BCE 722-481: Massage is referred to in 30 chapters of the earliest Chinese medical texts called the Huang Di Nei Jing
– a compilation of the known Chinese medical knowledge up to that time,
and which became the foundation of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The
knowledge contained in the texts, however, is believed to originate in
the time of the Yellow Emperor (2711-2598 BCE, which pre-dates written
Chinese history).
BCE c. 7th century,
Japan: Japanese monks travelled to China to study Buddhism. They were
exposed to Chinese massage practices, which the Japanese later developed
into their own style of massage called “anma”. Anma eventually
developed into the practice known as Shiatsu, which uses massage to
balance energy in the body.
BCE 500: Jīvaka Komarabhācca
– also known as Shivago Komarpaj or Dr. Shivago – was the Buddha’s
personal physician and founded Traditional Thai Massage (Nuad Boran). He
based Thai Massage on a combination of Indian Ayurvedic and Chinese
traditions, including acupressure and assisted yoga postures. Rather
than using oils, the massage recipient remains clothed, and instead of
being rubbed the body is pressed, pulled, rocked and stretched.
BCE
493: The Book of Esther (2:12) in the Christian Bible’s Old Testament
and the Jewish Tanakh documents the beauty regimen of the women who were
presented to the Persian King Xerxes I (also identified as Ahasuerus),
including “treatments” with oil and myrrh.
BCE
327-325: Alexander The Great campaigned in India, during which time
Alexander and his soldiers were exposed to Indian massage traditions,
and brought them home with them to the kingdom of Macedon. From this
time forward Indian massage traditions were gradually incorporated into
Greek, Roman, and Turkish practices.
BCE 100-44:
Roman emperor Julius Caesar was known to suffer from sudden bouts of
weakness, convulsions and fainting. In his time this was chalked up to
epilepsy – seen by the Romans as a sign of divine possession. Modern
scholars now believe his symptoms are more likely attributable to a
series of mini strokes. After such episodes occurred, Julius Caesar would receive massage treatments to support his recovery.
CE
130-210, Roman Empire: Galen (Aelius or Claudius Galenus) was a revered
Greek physician and philosopher living in the Roman Empire.23
He served as personal physician to Septimius Severus and several other
emperors, as well as to the gladiators of the High Priest of Asia, to
whom he administered massage with olive oil. Galen was a prolific author
of medical texts that summarized and expanded on earlier Greek medical
knowledge, some of which included discussions of the many health
benefits of massage. However, Galen’s texts were not translated into
Latin during his time, and as the Roman Empire fell and the period known
as the Early Middle Ages (formerly referred to as the Dark Ages,
roughly 5th-10th centuries CE) began, the study of
Galen’s texts and ancient Greek medical knowledge (including Greek
massage) practically disappeared from the medical practices of the Latin
West, although massage continued to be practiced to a lesser extent by
folk medicine women, midwives, and nuns (who began to take on the role
of caring for the sick). Meanwhile, Galen’s works continued to be
studied and preserved in Byzantium – the mostly Greek-speaking remnants
of the Eastern Roman Empire.
CE 581-618, China:
Dr. Sun Si Miao – dubbed the “King of Medicine” – of the Sui and Tang
dynasties developed ten new massage techniques and systematized the
treatment of childhood diseases with massage therapy, and the Chinese
Office of Imperial Physicians established a department of massage
therapy. During this time Chinese massage practices (then called “anwu”)
became popularized in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the Islamic world.
CE 7th – 8th
centuries: The Byzantine regions of Syria and Western Mesopotamia began
to be conquered by Arab Muslims. After 750 CE, Muslims began to have
Syrian Christians make the first translations of some of Galen’s works
from Greek to Arabic. This sparked a renewed popularity and spreading of
the knowledge of Galen and Greek medicine (including massage)
throughout the medieval and early Islamic Middle East.
CE 980-1037: Avicenna (or Ibn Sīnā) was a Persian physician, astronomer and philosopher who
is now regarded as one of the most significant minds of the Islamic
Golden Age – comparable to Italy’s Leonardo da Vinci (who lived
centuries later). He produced over 450 writings consisting of a
systematization and compilation of the Persian and Greco-Roman medical
knowledge that had been translated into Arabic up to his time, and on
which Avicenna expanded with the inclusion of his own medical insights.
One of the most famous of these texts, “The Canon of Medicine”, included
instruction on what became the established precedent for the logical
assessment of conditions, and discussed the use of analgesic substances
and massage for pain relief.
This text was so influential that it
became a standard medical text in many Western and Eastern medieval
universities and remained in use until approximately the year 1650.
It is thanks to Avicenna and the Arabic translations of Galen’s
writings that knowledge of Greco-Roman massage and medicine were not
lost, but were instead revived in both the Islamic world and Christian
West. The renewed interest in ancient Greek and also Latin texts
eventually inspired a new era of innovation in medicine, art and
technology in Europe – the Renaissance (c. 1300-1600).
.gif)
Figure 3.11 Swedish Gymnastics at the Royal Gymnastics Central Institute in Stockholm, c. 1900
.gif)
.gif){kind=small}
