MASSAGE.
A MODE OF MEDICAL TREATMENT.
Massage as a hygienic agent was practised from the earliest times, and is probably as old as surgery itself, or, as it would be more exact to say, as old as mankind. The word is derived from the Greek to knead, and the Arabic to press softly. A Chinese manuscript, the date of which is three thousand years before the Christian era, contains an account of operations similar to those of the present day: friction, kneading, manipulating, rolling—all the procedures now grouped together under the name of massage. The translator of this curious record, a French missionary at Pekin, finds it to include all the characteristics of an ancient scientific mode of treatment; and it has been wittily remarked, that however it may rejuvenate those who submit to its influence, the wrinkles of time cannot be removed from its own ancient visage.
With the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, a form of massage was the common accompaniment of the bath, and was used as a luxury, as a means of hastening tedious convalescence, and to render the limbs supple and enduring. Rubbing and anointing were sometimes done by medical practitioners themselves, or by the priests, or sometimes by slaves. Herodicus, one of the masters of Hippocrates in the fifth century B.C., first proposed gymnastics as a cure for disease. He was the superior officer of the gymnasium at Athens; and by compelling his patients to undergo various exercises and to have their bodies rubbed, is said to have lengthened their lives, insomuch that Plato reproached him for protracting that existence, in which, as years advanced, they could have less and less enjoyment. He himself, by the practice of his own remedies, attained the age of a hundred.
The earliest definite information regarding massage comes from Hippocrates, who says: ‘The physician must be experienced in many things, but assuredly also in rubbing; for things that have the same name have not always the same effects, for rubbing can bind a joint that is too loose, and loosen a joint that is too rigid.’ He also used the word anatripsis, the process of rubbing up, and not down, although not understanding the reason of it, as it was not till five hundred years later that Galen pointed out that the arteries were not filled with air, as their name would seem to imply. Asclepiades was probably not far wrong when he founded his school at Rome on the belief that diet, bathing, exercise, and friction should keep the body without disease; and Cicero affirmed that he owed as much of his health to his anointer as he did to his physician. Plutarch tells us that Julius Cæsar had himself pinched all over daily, as a means of getting rid of a general neuralgia. Celsus, at the beginning of the Christian era, advised that rubbing should be applied to the whole body, ‘when an invalid requires his system to be replenished;’ and Pliny availed himself of a mode of treatment which was evidently much in fashion in his day, and derived so much benefit from the remedy, that he obtained for his physician, who was a Jew, the privileges of Roman citizenship. It is related of the Emperor Hadrian that one day seeing a veteran soldier rubbing himself against the marble at the public baths, he asked him why he did so. The veteran answered: ‘I have no slave to rub me.’ Whereupon, the emperor gave him two slaves and sufficient to maintain them. It is quaintly added to this story, that the next day several old men rubbed themselves against the wall in the emperor’s presence, when, perceiving their object, he shrewdly directed them to rub one another.
The works of Plato abound in references to the use of friction; and numberless passages might be cited from celebrated writers describing the hygienic exercises of the gymnasium, and the manner in which children were led by degrees to execute the most difficult evolutions without fear or risk of fracture. In describing the course pursued, friction, pressure, malaxation, are all in turn noticed by different authors, and strongly recommended. The Egyptians were probably the first among civilised nations to put the system into practice, and they were copied by the Greeks and Romans. Savary, in his Lettres sur l’Egypt, describes part of the process: ‘After the bath and a short interval of repose, whilst the limbs retain a soft moisture, an attendant presses them gently, and when each limb has become supple and flexible, the joints are cracked without effort; il masse et semble paîtrir la chaire sans que l’on éprouve la plus legère douleur.’
In the fifteenth century, Henry II. of France decreed that a treatise should be written upon the hygienic exercises of ancient Rome. Six years later, Mercurialis took up the question from a medical point of view; after which, Ambrose Paré, the most renowned surgeon of the sixteenth century, dilated on the value of the works of Oribasius, written in the time of the Emperor Julian; and he described three kinds of friction and the effects of each, and was thought so skilful, that although a devout Huguenot, he was spared at the massacre of St Bartholomew.
To Peter Henrik Ling is given the credit of having instituted the ‘Swedish movement cure.’ He was even thought to have invented it; but he simply founded his system on the Kong Fau manuscript, which is not only the Chinese system, but that of the Brahmins, the Egyptian priests, and the Greek and Roman physicians. M. Dally has characterised his theory and practice as nothing more than a daguerreotype copy of the Kong Fau of Tao-ssè, and called it a splendid Chinese vase with its Chinese figures clothed in European colours. Estradère, moreover, proves that in the San-tsai-tow-hoei, published at the end of the sixteenth century, there is to be found a collection of engravings representing anatomical figures and gymnastic exercises; amongst these are figured frictions, pressures, percussions, vibrations—massage itself, in fact. These movements the Pekin missionaries affirm to have been in use from time immemorial, and were employed to dissipate the rigidity of the muscles occasioned by fatigue, spasmodic contractions, and rheumatic pains. The operators who practised this calling had no fixed dwelling, but used to walk about the streets, advertising their presence by the clanking of a chain or by some sort of musical instrument.
