Therapeutic mud has been used in medicine for many years. Ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks used mud as a means of therapy. In the 1st century AD in ancient Rome, the historian Plinius Secundus mentions a “wound healing earth”. Claudius Galenus living in the 2nd century AD described an Egyptian method of using therapeutic mud. In Italy, mud therapy became famous in the 16th century, in France in the 17th century, in Germany in the 18th century and in Russia in the 19th century.