Excursion to the underground sanatorium for asthma

• Excursion to the underground sanatorium for asthma

English Kuletskoy Photographer Kirill (Kirill Kuletski) visited the salt mines in the Ukrainian village of Solotvyno, where for 40 years he was an underground sanatorium for asthma.

The salt mines in Solotvyno were opened in the XVIII century, in the 1970s on the basis of their open Ukrainian Allergic Hospital.

In addition to the mines, located in the Solotvyno salt karst lakes, the salt content of which is higher than in the Dead Sea.

Alternative Therapies used in Solotvyno to treat asthma and other respiratory diseases, known as speleotherapy.

Speleotherapy was opened in Poland in the 1950s, when doctors noticed that the miners in the salt mines rarely had tuberculosis.

The impregnated salt air salt mines helps to remove mucus from the lungs and kill the microorganisms that cause respiratory tract infections.

In the air salt tunnels contained ten times less microorganisms than conventional air operating.

In addition to respiratory disease, saturated salt air helps fight various skin diseases and consequences of burn disease.

The clinic was located in the village of Solotvyno in tunnels at a depth of 300 meters below the surface of the earth. The temperature is kept year-round on the same level - 22 ° C.

Solotvynska hospital was the largest institution in the world, who used speleotherapy as the primary method of treatment and rehabilitation after diseases of the respiratory system.

Every year in Solotvyno salt mines were treated between 300 and 500 people - to get to the clinic, often had to be recorded on a waiting list.

Average time of hospital stay was 24 days. Patients are not always carried out under the earth, for the therapy sessions, they were going down the elevator.

During treatment sessions, patients lay in beds that are placed in niches carved into the rock and covered lyumenestsentnymi lamps. They were allowed to talk to each other or read.

In addition to the treatment rooms, an underground building has a lounge and library.

Extraction of salt in Solotvino stopped in the early 2000s, because of the sharp rise of groundwater. Speleotherapy department was closed in 2008 after water break in the ventilation shaft.