[2][3] Baruch began his career as a surgeon in the American Civil War; serving in the Confederate States Army and reportedly entering the service "without even having lanced a boil.

[5][6][7] After the war, Baruch remained in the South during the Reconstruction Era, where he practiced medicine and authored a widely read pamphlet on "Bayonet Wounds".

There, Baruch tended to patients who were suffering from communicable infection, most of whom lacked access to clean bath water, fresh air, and sunshine.

[10] Patients recuperated in a restful, calm environment, ate a prudent diet, eliminated alcohol and tobacco, and engaged in physical activity.

[12] In 1881, Baruch took up residence in New York City with his wife Belle, and their four sons, Hartwig ("Harty") Nathaniel (1868–1953), Bernard Mannes (1870–1965), Herman Benjamin (1872–1953), and Sailing Wolfe (1874–1963).

[17] He published the standard texts, The Uses of Water in Modern Medicine (1892), Therapeutic reflections: a plea for physiological remedies (1893), and The Principles and Practice of Hydrotherapy (1898).

[23] For many years, the general public and civic leaders were skeptical about the debilitating effects of poor sanitation on physical health; pessimistic Mayor Hugh J.

Despite decades of opposition, Baruch managed to convince three successive mayors of the utility of water, and in particular, the importance of a public bath system to the population health of the urban working class and poor.

[25] He reported on the structure, functioning, and health benefits of a public bath systems to the New York's Committee on Hygiene, in his role as chairman.

[27][28][29] Moreover, Baruch was medical editor at the New York Sun, from 1912 to 1918, and he covered all the major health concerns of the period, and wrote articles on a variety of topics, from the common cold to malarial fevers.

Financed by private contributions from the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor (AICP), and built on land owned by the City Mission and the Tract Society, the facility provided more than 100,000 people a year with a bath, soap, and a towel for five cents.

That same year, the City opened West 60th Street Bathhouse, now Gertrude Elderle Recreation Center, providing 49 showers for men and 20 for women.

[1] Their son Bernard M. Baruch went on to a successful career on Wall Street and a financial advisor to U.S. Presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Harry S. Truman; his substantial fortune afforded him the opportunity to endow university chairs, medical school facilities, and public buildings in his father's name.

[38][39] Biannually, the Richmond, Virginia chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy grants the Mrs. Simon Baruch University Award to a work of scholarly research on Southern history.