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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.
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 |