Lepage, in his historical researches on Chinese medicine, relates that massage was a particular practice borrowed from the Indians, and that it was by such means that the Brahmins effected their miraculous cures. The word shampooing is of Hindu origin; but it must be borne in mind that these Old-world practices were only a faint foreshadowing of the present scientific method. In his Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales, Piorry remarks that the simplest form of massage prevails wherever the people have least outgrown their primitive state; and travellers describe it as universally common in countries where nature alone dictates the remedy for accident or disease. Captain Cook, in his voyage to Tahiti, describes that on arriving they were hospitably received, and that in the corner of a hut, carefully closed over with reeds, a large piece of matting was spread on the ground for them, and that their legs and arms were rubbed and the muscles softly pressed until all signs of fatigue had disappeared. The Gazette des Hôpitaux, in 1839, relates how massage is practised in the island of Tonga: ‘When a person feels tired with walking or any other exercise, he lies down, and his servants go through the various operations known under the names of Toogi-toogi, mili, or fota. The first of these words expresses the action of beating constantly and softly; the second, of rubbing with the palm of the hand; the third, of pressing and tightening the muscles between the thumb and fingers. When the fatigue is very great, young children are set to tread under their feet the whole body of the patient.’
The lomi-lomi of the Sandwich Islanders is much the same thing: the process is spoken of as being that of neither kneading, squeezing, nor rubbing, but now like one, and now like the other. Dr N. B. Emerson relates that the Hawaiians are a famous race of swimmers, and to a foreigner seem amphibious. When wrecked, they sometimes swim long distances; and if one of their number becomes exhausted, they sustain him in the water and lomi-lomi him. When perfectly refreshed, they proceed upon their watery way.
Baudin, in his Travels in New Holland, relates that the individuals who have the greatest influence amongst the savages are the mulgaradocks, or medical charlatans. A mulgaradock is regarded as possessing power over the elements either to avert wind and rain, or to call down tempests on the heads of those who come under their displeasure. In order to calm a storm, he stands in the open air, spreads out his arms, shakes his mantle, made of skins, and gesticulates violently for a considerable time. In order to effect a cure, he proceeds much in the same way, but with rather less noise: he practises a mode of rubbing, and sometimes hits the patient with green rods which have first been heated at a fire, stopping at intervals to let the pain pass away. The Africans follow the same fashion; and with the Russians, flagellation and friction by means of a bundle of birch twigs are resorted to. After the subject has been well parboiled in a vapour bath, a pailful of cold water is then dashed over him, the effect of which is described as electrifying. After this, he plunges into the snow, and thus prepares himself to endure the rigour of the climate with impunity. The Siberians and Laplanders also are said to indulge in these luxuries.
To France belongs the credit of giving to modern medicine a scientific system of massage; and yet, in spite of many able works, and various discussions at the Academy of Sciences and other learned societies, it remained a sort of secret practice, almost wholly under the domain of empiricism; but with the waning interest of French physicians, the Germans and Scandinavians took up the subject; and about ten years ago, Dr Mezger of Amsterdam brought massage to be acknowledged as a highly valuable method. He placed it upon the basis of practical knowledge, thus taking it out of the hands of ignorant charlatans. He did not write much about it, but simply employed the teaching of facts. To physicians who wrote to him for an explanation of his treatment, he only said, ‘Come and see.’ To Professor von Mosengeil is owing the present accurate and scientific knowledge of the subject; by his careful and painstaking observations he has brought massage into high esteem, so that it is now acknowledged as a special branch of the art of medicine.
There is, however, a pitfall to be avoided. Dr William Murrell, in his recent practical work, Massage as a Mode of Treatment, gives a very necessary warning to those who would use it ignorantly. He admits that it is not free from the taint of quackery, and that the so-called massage practised in some of our hospitals and under the auspices of some nursing institutions is a painful exhibition of ignorance and incompetence, being simply a degenerate form of rubbing or shampooing. Having lately witnessed the progress of a number of cases under the care of Professor Mosengeil in Germany, he remarks that the massage of ‘medical rubbers’ is not massage at all, as the term is understood on the continent, and has little or nothing in common with it. It is quite a mistake to think we can take John from the stables and Biddy from the washtub, and in one easy lesson convert either into a safe, reliable, or efficient manipulator. Dr Murrell has found it successful in various kinds of paralysis; in writers’, painters’, and dancers’ cramp; and in the cramp of telegraph office operators, who, just as they have attained to the highest point of dexterity, find that every movement is performed with effort and pain, until at last no movement is possible at all.
The chief advocates of massage have been men of note; and although it is only recently that it has gained an extensive scientific consideration, it is gradually but surely obtaining a wider circulation and a higher place as a worthy therapeutical agent.