Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1891-07-02
THEMASSAGE TREATMENT
AN ANCIENT ART or HEALING THAT
IswoRTHY or MODERN PRACTICE.

10 ~GfRtff NJ tNOAA-AkhN 49, 49,
70 should BE Used IntellIgently snd
According 90 Wen Settled Principles.
However shirley Dare Chats About
who Are Proper Masseurs and Pa
tiemts.
Recent as massage may be to many
readers. neither name nor practice is new,
ranking among the primitive-one may
saw instinctive-methods OF cure. In any
pain the natural prompting TO press the
hand upon the seat Of suffering, to rubor
knead il for relief is common TO civilized
man or savage. 1t is the effort to equal
ize circulation and draw the blood from
the injured part in congestion. and bring
back natural warmth in collapse, for fire.
ton does both. Like all healing methods
in the hands Of ignorant or unprincipled
practitioners, massage is over done till it
becomes charlatanry. At the same time,
IN wise hands it is a blessed and signal
relief. often superseding the painful OPP
erations of surgery and drastic medicines.
Massage originally is from the Arabic
word "mass," meaning 10 press softly,
but now includes all manual forms of re-
lief. rubbing, stroking. kneading, and
beating the muscles.
The learned Professor Billroth. of vi
emma, who drew modern attention to its
use about 1875, says that massage is as
old as surgery. Kneading, rubbing, and
working the muscles to relieve fatigue
was the practice of savage and heroic ma
tons from the earliest times. DIR. Doug
las reminds us that Homer. in the "Odys-
sew. tells how beautiful women rubbed
aud anointed warworn heroes to rest and
refresh them In those days Of heroic
simplicity it probably was no more for
woman to rub and anoint man worn
out with fighting men of his own mettle
through days Of fasting, heat, and watch
ings, than for a hospital nurse to tend
man aching so from wounds he does not
know whether men, women, or demons
attend him.
In the fifth century B. c., Herodicus,
one Of the masters of the healing art,
prolonged the lives Of his patients by ex-
ercise and rubbing, and so cured himself
Of weakness and i'll health that he lived
10 be 100, as we read in Hufeland's Art
of Prolonging Life" Herodotus speaks
of Egyptian massage and amounting.
Suitable massage knits slack and rickety
joints by stimulating their circulation,
nutrition, and innovation, while with
proper friction a stiff joint becomes fiexi-
BILE. The fact that rubbing can make
aesh and cause it to waste is often OBJ
served in massage, Of which DIR. Graham
says: "People sometimes lose much
adipoae tissue, to their detriment, by the
excessive use of massage. But this can
be used TO advantage where fat is super
abundant, with want of tone and tension.
for i'm these it will be found that hard
rubbing binds Soft rubbing loosens not
only tough and matted conditions of
skin, and superficial muscles, but also
involuntary tension of muscles found in
overtaxed and debilitated people. Here
comes the necessity of careful discrimi-
nation, for If patient in such condition
receives such vigorous rubbing as passes
for massage in these days the trouble
would probably be aggravated, for
greater tension would be excited by the
pressure of friction and manipulation
upon terminal nerve filaments already in
q state of irritation"
IL takes certain amount Of strength
30 bear massage, and nervous, high
strung women are sometimes not at all
improved by it, soothing as it may im-
mediately seem.
Any one who has been under the hands
OF clever masseur will regret that the
lomi-lomi experts have not long since
been imported to train few thousand
men and women in an art so greatly
needed by our nervous and sedentary race
The chiefs keep a number of lomi-lomi
people in their retinue, and DIR. Emerson
says the chiefs are 25 per cent larger and
taller than the subjects, because better
fed and more constantly lomi-lomied. In
cases Of stunted growth probably moth
ing would so effectually increase the
stature as abundance of pure air, strong
food, and skillful daily massage.
1t was proposed few years since by
some projecting people to import num-
Der Of japanese masseurs, who are also
very skillfnl in the art, and introduce
eastern luxuries into New York city; but
like many other excellent schemes it
awaits some shrewd persons of execu-
tive ability to carry it out.
To attempt description Of the mode
Of applying massage physicians agree is
not an easy matter. For perfection it
requires certain rapport of an intelli-
gent, skilIful hand with the feelings of
the patients rarity which any one can
imagine who has tried to have his hair
combed in exactly the right way.
French, German, and Scandinavian
physicians often apply massage them
selves without thought Of compromising
their dignity. Drs. Brown -Sequard,
Weir-Mitchell, and Edward II. Clark
have tried their hands at it. But the
patient would probably prefer less valu-
able time and feel more at ease with an
ordinary nurse.
DR. Weir Mitchell refers his first In
terest in the subject TO the remarkable
results obtained from its use by charla-
| tan in case of progressive paralysis.
DR.. Douglas thinks there is great room
for improvement in the training of mas
seurs, and most patients viii agree with
him. His @shrewd, superannuated
auntie out of job" who has learned the
meaning ef the word massage and prints
it on her ard, and continues her rubbin'
as she has always done, il type of a
plentiful class OF masseurs who can DO
tolerated IL they do not mix magnetism,