GYMNASTICS, MASSAGE AND BREATHING EXERCISES (28, 29, 30)
The three items under "Physical Treatment": 28. Gymnastics, 29. Massage and 30. Breathing, require only a few explanatory remarks.
Their common object is, by means of external mechanical aid, to stimulate the circulation of the blood which is undergoing the process of regeneration. They remove obstacles to circulation and produce movements and reactions. While, in the case of massage, this external aid must, as a rule, be given by a third person in order to be effective, gymnastics and breathing exercises depend upon the patient himself. All of them, however, have the common attribute that, in order to be useful, they must be strictly individual. The old proverb: "No one thing is good for everybody," is fittingly applied in this case.
There are few things that are so much abused as this rule in regard to gymnastics. I cannot urge too strongly the importance of caution in advising such exercises. While much of what is claimed for them may be good and true, the governing question as to what is suitable in an individual case, can obviously not be determined by any such impersonal advice. It is the exclusive right and the duty of the attending physician to prescribe whether, and to what extent, these exercises should be applied in each case.
This is true of gymnastics even when practised by reputedly healthy people. By executing certain movements, they may develop disease and weaken certain organs, through ignorance of their abnormal condition.
In case gymnastics or breathing exercises are prescribed as part of a treatment they should be executed in strict accordance with the order of the attending hygienic-dietetic physician.
One of the great principles never to be overlooked in gymnastics is, that in order to have the desired effect they must be carried out with the greatest regularity.
As to massage, this requires knowledge of anatomy in general, and of the anatomy of the individual to be treated, in particular. Only in this way can the desired effect be produced on certain muscles and nerves, with the further consequence that their movements promote the correct and health-giving circulation of the blood. Here again the governing factor must be the prescription of the hygienic-dietetic physician who has studied the individual case and knows the effect he wishes to produce by means of massage, and how to procure the same.
Books on massage and its general practice without knowledge of the particular case, will really accomplish nothing.