The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-06-07
THE ART OF MASSAGE.
An Ancient Treatment Revived
With Good Results.
THE TESTIMONY OF EXPERTS.
shirley nre Chats About Who Are
Proper Masseurs and Patients-A
Primitive Method OF Cure.


Recent rs massage may be to many
readers. neither name nor practice are
new. ranking among the primitive-one
NAV saw NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. of cure. In
anv main The natural prompting to press
the handupon the seat OF suffering, to rub
mr. kneadit for relief is common to civilized
man anc savage. 1t is the effort to equal
ixe circulation and draw the blood from
the injured part in congestion, or bring
hack natural warmth in collapse, for fric-
t;on does both. Like all healing methods
IN the hands of ignorant or unprincipled
practitioners, massage is overdone till it
Incomes charlatanry. At the same time in
wise hands it is blessed and signal relief.
often superseding the painful operations OF
surrsry and drastic medicines. In con-
denang the most interesting facts
abort it the names of DIR. Weir Mitchell, of
Philadelphia, and DIR. Douglas Graham. of
Boxon. will be sufficient authority. DR..
(3raham's able and scholarly book on mas
SAG Is the manual for the profession, and
message enters largely into DR.. Mitchell's
famous cures of nervous and spinal dis
eses.
Massage originally is from the Arabic
word smass,n meaning to press softly, but
row includes all manual forms of relief,
rubbing, s.roking, kneading and beating
the muscles.
The learned Professor Billroth, of
8 Vienna, who drew modern attention TO its
use about 1875, says that massage is as old
rs surgery. Kneading, rubbing and work
ing the muscles to relieve fatigue was the
practice of savage and heroic nations from
the earliest times DR.. Douglas reminds
us that Homer, in the "0dessey," tells
how beautiful women rubbed and anointed
war-worn heroes to rest and refresh them
where, we read, the fair Polcaste,
youngest daughter of Nestor, bathed Tele-
machus, sand after she had bathed and
anointed him with olive oil and cast about
him q goodly mantle he came forth from
the bath feeling like the deathless gods"
Again: 1.-THE Sicilian maid bathed high
hearted Laertcs and anointed him with oil
and cast fair mantle about him." 'Then
goodIy odysseus spoke to the maidens.
saying: 4 pray you stand apart while I
myself wash the brine from my shoulders
and anoint me. for / am ashamed TO I'M
robe me among fair tressed maidens.' !" In
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 watchings than for q hospital
nurse To tend man aching so from
wounds he does not know whether men,
women or demons attend him.
Doubtless readers have seen, as / have,
the most fastidious and irreproachable
women in hotel or boarding house re-
lieye each other in rubbing a rheumatic
man before nurse could be found, and
more sophisticated age may find such
natural mercies as incredible as the Sicil-
ian maidens are to US.
But ancient and modern charities of this
sort are equally removed from the hideous
massage madams who make themselves
and their art disreputable.
EARLY MASTERS OF THE ART.
In the fifth century B. c. Herodicus,
one of the masters of the healing art, pro-
longed the lives of his patients by exercise
and rubbing, and so cured himself of
weakness and i'll health that he lived to be
100, as we read in Huefeland's art of
Prolonging Life" Herododus speaks of
Egyptian massage and amounting. The
fathers of medicine abound with recon-
mendations OF massage, and it compels
our respect for the sages to hear Hippo
crates repeating truths whose Importance
experienced masseurs can fully appreciate.
Suitable massage knits slack and rickety
joints by stimulating their circulation,
nutrition and innovation, while with
proper friction stiff joint becomes dex-
ible. The fact that rubbing can make
flesh and cause it to waste is Of
tan FNt.r un1 a.. - ~ Oh
DIR. Graham says: People sometimes
lose much adipose tissue, to their detri-
ment, by the excessive use of massage.
But this can be used TO advantage where
fat is superabundant with want of tone
and tension, for in these it will be found
that hard rubbing binds. Soft rubbing
loosens not only tough and matted condi-
tons OF skin and superficial muscles, but
also involuntary tension of muscles found
In overtaxed and debilitated people. Here
comes the necessity of careful discrImina-
ton, for If patient in such condition re-
ceives 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 fric-
ton and manipulation upon terminal
nerve filaments already in state of irrita-
ton"
1t takes a certain amount of strength TO
bear massage, and nervous, high-strung
women sometimes are not at all improved
by it, soothing as it may immediately
seem. My own last experience of massage
by trained operator produced sort OF
intense sleepiness for half an hour. fol-
lowed by intolerable wakefulness the en-
tire night, as if / had taken strong coffee.
Massage is nowhere better understood
az the present day than among the Sand
witch Islanders, from whom il is TO be
hoped some enterprising traveller viii inn
port the art and practitioners together.
AS travelling in these islands must be done
on foot or horseback, long distances over
rough roads, life would miss one of its
greatest alleviations without this massage
or ioml-lomi, as the natives term il. When
tootsore, weary and sleepless with aching
joints and after q journey the consequences
with Us would be days of stupor and lame
ness. But the Hawaiian civilization sends
relief in the shape of an expert, with firm,
soft touch, who comes 10 your mat as you
ne IN single garment, and skillfnlly
khesds, works and strokes each wearied
muscle from head TO foot, and charms each
pain away. Mr.. Nordhoff's description
VIII ne remembered by all readers IA
most everywhere you find someone skilled
IA TINS peculiar, delightful and refreshing
sfeatmeat stout native. beginning with
your mead and working slowly down over
tne Whole body, seizes and squeezes with a
quite peculiar art every tired muscle, work
ms ana kneading with indefatigable pa
Le9ce, ahtii IN half an hour You ind your