In English 🇬🇧
Who we are
Brunnsmuseet (The Sätra Brunn Museum) is a non-profit working-life museum for the Sätra Brunn health resort located in Västmanland county, Sweden (SE). Brunnsmuseet is created and curated by a small group of volunteers that makes the cultural heritage of Sätra Brunn more recognisable and accessible.
What we do
Besides our yearly renewed exhibitions, we do also have a social media community, rich digital web content, a curated monthly newsletter, as well as a digital audio tour and our own podcast.
This beautiful image was shared by the german photographer and culture heritage professional Tulipasylvestris, with the CC BY-SA-license. It can be downloaded from here.
How to take part
There are numerous ways to take part and contribute to our work.
If you are a hobby photographer, you may consider to share your pictures by upload them to Wikimedia Commons. Make sure to add them to the Category: Sätra Brunn. Thank you!
How to overcome the language barriers
We are doing almost everything only in Swedish, primarily for a Swedish audience. However, we're hoping that some of our content can be accessed in alternative ways. For example,
our written content, such as our websites and newsletter, may be accessed by using a translator tool in your browser. Check your browser settings for your options. Chrome and Safari has such options.
our video content, available on our YouTube-channel, is may to be subtitled in English in the future. Please keep in touch with us if you want a translation.
our oral content, such as our digital audio tour and podcast, is unfortunately not available in any easy way for non-Swedish-speaking persons.
If you want to contribute to our work and spread the word, please contact us.
The spa house in Sätra Brunn and spa guests in 1868, from our archive.
The old bath house quarter is our home at Sätra Brunn.
Our exhibition that we have opened during the summer each year.
Hereby fallows our native English content that has been made with international visitors in mind.
The fallowing is written by Nils-Johan Höglund, M D h c, Uppsala University and Sätra Brunn, Sweden as an abstract for The 26th Nordic Medical History Congress in Uppsala May 31 - June 3, 2017.
Sätra Brunn – A mineral spring and a rehabilitation centre
In June 1700 Samuel Skragge, medical officer of Västmanland and Dalarna, examined the renowned offer spring in Kijla parish. After studying in Bath, England, and then at Medevi brunn he had a good knowledge of humoral pathology and practice. After analysing the water Skragge bought a vast part of the surrounding land. Next summer he announced in the papers offering treatment at the new spa.
Within a few years Skragge had built a hydropathic establishment. He prescribed drinking water concurrently with walking and cold and hot baths. In letters and papers he described miraculous cures. After five years Skragge was appointed personal physician to the Swedish King Karl XII. He took part in the Russian campaign, experienced the defeat at Poltava and the retreat to Bender, Turkey. He died 1716 on his journey back to Sweden. The activity at home continued but not so powerfully and the enterprise got into bankruptcy. At this moment the bishop in Västerås, Anders Kalsenius, bought the estate and then 1747 donated it to the University of Uppsala to serve as a health resort and a practice for medical students.
Since then up to 1998 Sätra brunn was a summer hospital led by the professor of Medicine and several attendants. It was developed into a rehabilitation centre especially for rheumatics and stroke patients. The treatment contained
Medical baths (hot clay packings followed by a warm bath mixed with pine needle extracts relieving stiff joints and muscles before further treatment Physiotherapy, individually and in special groups
Occupational therapy to train activities of daily life and testing technical aids
From May to September 1 300 patients, 300 a month, all referred from the regional county councils, were accommodated and got an individual rehabilitation programme. The staff consisted of 3-4 physicians, 6 nurses, 2 laboratory assistants, 20 physiotherapists and 20 occupational therapists and assistants. Patients and all personnel lived in the old-fashioned but modernized buildings in the extended park and took part in the social and cultural life.
The last week of the summer seasons Sätra brunn hosted 30 postgraduate students coming from the Nordic and Baltic countries.
POSTER 1.pdfPOSTER 2.pdfNo5 - Sätra Brunn’s founders.pdfTo celebrate the European year of cultural heritage in 2018, Brunnsmuseet published a paper in both Swedish and English about the founders of Sätra Brunn, dr Urban Hjärne and his scholar Samuel Skragge.
In this paper, we examine that the foundation of Sätra Brunn was made possible due to European partnerships. During the 17th century, both Hjärne and Skragge made several expeditions across the European continent, collecting the knowledge needed to established Swedish counterpart to the European culture of health resorts. Back in Sweden, Hjärne founded the health resort of Medevi in 1678, the first on Swedish soil. Inspired by his master, Skragge founded his own health resort in 1700. And yes, that's Sätra Brunn.
You can read and download the paper from here, free of charge. You may also reuse it if you want under the Creative Commons BY-SA-license.