Massage (Fr., 'kneading') is the term used in medicine to denote a system of treatment in which the manipulation and exercise of parts ('passive movement') are employed for the relief of morbid conditions. The term is used in an elastic sense, and comprises a variety of forms of treatment extending in the one direction towards the composite gymnastic exercises of Swedish origin (see SLOYD), so useful in favouring a sound physical development in children, and in the other towards the jerking and wrenching movements, empirically employed, and familiar in Great Britain under the name of 'bonesetting.' For the most part, however, massage corresponds to the application of kneading, stroking, and rubbing, separately or combined with each other.
Massage is as old as, if not older than, any other form of medical treatment. Hippocrates (600 B.C.), the 'Father of Medicine,' has left in his writings a description of its application and uses; observing that 'it loosens stiff joints and gives tone and strength to those which are relaxed;' further, that 'it must be applied with soft hands and in all cases delicately.' In the Greek world, and also in the Roman (cf. Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii), massage formed a necessary complement to the toilet of the bath; but, apart from the slaves who were specially trained for such duties, there appears to have been a regular profession of 'rubbers' competing with, and often superseding the physicians of the period. The Chinese and the early races of India seem to have known the value of massage from a remote period, for it is frequently referred to in the ancient writings of both peoples. During the dark ages this method of treatment seems to have fallen into disrepute in Europe; and it is only within the later half of the 19th century that its practice has been thoroughly re-established, and that on a scientific basis. It is largely due to Dr Mezger, a physician of Amsterdam, that massage has become once more a systematised mode of medical treatment. He began to treat sprains by this method in 1853, and from that time to the present his system has attracted much attention, and has spread widely over the European and American continents.
Two chief methods of application are employed: (1) Stroking, or rubbing with a gliding movement, affecting chiefly the superficial parts (effleurage). (2) Pressing, tapping, or kneading, affecting chiefly the deeper tissues, and in one locality at a time (tapotement). To these may be added an important combination of the two, viz.: (3) Friction with kneading (pétrissage), in which the tissues are at the same time rubbed longitudinally and squeezed laterally, both superficial and deeper tissues being thereby equally affected. In applying these methods the hand and fingers of the manipulator alone are used. As a rule, if the hands are soft and moist no emollient substance is required, and the best effects are produced without such aid. In all cases the movements follow a direction towards the trunk. In stroking (effleurage) the finger-tips pass first lightly over the affected surface, followed by the outspread palm of the hand, which exerts a slightly firmer pressure. In tapping (tapotement) the finger-tips, the knuckles, or the edges of the palm are firmly thrust against the affected areas, so as to act chiefly on the deeper tissues, by compressing them firmly against the bony framework of the part. In friction (pétrissage) the tissues are grasped and raised between the fingers and thumbs, and slightly compressed laterally as well as longi- tudinally as the manipulator's hands pass upwards over the part. The total time taken up in the application of one of these methods, or in a combination of any of them, should not exceed twenty minutes, and as a rule one such séance is sufficient in the twenty-four hours.
The chief vital effects produced by massage are soothing of pain by reduction of the sensibility of the nerves of the skin; an acceleration in the circulation both of blood and lymph in the parts operated on; and, as a result of this, increased nutrition of healthy tissues and accelerated removal of morbid products. General and local applications of massage are practised in medicine; the former when some general corporeal effect is aimed at, as in nervous emaciation, narcotic poisoning, and in the treatment of the apparently drowned; the latter, in local injuries, as sprains and bruises, and in local manifestations of constitutional conditions, as rheumatic joint affections, neuralgia, tic, and sciatica. In purely local joint and bone diseases it is, however, as a rule, likely to do harm.
See D. Graham, Massage (New York, 1889); Eccles, The Practice of Massage (1896).