Lesley Mercer Therapeutic Massage

The History of Therapeutic Massage:

For thousands of years the "Laying On Of Hands" or Massage in many different forms has been used to heal the sick. The word Massage comes from the Greek - "to knead". Evidence shown by wall paintings from Ancient Egypt dating from 2330 BC depicts several forms of "Healing Hands". In Eastern cultures, massage has been practiced continually since ancient times. A Chinese book from 2,700 B.C., The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, recommends "breathing exercises, massage of skin and flesh, and exercises of hands and feet" as the appropriate treatment for complete paralysis, chills, and fever.

To the Ancient Greeks and Romans Physicians massage was the way of healing and relieving pain. Julius Caesar, who suffered from epilepsy, was "pinched" all over daily to relieve headaches and neuralgia. Massage was known to disperse toxins found in muscles, which were not expelled by exercise. "The Physician Must Be Experienced In Many Things," wrote Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, in the 5th century B. C., "but assuredly in rubbing ... for rubbing can bind a joint that is too loose, and loosen a joint that is too rigid."

Doctors such as Ambroise Pare, a 16th-century physician to the French court, praised massage as a treatment for various ailments. Swedish massage, the method most familiar to Westerners, was developed in the 19th century by a Swedish doctor, poet, and educator named Per Henrik Ling. His system was based on a study of gymnastics and physiology, and on techniques borrowed from China, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Physiotherapy, originally based on Ling's methods, was established with the foundation in 1894 of the Society of Trained Masseurs.

During World War I patients suffering from nerve injury or shell shock were treated with massage. St. Thomas's Hospital, London, had a department of massage until 1934. However, later breakthroughs in medical technology and pharmacology eclipsed massage as physiotherapists began increasingly to favour electrical instruments over manual methods of stimulating the tissues.

Massage lost some of its value and prestige with the unsavoury image created by "massage parlours". This image is fading as awareness of the value and therapeutic properties of massage grows.

Massage is now used in intensive care units, for children, elderly people, babies in incubators, and patients with cancer, AIDS, heart attacks, or strokes. Most American hospices have some kind of bodywork therapy available, and it is frequently offered in health centres, drug treatment clinics, and pain clinics.

Lesley Mercer

Manual Lymph Drainage & Combined Decongestive Therapy

The History of Therapeutic Massage: