Among the many sociable spaces of the long eighteenth century, it may be safely said that the spa played a prominent role in the culture of sociability. Taking the waters at mineral springs, aside from the purported health benefits, was simultaneously a cultural practice of sociability. This was true of the spas of Europe as well as in emergent spas in European colonies or former colonies. Indeed, spas were important nodes in the flow of transnational culture. Fashion and forms of sociability, including the negotiation of class lines, the development of architectural spaces or of medical views and practices, not to mention the representation of spas in letters, literature, and even in popular culture to the present speak to the breadth of the spa as a subject for study.