historical,cultral and philosophical approaches to massage

Historical, cultural and philosophical approaches to massage

It seems that where ever you look throughout history in every continent there has been some form of massage used. Wikipedia stated that there is a biblical reference that they used olive oil myrrh as part of the beauty regime of Xerxes wives this was written in 493 B.C!
Eastern massage

Massage has a very long presents in the ancient eastern times it had been noted that records have been traced back to as early as 3000 B.C (salvo 2003) the records say that they used massage as part of the methods of Chinese medicine for treatment of illness.
The name that was given to the art of Chinese massage was Amma. They say that this is the grandparent of all other massage techniques, they had developed it so well that they were first to train and employ massage therapist that were blind! (Salvo 2007)
The Chinese had massage so well developed that it found its way getting to Japan and the name for Japanese massage was Shiatsu. Shiatsu was very similar to Amma that they think it was even a component of it. The Asian concept that the body has certain energy points these are called tsbo points, so when the shiatsu practitioner would massage different tsbo points to bring balance between the mind and body.

Western massage
The art of massage goes back to the ancient Greek times in the west.
A group of Greek physicians that were living in Rome were known as Methodist and they supported a very basic view of healing and restricted treatments to bathing, diet, massage, and a few drugs (salvo 2007)
The art of massage became very popular through the time that Julius Caesar even used it to calm his epilepsy. So many men from the ancient Greek and Roman times are responsible for the development of medicine that Asclepius the god who was responsible for the emerging medical profession his holy snake and staff still remain the symbol of medical profession

Hippocrates
Hippocrates of cos (460-375 B.C) was generally known as the father of modern medicine (salvo 2007). Hippocrates had little known about him but what is known is that he had his own medical school and had published many books although much of the work was dedicated to him by members of the Hippocratic School. There were great debates toward the value of therapeutic massage and Hippocrates actually stated in one of his essays that “the physician must be must be skilled at many things and particularly friction” (salvo 2007) from this they thought that Hippocrates was a very firm believer in the aid of massage.

Galen
Galen of Pergamon (130 to 200 A..D) was a prominent roman physician and philosopher and probably the most accomplished medical researcher of roman times. (Wikipedia). Galen’s theory’s and idea’s dominated western medical science for well over 1000 years! One of Galen’s most prominent studies was the use of baths and massage after physical activity.

Ling
Pehr Henrik Ling (1776-1839) created his own method of healing known as the Ling system or Swedish movement cure, Lings primary focus was that gymnastics could help disease and injury. This was done by having the client go through range of movements e.g. exercise, Also passive movements which were done to the patient by the therapist, and then there was resistive training having resistance on the movement. Ling also used massage as part of his format this is how he got the name as the father of Swedish massage(Salvo 2007).

Mezger
Johan Mezger(1817-1893) was a Dutch physician who first incorporated massage into becoming part of physical rehabilitation. Mezger also has been credited to naming strokes such as effleurage, petrissage, and tapotment (salvo 2007).
Kellogg
John Harvey (1852-1943) wrote many books and articles on massage and published Good Health a magazine that targeted the general public.
Efforts by men such as Kellogg have been responsible for making massage therapy popular in the U.S.A (salvo 2007).

Vodder
Emil Vodder (1886-1936) created lymphology, Mr and Mrs Vodder decided to study the lymphatic system even though it was taboo by the medical profession, from there they created and developed careful hand techniques that cause lymph movement. This technique was called manual lymph drainage (Wikipedia).

Maori massage
The name for Maori massage is mirimiri, the use mirimiri dates back centuries herbal or animal oils were often used as the lubricants for the massage. There are 3 main types of Maori massage roromi, toto, and takahi. Roromi was practiced by the women and involved wringing and pinching of the muscle. Toto was a form of infant massage and was often used to change their body structurally. The belief of takahi was that if you were good at this you were born by a breach birth (feet first) takahi involved walking on peoples sore parts of their body(Riley 1994).
If you take all these facts on board Maori massage has parts to it that link from western and eastern sides. You would look at it thinking the wringing and pinching as a type of petrissage and the use of structural change would be like manipulation.

Massage scandals of the 1800’s
From what I have found there was a massive massage scandal around 1884 when there were reports that physicians’ were sceptical about whether massage therapist where truly doing any good and they were just stealing medical physicians patients. This would have damaged the name of massage and most like business would have decrease.

The development of professional massage in New Zealand
The Maori had been practicing massage for centuries from there New Zealand followed suit of Australia, According to Anderson in (1977) there were over 300 massage therapist throughout the country in the early 1900’s some of these people had qualifications gained from overseas others just trained under self appointed teachers. In 1913 Dunedin hospital had its very own massage department. In 1985 a man named Bill Wareham called all the massage therapist of Auckland to discuss the opening of the massage institute of New Zealand Incorporated, from there he then opened another office in Wellington, they run conferences on how to up- grade skills and all sorts. A man named Jim Sanford then organized a meeting for practitioners from all around the country to come and discuss making a governing body of massage it later became the New Zealand Association of Therapeutic Massage.(riley 1994)


Contemporary massage
Massage has grown so much that there are 1000s of different styles and there are only going to be more of these as long as man looks to study different things.
All ancient strokes are still used in most aspects of massage such as effleurage for most types of work such as lube spreading and warming of the tissue.


Body-mind-soul
From mostly what Have said about the eastern side of massage is all about the wellbeing of the persons soul and that when the focus on certain point they can change a person’s energy levels this differs alot to the western side when they see it from scientific point of view which is what you see is what you get.

References
Tuchtan, V. Tuchtan C. and Stelfox, D. (2004) Foundations of Massage, 2nd Edition. Australia: Southwood Press Pty Ltd.
Salvo, S. (2007). Massage Therapy: Principles and Practice (3rd Ed.). St Louis, United States: Saunders.
www.wikipedia.com