[Thermal treatment: current therapeutic status]

The author analyses the various factors and events which prompt the thermal cure to become the treatment of today : progress made in research methodology involve the analysis of climatological data as well as the use of comparative techniques in clinical pharmacology. The socio-cultural environment plays a favorable psychological role, particularly amongst elderly patients very properly being treated by non-iatrogenic soft drugs. A better use made of the French thermal heritage should mean the possibility of treating a greater number of patients in this way, and the efforts made by the State, subsequent to the conclusions submitted by the Working Party on thermalism in France chaired by Dr Guy Ebrard, underline the contemporaneity of the problem.