Massage probably began as soon as cave dwellers rubbed their bruises. Although the origin of Chinese medicine is lost in antiquity, therapeutic massage is assumed to have developed from folk medicine. It is believed that the art of massage was first mentioned in writing about 2000 B.C.
In 8000 B.C., the Yoga Cult in India used respiratory exercises for religious and healing purposes as recorded in the Veda books of wisdom. Egyptian and Persian, as well as Japanese, medical literatures are full of references to bath treatments of various kinds and to massage.
Hippocrates learned massage as well as gymnastics. Asclepiades, another eminent Greek physician, held the practice of this art in such esteem that he abandoned the use of all other medicines, relying exclusively upon massage, which he claimed effected a cure by restoring to the nutritive fluids their natural, free movement. He also made the discovery that sleep might be induced by gentle stroking.
The ancient Greeks Herodicus and Hippocrates left behind them prescriptions for massage and exercises
The Greeks prescribed massage for their patients as well as for their athletes.
The pathfinders of ancient medicine were almost forgotten during the Middle Ages. Not until the sixteenth century was interest renewed when Ambroise Pare' sought an anatomical and physiologic foundation for mechanotherapy. From then on much was written about it, but nothing was actually done for mechanotherapy until the beginning of the 1800's, when medical gymnastics and massage took on a new life through the work of Per Henrik Ling of Sweden (1776-1839).
Ling was a fencing master and instructor of gymnastics. He began a study of massage after he had cured himself of rheumatism in the arm by percussions, and developed a method consisting of massage and medical gymnastics without distinguishing between the two. It often combined both in a simultaneous application on the theory that massage is a form of passive gymnastics. He based his system on physiology, which was just then emerging as a science.
Through his ardent sudy and dedication, Ling won acceptance for his new ideas His method became known as "The Ling System" or "The Swedish Movement Treatment."
In 1813, the first college to include massage in it's curriculum,the Royal Gymnastic Central Institute, was established in Stockholm at the expense, and under the supervision, of the Swedish government.
Ling's students subsequently published his theories, and through them and many foreign students at the Cental Institute of Stockholm , Ling's system soon became known in a great part of the world; thus today we refer to most "standard" massage as Swedish massage.
Between 1854 and 1918, the practice of massage developed from an obscure, unskilled trade to a field of medical health care, and the profession of physical therapy began. Reputable institutes of massage and medical gymnastics sprang up in Germany, Austria and France.
There was no place in America where one could get the same scientific attention.
It was a long time before England and America were willing to consider massage seriously.
In 1917, E. G. Bracket and Joel Goldthwait were interested in the reconstruction work that was being done among the allied nations. They were the inaugurators of the Reconstruction Department of the United States Army in the early part of 1918. Short intensive courses were arranged in order to train women to meet the demand for massage. Mary McMillan who received her special training in London at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, served as chief aide at Walter Reed Army Hospital where her influence on present techniques was of fundamental importance.
In the summer issue of the Massage Therapy Journal, 1986, Patricia J. Benjamin notes that "Massage Therapy is an emerging profession in the 1980's.
The increasing demand of people for "therapeutic massage" is a large part of a trend toward health care with a holistic approach.
Massage therapy has become an integral part of health care, as it well should be.
Text taken from Healng Massage Techniques by Francis M. Tappan
