters deeply perturbed the salt economy during the second half of the 17th century, and the Mine managers neglected safety work, which lad to the dilapidation of the Mine . It was only in the following century that specialists, headed by J.G. Borlach, were brought over from Saxony and managed to improve the company management from the organizational and technical point of view.
Under Austrian management (1772-1918) production was greatly increased, which resulted in the spatial development of the Wieliczka Salt Mine, mechanizing the mining operation (steam and electric machines), employing professional engineering staff and the creation of the first tourist route for the public.
In 1913, a modern salt-boiling plant was installed in Wieliczka, which created a number of workplaces and prospects for the increase of production; these opportunities were further developed during the inter-war Second Polish Republic. New technology of salt leaching under ground allowed the Mine to achieve high rates of production and the extension of mining activities of the plant. However, extensive exploitation and neglecting current safeguarding work adversely affected the stability of the rock mass and the condition of the Mine. After the Second World War, it was even planned to flood the Mine. In 1964, the mining of rock salt in Wieliczka was discontinued, and on June 30, 1996, the salt bed ceased to be exploited completely. At present, the picturesque mine excavations serve tourism, museum and health purposes.
The Wieliczka salt deposit extends over 5.5 kilometres (East-West) and is between 0.5 and 1.5 km wide (North-South). During seven hundred years, 26 surface shafts and 180 smaller shafts connecting different levels of the mine were excavated. The mining of the salt bed started on Level I (57 m underground), and over time reached Level IX (327 m underground). 2,350 chambers and over 240 km of galleries were carved. Despite the water, collapse and gas threats, the Wieliczka Mine excavations are considerably more durable than those of ore mines, thanks to which chambers excavated at the end of the Middle Ages and the early modern era have been preserved to our day. In order to better protect the most valuable excavations, a historic zone has been delimited in the Mine. As of 2004, it embraced 218 galleries and 190 chambers at Levels I - V, over 20 of which are available to visitors in the Tourist Route (Levels I - III), and 16 at the Museum of Krakow Salt (Level III). The ongoing underground work aims primarily at protecting the Mine’s historical substance. The Wieliczka Salt Mine has the status of a historic monument and is subject to legal protection. In 1976, the Wieliczka Salt Mine was entered in the National Monuments Registry. Two years later, in 1978, the mine was inscribed in UNESCO's First World List of Cultural and Natural Heritage, and it was acknowledged as the National History Monument by the decree of the President of Poland of September 8, in 1994.
Sources
Studia i Materiały do Dziejów Żup Solnych w Polsce, V. I - XXIII (1965 - 2003 r.),
Antonina Keckowa, Żupy Krakowskie w XVI - XVIII wieku (do 1772 r.),Wrocław-Warszawa-Kraków 1969 r.
Dzieje żup krakowskich, Wieliczka 1988
Wieliczka dzieje miasta (do roku 1980), Kraków 1990
Antoni Jodłowski, Żupa Solna w Wieliczce, Wieliczka 2000
The Wieliczka Salt Mine Underground Rehabilitation and Treatment Centre
The beneficial properties of salt were discovered already in ancient times. Also the humanists who visited the Wieliczka Mine in the 16th c. reminded of its virtues. The Polish-Latin poet Schroetter wrote about the salt:
"When in your own body you destroy the salt completely,
You lose the body, decomposed immediately.
Creating cancer which devours and grows,
Or Gallic air, originating abroad.
Also foreign bodies, which ache and devour,
Are created when you destroy the salt completely.
Salt makes us strong, it is a balsam for all things,
The salt balsam removes all loss from people.
When the body be badly hurt by somebody,
The wound soon heals when sprinkled with salt.
Therefore doctors employ salt.
Could healing do without salt?
Never! If we wish to cure terrible weaknesses,
When we want to become master in Apollo’s art.
Salt can cure on its own, but when it fails to act,
Then it heals in combination with another matter."
