A treatise on massage, theoretical and practical : its history, mode of application and effects, indications and contra-indications, with results in over fifteen hundred cases / by Douglas Graham.

  • Douglas Graham
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on massage, theoretical and practical : its history, mode of application and effects, indications and contra-indications, with results in over fifteen hundred cases / by Douglas Graham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    feet; and the shoulder blades as well. And when they seem to have had enough, lift her up by the tail, and having given her a stretching let her go. And she will shake herself when let go, and show that she liked the treatment. — [Arrian Cynegeticus.] Aside from the beneficial effects of the friction, the stretching also is of value, for we know that people in health, as well as animals, stretch before and after sleep, and this is partly invol- untary. The influence of alternately stretching and relaxing the fasciae in favoring the flow of lymph has been most inter- estingly demonstrated outside of the living body, thus showing how one of the most important physiological processes is carried on, and the necessity of semi-involuntary movements taking place when rest or fatigue has kept a person too long in one position. But more of this hereafter in its proper place. Oribasius, a Greek, who early acquired a high reputation, and was taken by the emperor Julian to Gaul as his physician, describes in wearisome detail the apotherapeia or perfect cure, meaning the last part of the ancient gymnastics which consisted of bathing, friction, and inunction for the purpose of obviating fatigue or curing disease. The apotherapeia, says he, has two objects, that of evacuating superfluities and of preserving the body from fatigue. The former is common to exercise considered as a whole, for we regard exercise as having two effects: that of strengthening the solid parts of the body and of evacuating the superfluities. The peculiar aim of apothe- rapeia is to combat and to prevent the fatigue which habitually follows immoderate exercise, and the nature of this aim will in- dicate to us how it is necessary to perform the apotherapeia; for if we propose to evacuate precisely the superfluities of the solid parts of the economy, which after having been warmed and attenuated by exercise still remain in the system, we must use friction by many hands and varied with rapidity, in order that as much as possible no part of the individual whom we rub be un- covered. During the friction we ought to extend the parts which we rub, and besides, we will prescribe what we call reten- tion of the breath. . . . We are of opinion, that it is well to extend the parts which we rub, so as to evacuate through the skin