Category:Public baths

Public baths include bathhouses, hammams, and Turkish baths. Public baths contain facilities such as baths, hot tubs (with or without underwater massage jets), showers, swimming pools, massage tables, steam rooms, saunas, and hot-air baths. Where they were referred to as wash-houses, the baths were co-located with facilities for washing clothes, a precursor of the self-service laundry. Proper washing facilities, for bodies and clothes, are an important component of public health, and so public baths are significant in the history of sanitation.