Once upon a time, a caravan was travelling on the famed Silk Road. One of their camels collapsed on this difficult journey because of disease and exhaustion.
Not knowing how to help it, the merchants left it to live its last days in the shade of an oasis next to the coast of a vast, dark lake. Unstable on its feet, the camel slipped and immersed itself in the dark lake
Months later, returning on the same route, the caravan found the camel alive, well and careless in the shade of the oasis. The cunning merchants quickly concluded that the dark lake healed the camel.
They brought the dark liquid with them, and this remedy turned out to be naftalan.
It first appeared as a remedy in Eastern medicine; travelling surgeons carried it in their bags, and sold it at fairs.
The famous world traveller Marco Polo was the first to write about healing properties of naftalan.
Regular use of naftalan began at the end of the 19th century. After a well of naphthene oil was discovered close to Ivanić-Grad in the seventies, Special Hospital Naftalan started to use this healing oil for medicinal purposes in 1989.