Massage Therapy HistoryMassage therapy history is probably as ancient as the history of humanity. The first evidence that mentioned by historians are Europeans cave paintings that depict the use of healing touch as far back as 15,000 BC.
In India massage was used for thousands of years by holistic practice Ayur-Veda. Other ancient cultures, Egyptians, Slavs, Mayas, Incas, Hawaiians, Cherokees and Navajos, reportedly used massage in treatment illnesses.
The earliest mention of massage therapy history documented in writing found in China, and dates from 1400 BC. It discusses massage, acupuncture, and the burning of herbs for therapeutic purposes.
My favorite history period is Antique Greece where massage was widely practiced and massage therapy history was well documented.
Aesculapius, 5th century BC healer in Greece, whose name later evolved into Greek God and whose symbol, two serpents coiled around a staff, became the symbol of modern Western medicine massage, promoted massage in conjunction with herbs, diet, relaxation, and hydrotherapy.
Another significant figure in massage therapy history is Hippocrates (460-375 BC), great Greek physician and the father of Western medicine. He wrote "The physician must be experienced in many things but assuredly in rubbing, for rubbing can bind a joint that is too loose, and loosen a joint that is too rigid." He believed that massage - along with fresh air, good food, baths, music, rest, and visits to friends - is a key to treating disease. Hippocrates described stroking the extremities upward (toward the heart) and returning with a light stroke back up again to push the venous and lymph upward toward the heart. These strokes could be hard, soft or moderate, depending on the condition of the tissues and the effect desired.
Massage was widely used in Greek Gymnasiums to prepare athletes for the sporting events and to treat their bodies after training and competitions.
Massage was also performed in ancient Greece as part of the ritual for temple sleep to prepare people for dreams in the temple where they the mythical god Aesculpius and his daughters Hygiea and Panacea appeared to cure them.
Massage therapy history continues in Ancient Rome. Asclepiades (124–40 BC.) was a Greek physician who settled in Rome to practice and teach medicine. In a famous story Asclepiades is described to bring back to life a Roman citizen being carried to his grave in a coffin. Sir William Osler in The Evolution of Modern Medicine wrote that Asclepiades performed "several minutes of manipulation" that awaken man from dead.” Was it massage or energy work I only wish I knew. Asclepiades promoted diet, exercise, massage, and bathing.
Famous Julius Caesar used massage therapy regularly to help his epilepsy.
Roman physician Pliny the Elder (23–79) wrote in his letter to emperor how his life was saved by the ministrations "of a medical practitioner who cured many of his patients by the process of rubbing and anointing." He derived so much benefit "from the remedy that he asked the emperor to grant the physician, who was either a Jew or a Greek, the freedom of the city and the privileges of Roman citizenship," wrote Dr. Douglas Graham, in Manual Therapeutics.
Another Roman story that became famous in massage therapy history described by Dr. Douglas Graham's book is about Emperor Hadrian (76-138 AD.) who one day saw a veteran soldier rubbing himself against the marble at the public baths, and 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. Another day several old men rubbed themselves against the wall in the emperor's presence, hoping for similar good fortune, when the shrewd Hadrian, perceiving their object, directed them to rub one another!"
A great physician from Rome Galen (130–201 AD.) wrote many volumes of medical and philosophical texts and contributed great deal to massage therapy history. He had extensive experience dissecting animals, even the Barbary ape, and was one of the first to correlate anatomy and physiology. At age 28 he was physician to the gladiators of Rome, and gained a considerable reputation for his treatment of open wounds and tendon injuries. Later he was physician to a number of Roman emperors. His work on anatomy is his greatest contribution, especially his descriptions of bones and muscles and their attendant tissues, such as ligaments and tendons. In his work, Galen gives detailed description of massage: "The rubbings should be of many sorts, with strokes and circuits of the hands, carrying them not only from above down and from below up, but also subvertically, obliquely, transversely and subtransversely ... But I direct that the strokes and circuits of the hands should be made of many sorts, in order that so far as possible all the muscle fibers should be rubbed in every direction." There is much more Galen wrote on this subject, as he continued to describe the details of preparatory massage, the duration of massage at each stage of exercise and finally "the rubbing of the body - which ought always to follow the exercises." Galen concludes by presenting an application of massage techniques, staged in sequence, for the non-athlete who is not in competition, for their better health.
After the collapse of Roman Empire (476 AD), western medicine and massage therapy history experienced a period of decline.
Back in Europe during the Renaissance development of medicine and massage therapy history flourished once again.
Doctors such as Ambroise Pare, a 16th-century physician to the French court, praised massage as a treatment for various ailments.
Italian Giovanni Alfonso (1608-1679) carried out extensive anatomical dissections and had analyzed muscular contractions.
Around the sixteen century in the East emerged other important works in massage therapy history. Chinese Chen-chiu ta-ch’eng had a chapter about pediatric massage. Japanese San-tsai-tou-hoei mentions passive and active massage procedures.
The father of Swedish massage that remains the most popular type of massage therapy in North America today is Henrik Ling (1776-1839) from Sweden. His system, based on physiology, formalized a series of gymnastic movements and massage techniques. "We ought not to consider the organs of the body as the lifeless forms of a mechanical mass," he wrote, "but as the living, active instruments of the soul." The implications of this idea for massage are that we should consider not only the mechanics of each bodily system, but also its role in life and the positive impact massage therapy may have on it. In 1813 he established with royal patronage the Royal Central Institute of Gymnastics.
In 1895 a society of Trained Masseuses was formed in Britain to increase the standard of training and in 1899 Sir William Bennet inaugurated a massage department at St. George's Hospital, London.
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.
During 20th century massage therapy history continues to develop and numerous bodywork modalities emerged.
Robert Noah Calvert, The History of Massage, published in 2002 by Healing Arts Press.
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However, in the East, massage continued to be an important part of health routine. One of the greatest physicians in the history of medicine was Avicenna, also known as Ibn Sina, who lived in Persia from 980 AD to 1037 AD. He was a great philosopher, logician and medic. One of his books, al-Quanun fi at-tibb (The Canon of Medicine) has been called the most famous single book in the history of medicine in both East and West. In it, he describes massage as one of the methods of relieving pain.
