Medicinal bath therapy has a long history in China. Since we have humans, we have known that bathing can be clean and healthy. For example, more than two thousand years ago, Qu Yuan, a famous patriotic poet, wrote Li Sao, saying, "The new bather plays the crown, and the new bather shakes his clothes." There is also a record in the Book of Rites Quli that "a sore on the head means a bath, and a sore on the body means a bath". Huangdi Neijing, a classic work of traditional Chinese medicine written in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, puts forward a clear treatment method for exogenous diseases: "pathogenic factors sweating", which is a method to treat diseases by sweating in hot water bath.

With the discovery of drugs and the continuous development of medical activities, bathing methods have gradually evolved from pure water bath to medicinal bath, that is, adding appropriate drugs to water and bathing in decoction can treat more diseases. According to the relevant medical literature, there is a method of medicated bath in the ancient medical book "Fifty-two Diseases" unearthed in Mawangdui, Changsha.

In Treatise on Febrile Diseases written by Zhang Zhongjing, a famous doctor in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there are many methods of medicinal bath, such as sitz bath, foot bath, fumigation and washing, etc., such as using Langya decoction to expel yin (that is, washing vagina with modern Chinese medicine decoction) and using Kushen decoction to treat lower body (that is, modern Behcet's disease). At the same time, Hua Tuo, a famous surgeon, also recorded "impetigo" in the Secret Biography of Imperial Doctors, and used "external use of realgar, Saposhnikovia divaricata, Schizonepeta tenuifolia, Sophora flavescens and San Qian, decoction" to wash the sore. All these have laid a broad foundation for the application of medicated bath therapy in later generations.

In "Elbow Emergency Prescription" written by Ge Hong in Jin Dynasty, the soup was decocted with oak bark to "wash breast sores and various ulcers." Sun Simiao's "Qian Jin Fang Yao", Tang Dynasty's "Qian Jin Fang Yi", Wang Tao's "The Secret of Outside Taiwan" and Song Dynasty's "Tai Ping Sheng Hui Fang" all contain many prescriptions of medicinal bath, and their indications have expanded from surgery and dermatosis to gynecology, pediatrics and ophthalmology, which has developed the types, usage and clinical application of medicinal bath therapy.

During the Jin and Yuan Dynasties, medicated bath therapy was further developed. In the book "Essentials of Surgery" written by Qi Dezhi, a monograph on medicinal bath therapy is specially set up, saying that the function of medicinal bath therapy is to "dredge meridians and regulate blood vessels so as not to stagnate." In the late Ming Dynasty, Puji Fang, Gong Tingxian's All Diseases Rejuvenate, Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica, as well as medical records and authentic surgery in the Qing Dynasty, all recorded the use of medicated bath therapy to treat internal and external diseases, indicating that medicated bath therapy has been widely used. It is particularly worth mentioning that Wu Shiji, a famous doctor in the late Qing Dynasty, wrote a book entitled "Parallel Prose for Prevention of Diseases" through a large number of clinical practices and extensive collection of other people's experiences, which divided the medicinal bath therapy into fumigation, soaking, washing, rubbing, drenching and waiting, and pointed out: "The principle of external treatment is the principle of internal treatment; The medicine for external treatment, that is, the medicine for internal treatment, is different. " The mechanism of medicated bath therapy is further expounded, and it is considered that the disease has internal symptoms and exogenous diseases, and the treatment method is internal treatment and external treatment, and external treatment needs internal treatment. There are internal and external treatments. Therefore, it is proposed that "external treatment (including medicated bath therapy) can cure all diseases." It provides a basis for the research and application of medicinal bath therapy in the future.

In modern times, due to the development of society and the progress of science and technology, medicinal bath therapy, an ancient traditional medicine, has been paid full attention, and new methods and experiences about medicinal bath therapy have emerged one after another. Various medical materials, medical works and medical magazines introduced many clinical applications of medicated bath therapy, especially the research on the methods, drugs and action principles of medicated bath therapy with the help of modern scientific means and the research on medicated bath therapy with modern scientific concepts, which laid the foundation for the clinical application of medicated bath therapy in modern medicine.