Abstract
Peloid, from the Greek TTAOS ( = mud), was adopted by the International Society of Medical Hydrology at its recent annual meeting in Switzerland as a generic name applicable to any naturally produced medium such as is used in medical practice as a cataplasm for external treatment. Such media are known in the various countries as boue, fango, gyttja, liman, moor, mud, peat, schlamm, etc., these names being used in confusion for both specific media and in a generic sense. The new word, with its derivatives pelology and pelotherapy, will avoid this confusion and allow the local terms to be defined and used in their restricted sense. The Society appointed an International Standard Measurements Committee, with Dr. S, Judd Lewis as chairman, to investigate the properties of these peloids, and they are now classified into groups as: (1) purely mineral; (2) alluvial and marine, characterised by the organic matter being of the thallophyte type, as is the case with those permeated with algal, diatomaceous, bacterial and similar structures:(3) an intermediate group of terrestrial peloids;(4) those of mainly vascular-vegetable origin, such as moors or peats from (a) mosses, (b) phanerogams, etc,; (5) peloids mainly of marine vegetable origin; (6) peloids derived from petroleum deposits; and a detached group, TO, for ‘artificial’ or ‘factitious peloids’. The Committee has now to consider the components—saline, mineral (geological), organic (for example, hurnus), vegetable structures, microorganisms, etc.; the physical properties—heat conductivity, heat capacity plasticity, colloidal properties, radioactivity, etc,; and the clinical indications.
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Pelotherapy. Nature 133, 288 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133288a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133288a0
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