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The History of
Massage
At some point in our lives every
one suffers from minor injuries,
pain or discomfort. Our
instinctive reaction is to rub
or hold the
affected area to ease the pain.
If you stub your toe or have a
stomach ache, you rub it to stop
it from hurting so much.
Early man probably soon learnt
that, whilst rubbing painful
areas of his
body, certain plants could be
applied which would help to ease
the pain
and promote healing. This basic
technique has been developed
through
the millennia into the system of
massage we know today. Massage
is the
systematic manipulation of the
soft body tissues for
therapeutic purposes.
The English word massage is
derived from the Arabic word ‘mass’h’,
which means to press gently.
This itself gives a hint to the
long history
of massage. Massage in its most
basic form has been around as
long as man,
however today there are many
highly specialized forms of
massage all
derived from these basic
techniques.
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The first documented
descriptions of massage dating
back to about 3,000 BC
were discovered in China.
Chinese Taoist priests practiced
‘Qi Gong’ - meditative movement
revealing and cultivating the
vital life force.
Traditional Chinese medicine is
based on the principle that
every illness,
ailment or discomfort in the
body is due to an imbalance of ‘Qi’.
In about
1,000 BC Japanese monks began to
study Buddhism in China.
They witnessed the healing
methods of traditional Chinese
medicine
and took them back to Japan. In
Japan the practice of medicine
mostly
consisted of diagnosis and
treatment with massage-type
methods.
The Japanese not only adopted
the Chinese style, but also
began to
enhance it by introducing new
combinations, eventually
reaching a
unique Japanese form called
Shiatsu. Shiatsu is a Japanese
word
derived from ‘shi’ meaning
finger and ‘atsu’ meaning
pressure.
It is a technique similar to
that used in acupuncture but
without needles
and with extra movements
involved.
Civilization in India also dates
back to about 3,000 BC.
Around 1,800 to 500 BC the Vedic
Indian culture spread westwards
towards the river Ganges. They
developed a unique form of
medicine
know as Ayurvedic medicine. They
wrote several great books that
recorded their techniques. One
called ‘Ayur Veda’ which means
‘the arts of life’,
dates back to 1,700 BC and
describes some simple massage
and
herbal treatments for various
conditions.
Native Americans also used heat
and massage with herbs to treat
many problems.
The Cherokee and Navaho were
among many tribes who rubbed
their warriors
before they went to war and when
they returned. Massage was used
to ease
the labor pains of women and
colic in infants.
The ancient Greeks valued the
benefits of massage very highly,
using it in
most avenues of daily life.
Techniques were developed to
help athletes to
keep their bodies in the best
condition for competitions.
They also used massage for
relaxation. Herodotus, a
historian who lived from
484 to 425 BC, recorded the fact
that certain herbs had a
sedative action
whilst others were more
refreshing. Physicians of the
time such as
Hippocrates (460 to 377 BC) ‘the
father of medicine’, used these
herbs
with oils and massage techniques
to treat many medical
conditions.
He stated that "anyone wishing
to study medicine must master
the
art of massage." Greek women
also recognized the value of
massage
with aromatic oils, using them
as a beauty treatment for the
skin and face.
Homer in his work Odyssey
describes massage as "welcome
relief to
exhausted war heroes." By 326 BC
elements of Ayurvedic medicine
had become an integral part of
Greek medicine.
The Romans learnt many of their
medical techniques from the
Greeks.
Galen, a notable physician to
several Emperors in the first
century AD,
used massage to treat many types
of disease and physical
injuries.
He cited Hippocrates saying
"rubbing, if strenuous, hardens
the body,
if gentle relaxes... rubbing
should be employed, when either
a feeble
body has to be toned up, or one
indurate has to be softened, or
harmful
super fluidity is to be
dispersed, or a thin and infirm
body has to be
nourished." Julius Caesar, who
suffered from neuralgia, had his
body ‘pinched’ every day to help
greater blood flow and reduce
fatty tissue
below the skin. The wealthy
would be massaged in their own
home, by their
personal physician, but many
others received treatment at
public baths,
where both trainers and doctors
plied their trade. Public baths
were often
funded by benefactors, so the
entrance fee was nominal, hence
baths were
bustling places. Seneca vividly
described the resulting din in
his book
Epistulae Morales LVI "I have
lodgings right over a bathing
establishment.
So picture to yourself the
assortment of sounds... I notice
some lazy fellow,
content with a cheap rub-down,
and hear the crack of the
pummeling hand
on his shoulder, varying in
sound according as the hand is
laid on flat or hollow."
With the end of the fourteenth
century came the end of the Dark
Ages and
the beginning of the
Renaissance. The Renaissance
brought along with it
many great discoveries in the
arts and sciences. In medicine
there was a
shift away from the centuries
old teaching of Galen, and the
spiritual basis
for disease. Massage also became
unpopular as Europe was overcome
by
a conservative and repressive
religious dogma. Touching was
not considered
as part of the healing method as
it involved corporal pleasures
and these
were considered sinful.
Ambroise Pare (1510-1590) a
French ‘barber-surgeon’
developed many
techniques in surgery that made
it a lot safer and less
crippling to the patient.
He went on to become the
personal physician to four of
France’s kings.
In one of his publications he
described the positive effects
of massage in
the healing process.
There were very few advances in
massage until 1813, when Pehr
Henrik Ling
established the Royal Central
Institute of Gymnastics in
Sweden.
In the nineteenth century the
most common treatments for
illness were
blood letting and the use of
purgatives. Physicians put their
faith in science,
and new drugs such as Calomel,
mercury and arsenic based
tonics, were in
common usage. Ling formalized a
series of gymnastic movements
and
massage techniques which have
become known as Swedish massage.
These techniques included
‘effleurage’ or stroking,
‘petrisage’ or pressing
and squeezing and ‘tapotement’
or striking. Ling is sometimes
credited with
being the father of modern
massage.
During the 1960s there was a
backlash against the
establishment and man
made things that were seen to be
destroying our environment and a
resurgence of interest in
natural ways of treating the
body. Since then
there has been an increasing
interest in massage and its use
to relieve stress
and reduce the effects of some
illnesses.
Today there is still some
skepticism in the medical
profession as to the
scientific reasons behind the
use of massage as a healing
technique.
Therefore in 1992 the ‘Touch
Research Institute’ was
established at the
University of Miami School of
Medicine entirely devoted to the
study of touch
and its application in science
and medicine. They have shown
that massage
can induce weight gain in
premature infants, alleviate
depressive symptoms,
reduce stress hormones,
alleviate pain and positively
alter the immune system
in children and adults with
various medical conditions.
Hence massage is
becoming recognized as a viable
and useful alternative or aid to
modern medicine.
In our modern society, where
stress-related psychological
disorders are
becoming the number one health
problem, massage is likely to
gain increasing
popularity to improve every
body’s health and well-being
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