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The history of massage reveals how this ancient healing practice has withstood the test of time.

Massage therapy has been touted as one of the oldest forms of medical treatment.

First recorded in China during the second century B.C. in The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, massage was mentioned as a recommendation for the treatment of certain ailments. In India, the traditional healing system of Ayurvedic medicine also prescribed massage for a variety of medical conditions. Physicians of ancient Greece and Rome utilized massage as one of the primary methods to treat pain. In the West, during the fifth century B.C., Hippocrates also instructed his fellow physicians on the many benefits of rubbing.

History of Swedish Massage

It would seem that the impulse to rub a hurt was quite instinctual, but up until the early 1800s, there were few advances in the actual massage techniques until Swedish massage was developed. A Swedish doctor named Per Henrik Ling is often mistakenly associated with Swedish massage. He actually incorporated massage with medical gymnastics and physiology and developed the Swedish Gymnastic Movement System. Early on, physiotherapy was actually originally based on Ling's manual methods.

Massage Therapy had been used for many medical and psychiatric conditions until scientific breakthroughs in medical technology and pharmacology substantially changed the foundation of medicine in the West. Quite simply, drugs became the solution for many ailments and electrical instruments gradually replaced manual methods.

Massage is a Natural Healing Therapy

Over the years, though massage faded in and out of our Western medical system, it seems there has always been an awareness of its inherent healing and therapeutic value. During the 1960s, a wave of interest in natural healing once again revitalized the practice of massage and has continued to be a popular method of dealing with stress. Perhaps this is why massage has become mainstream as the increased pace of life has created all sorts of stress related problems.

In 1997, a U.S. survey showed that consumers spent between four to six billion dollars on massage, approximately 30 percent of the total amount of money spent on complementary and alternative medicine. At the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine, medical doctors are researching the beneficial effect of massage therapy on a variety of conditions such as stress-related disorders, depression and anxiety, pain, and auto-immune disorders. I think it is fair to say that our ancestors were on to something when they rubbed themselves well!