Willich, for his part, claimed that salt mixed with other substances was applied as a cure for snake and scorpion bites, pimples, spots, warts, sores, bruises, dental caries, eczema and tonsillitis. In the 19th c., the Wieliczka spa flowered, when the 19th c. balneology, or treatment with the use of brine baths, become fashionable. Patients arriving in Wieliczka from 1826 on lodged at the local peasants’ and took baths in bathtubs filled with brine fetched from the mine. This inspired the then Mine doctor Feliks Boczkowski to make Wieliczka a genuine spa. The joint-stock company that he founded opened the first bath facilities in 1839. The numerous patients (3,000 in 20 years) were given an opportunity to enjoy warm baths in 12 well-furnished rooms, not only in brine, but also in salt mud and sulphurous water brought from the surrounding villages. A few years later, the spa offer was enriched by introducing steam baths. In this manner, about 36 conditions were treated, from common catarrh to hysteria, infertility and weakness arising as a result of all sorts of ailments. The good administrator that he was, Boczkowski thought not only of the patients’ treatment, but also made their stay in Wieliczka pleasurable and interesting – the city was tidied up, and a park was created where patients could rest listening to an orchestra, as required by the tradition of the known health resorts. Of course in Wieliczka, it was a miners’ orchestra.
Historical events didn't spare Wieliczka, and in 1846, the year of the outbreak of the Krakow Uprising, was the beginning of the Wieliczka spa demise. It finally closed down in 1855, when Feliks Boczkowski, Ph. D. died while providing care to the cholera epidemic victims in Wieliczka. Attempts were made later to revive the spa traditions, but they were frustrated by the two world wars. This was only achieved by Professor Mieczysław Skulimowski almost 100 years later, in 1958, when at his initiative an underground sanatorium was created. Professor Skulimowski began providing regular treatment in salt chambers, thus initiating a new medical specialty, that of subterraneotherapy, which consists in exposing patients to specific factors of the microclimate in underground salt chambers and includes elements of influencing the patients’ psychological state.
In 1964, after a period of experiments and defining the methods of therapy, the underground Kinga Allergy Treatment Centre was created at the Wieliczka Salt Mine, the first venue of the type both in Poland and in the world, run by the Monitoring Department of the Regional Specialist Outpatient Clinic in Krakow. The treatment was then converted into the Kinga Spa Hospital, with Professor Skulimowski acting as its first director and department chief. The hospital successfully treated patients with acute cases of bronchial asthma, both from Poland and 21 countries all over the world. In 1966, the unit providing treatment in salt chambers on Level V of the Wieliczka Salt Mine was officially recognised as the a part of the Krynica – Żegiestów Spa. In 1969, Wieliczka treatment centre was incorporated into the structures of the Szczawnica-Krościenko Spa, and from 1976 it was part of the Complex of Krakow Spas. Treatment activities were at first conducted in the Lebzeltern Chamber, and then in the Appelshoffen, Boczkowskiego and Kościuszki Chambers located on Level V of the Mine. Because of progressing natural changes in the underground environment, new extensive facilities were developed in 1985 in Lill and Skulimowskiego Chambers 211 m underground (Level V of the Mine).
In the 1997-2006 period, also an Interior Ministry Fitness and Rehabiltation Centre operated in the Mine, later transformed into a Rehabilitation Ward of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration Hospital in Krakow.
The treatment qualities of Wieliczka were recognized officially in 1970, when by the Decree of the Council of Ministers Wieliczka was identified as a venue with spa character.
In 2003, the Underground Rehabilitation and Treatment Center was created within the Wieliczka Salt Mine KSW as an independent healthcare center, a unit of the Wieliczka Salt Mine Tourist Route Sp. z o.o.
The Underground Rehabilitation and Treatment Center continues the spa traditions and the research work conducted by Professor Mieczysław Skulimowski in the field subterraneotherapy, connected with the organization of rehabilitation and treatment stays in the salt excavations of the Wessel Lake and Estaern Mountains Stable Chambers 135m underground.
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