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Massage is one of the oldest and
simplest forms of medical care. References to massage can be found in the
Chinese book Con-Fu of the Toa-Tse from 3000 BC, which is the oldest book
written about massage. Massage helps people in case of minor injuries, pains
and discomfort. Rubbing the injured area relieves a person from minor
discomfort. Probably early man also learnt that by rubbing certain places on
the effected area could help out in easing the pain. This was how the system
of massage was born.
The root word for the word Massage is
the Arabic word mass~h, which means to press gently. While massage has been
existing in its basic form, only recently has it taken its new avatars.
Perhaps the earliest description of massage is from China where Chinese
priests practiced the art of Qi Gong, this was the meditative movement to
reveal and cultivate the vital life force. This treatment relied on the
presumption that all illness is due to an imbalance of Qi. The Japanese
monks, who were studying Buddhism in China in about 1,000 BC, observed this
healing method and took it back to Japan. At that time, the Japanese
practice of medicine mostly consisted of diagnosis and treatment with
massage-type methods. Thus, they were able to enhance on the Chinese style
by introducing new combinations. This was named Shiatsu, where shi means
finger and atsu meaning pressure.
Massage was famous in many
civilizations. Native Americans used to massage with herbs, ancient Greeks
used massage to develop techniques to help athletes and Romans learnt the
medical techniques from the Greeks. Galen, a notable physician to several
Emperors in the first century AD, used massage to treat many types of
disease and physical injuries.
Hippocrates (460 to 377 BC), the
father of medicine, used herbs with oils and massage techniques to treat
many medical conditions. Homer in his work Odyssey describes massage as
welcome relief to exhausted war heroes. As the Dark Ages came to an end and
Renaissance begin, medicine saw a shift from the centuries old teaching of
Galen.
Massage became unpopular in Europe
because of the conservative and repressive religious dogma, which did not
allow touching as it involved corporal pleasures which were considered
sinful.
Pehr Henrik Ling, father of modern
massage, established the Royal Central Institute of Gymnastics in Sweden in
1813. He formalized a series of gymnastic movements and massage techniques
that came to be known as Swedish massage. These techniques included
stroking, pressing, squeezing and striking.
However, modern medical fraternity was
reserved towards the scientific reasons behind the use of massage as a
healing technique. In 1992 the Touch Research Institute was established at
the University of Miami School of Medicine. The institute is devoted to the
study of touch and has shown that massage can induce weight gain in
premature infants, alleviate depressive symptoms, reduce stress hormones,
alleviate pain and positively alter the immune system in children and adults
with various medical conditions. Hence massage is becoming recognized as a
viable and useful alternative or aid to modern medicine.
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