RESORTS AND SPAS. In the years following the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, mineral springs became as much a vogue in America as they were in England, because of their therapeutic promise—drinking, bathing, and inhaling were recommended for a variety of rheumatic, liver, kidney, alimentary, and other complaints—and because they had become a "fashionable indulgence" of the colonial gentry. Stafford Springs, Connecticut, with seventeenth-century roots, Berkeley Springs, Virginia, and many others locations with mineral springs conceded preeminence to Saratoga Springs, New York, in the nineteenth century.