[Old Bad Pfäfers and its Paracelsus memorial]

About 1240, hunters of the Benedictine abbey Pfäfers detected a hot spring in the impassable Tamina gorge within the borders of the abbey, founded about 940 in the Franconian Churraetia: the famous thermal springs of Pfäfers. The followers of Benedikt of Nursia knew how to use the healing water for the benefit of ill people and founded thus the bathing tradition of Bad Pfäfers, famous for many centuries, and later of Bad Ragaz. In the summer of 1535 Paracelsus stayed in Bad Pfäfers as a guest of the abbot Johann Jakob Russinger. In the rough surroundings of the simple bath-houses near the origin of the spring in the dark 'Badtobel', the man from Hohenheim wrote, apart from a medical report for the sickly abbot, the famous script about bathing there: 'Vonn dem Bad Pfeffers in Oberschwytz gelegen, Tugenden, Krefften unnd Würckung, Ursprung unnd Herkommen, Regiment und Ordinanz'. Bad Pfäfers became famous in the German countries; in spite of all the difficulties to reach the place, the mineral spring became an important destination for countless people longing for health. In the year 1969 the services of the Old Bad Pfäfers have been discontinued. The zenith of the steady strive to ameliorate the effects of the healing water has been reached. Actual balneologic and medical measures in the health resort Bad Ragaz and on the sunny-terrace of Valens have taken the place of the old spa. Thanks to efforts over many years, means and ways have been found to avert demolition and to manage the stilish restoration of this last historic group of buildings in 'Badtobel' constructed at the beginning of the 18th century.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)