The use of water for therapeutic means dates back to antique tribes that lived in caverns. They observed how animals, when sick or injured, go to hot or mineral water springs to heal. If we date to the Greeks, Ulysses mentioned the pleasures of thermal waters. Heracles' power of healing through water made his Roman equal, Hercules, be named with a synonym of "balnea", place of thermal healing. During this time, thermal water centers were called asclepiads, which comes from "Asclepio", god of medicine. They were considered blessed sites…healing was based on faith.

We find vestiges of extraordinary constructions of public thermal baths in most large cities of the Roman Empire. As the empire itself, the thermal culture extended through Europe, up to Galicia, where the Romans found a thermal paradise.

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