At the end of the nineteenth century, during the era we now call the Belle Époque, Zandvoort was teeming with seaside visitors. Wealthy individuals from home and abroad arrived by train to the coast, seeking fresh air, salty waves, and above all: health. The seaside resort was the setting for ladies strolling with parasols, gentlemen in straw hats, and doctors proclaiming new ideas about the body and movement.
One of them was the German-born doctor and masseur Johann Georg Mezger (1838-1909). His international fame spread through the salons of Amsterdam, Paris, and Berlin. In Amsterdam, he practiced at the Amstel Hotel. Mezger believed not only in pills and rest, but primarily in firm touch: massage, repositioning, movement, and sea bathing as therapy. For weary industrialists, aristocrats with joint complaints, and urbanites suffering from nervous disorders, this was revolutionary—and appealing. Those who could afford it were referred to the coast, where cure, comfort, and status converged. Among the celebrities treated by Mezger were the Austrian Empress Elisabeth (‘Sissi’), Pope Leo XIII, Prince Gustav of Sweden, the Russian Tsarina, and numerous other high-ranking figures. In the Netherlands, he also treated the common man and held practices in Domburg, The Hague, and Zandvoort.
In Zandvoort, visitors took up residence in guesthouses and hotels, walked along the surf, and underwent treatments that were then considered modern and progressive. Some whispered of quackery, while others swore by the results. The fact remains that with his approach, Mezger laid the foundation for what we now call manual therapy or physiotherapy. 
It is therefore no coincidence that his name still lives on in Zandvoort today. The Mezgerstraat recalls a time when health, prosperity, and innovation went hand in hand. It honors a physician who put seaside resorts on the map as healing landscapes—and a Belle Époque in which people believed that the sea, the body, and science could together forge a better future. Mezger passed away in 1909 in Paris; his remains were transferred to Oostkapelle and buried there. In the center of Domburg, Mezger’s memory is honored with a bronze bust.