Fat and Blood / An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria

by S. Weir Mitchell

The two aids which by degrees I learned to call upon with confidence to enable me to use rest without doing harm are massage and electricity. We have first to deal with massage, and I give some care to the description of details, because even now it is imperfectly understood in this country, and because I wish to emphasize some facts about it which are not well known, I think, on either side of the Atlantic.

Massage in some form has long been in use in the East, and is well known as the lommi-lommi of the slothful inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands. In Japan it is reserved as an occupation for the blind, whose delicate sense of feeling might, I should think, very well fit them for this task. It is, however, in these countries less used in disease than as the luxury of the rich; nor can I find in the few books on the subject that it has been resorted to habitually as a tonic in Europe, or otherwise than as a means of treating local disorders.

It is many years since I first saw in this city general massage used by a charlatan in a case of progressive paralysis. The temporary results he obtained were so remarkable that I began soon after to employ it in locomotor ataxia, in which it sometimes proved of signal value, and in other forms of spinal and local disease. At first I had to train nurses to use it, but I soon found that, although it was of some service to their patients, no one could use massage well who was not continually engaged in doing it. Some men do it better than any woman; but I prefer, nevertheless, for obvious reasons, to reserve men for male patients, except that in cases where strength is of moment, as in the forced movements and the very hard rubbing needed for old articular adhesions, in which force must be exercised without violence, it is usually impossible to secure the necessary power in a feminine manipulator.

A few years later I resorted to it in the first cases which I treated by rest, and I very soon found that I had in it an agent little understood and of singular utility.

It will be necessary, in pursuance of my plan, to describe as minutely as the limits of a chapter will allow how and why this means is employed. The process and order of what is known to the manipulator as "general massage" follows.

After three or four days in bed have somewhat accustomed the patient to the general routine of treatment, a masseur or masseuse is set to work. If any special care is needed,—the avoidance of manipulating one part or added attention to another, tender handling of a sensitive or timid patient,—these matters have been ordered in advance by the physician. An hour midway between meals is chosen, and, the patient lying in bed between blankets, the manipulator begins, usually with the feet. A few rapid rubs of the whole foot and leg are given to start with; then the leg, except the foot and ankle, is covered up, and the operation commences upon the foot, of which the skin is picked up and rolled between the fingers, the whole foot receiving careful attention,—the toes are pulled, bent, and moved in every direction, the inter-osseous groups worked over with the thumbs and fingers or finger-tips, the larger muscles and subcutaneous tissues squeezed and kneaded, and last the whole mass of the foot rolled and pressed against the bones with both hands. A few rapid upward strokings with some force complete the treatment of the part, and the ankle is next dealt with. The joint is moved in every possible direction, slowly but firmly, the crevices between the articulating bones sought out and kneaded with the finger-tips, and the foot and ankle are then carefully covered. After the same rapid stroking upward of the leg with which it began has been repeated for the sake of the slight stimulation of the skin-vessels and nerves, the muscles of the leg are treated, first by friction of the more superficially placed masses, then by careful deep kneading (pétrissage) of the large muscles of the calf, twisting, pressing, and rolling them about the bone with one hand while the other supports the limb. In fat or heavily-muscled subjects it may be necessary to use both hands to get sufficient grasp of the muscles. The tibialis anticus and muscles of the outer side of the leg are operated upon by rolling them under the finger-tips and by pressing with the thumb while firmly pushing upward from the ankle to the knee. At brief intervals the manipulator seizes the limb in both hands and lightly runs the grasp upward, so as to favor the flow of the venous blood-currents, and then returns to the kneading of the muscles,—and each part is finished by light yet firm upward stroking, the hand returning downward more lightly, yet without breaking its contact with the skin.

Care must be taken as the different groups of muscles are treated that the leg is placed in the position which will most completely relax the ones to be operated upon. Any tension of muscles wholly defeats the effort of the masseur.

After completing the process upon both legs, the arm is next treated in the same manner, the hand receiving somewhat more detailed attention than the foot. Pains must be taken to reach the several groups of the forearm by operating from both sides of the arm. The ordinary manipulation of the shoulder can be accomplished with the patient lying down; but if special conditions, such as articular stiffening, call for unusual care or unusual force, it will be found best to treat the shoulder with the patient seated. The treatment of the arms is concluded with upward stroking (effleurage), as with the leg.

In the order usually pursued, the back is the next region treated. The patient lies prone, folding the arms under the head; a firm pillow is put under the epigastric region, so as to the better relax the back muscles, which are too tense when a person lies flat. Beginning from the occiput, both hands stroke firmly and rapidly downward and outward to the spines of the scapulæ, at first lightly, then with increasing force. Then the whole back is vigorously rubbed—scrubbed one might call it—with up-and-down strokes, as a preliminary application. The erector spinæ masses are treated by careful finger-tip kneading. Working from the spine outward to the axillary line, the muscles of the ribs are acted upon with flat-hand rubbing. The groups of the upper back and shoulder-blades are kneaded and squeezed, the arms being partly abducted so as to separate the shoulder-blades and allow the operator to reach the muscles underlying them. The lumbar regions receive their manipulation last. If it is desirable to give special attention or an extra share of manipulation to any part of the spinal region, this is done as the physician may have ordered, and the whole process is completed by downward friction over the spine, given vigorously and as rapidly as possible.

The chest is the next region to be handled, the patient turning from the prone to the supine position. In women the breasts are usually best left untouched unless special conditions demand their treatment.