History Of Massage TherapyThink about it. When you bump your head, you rub it. Early man did the same thing. The history of massage therapy is ancient, going all the way back to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. As a mom myself, I am sure that when Eve's children came to her in pain, she rubbed the painful area with her hands to make the pain stop. It worked then and it works now.This is called the gate theory. The way it works is the pressure of the massage gets in the way of pain information being transmitted to the spinal cord by stimulating pressure receptors. This makes the pain go away temporarily.When the first people discovered that, they used it every time they experienced pain--there was no drug store stocked with pain relievers. There was not even ice unless they lived in a cold climate and it was winter when they got hurt. The recorded history of massage therapy starts out around 15,000 BC with cave paintings found in Europe showing what looks like people using healing touch on one another. In ancient China around 3000 BC, records document healing touch being used there. Somewhere between 200 BC and 100 AD, Chinese medicine as it is now came into being, with massage as a documented modality for the treatment of illness. The Chinese called massage Amma in medical writings in 90 AD. Amma is considered to be the true ancestor of all modes of massage. By the 6th century AD, massage was being practiced in Japan. India has documentation of their ancient massage form called Ayur-Veda around 1800 BC. This was brought to India by China. Greeks and Romans also used massage. There is documentation by ancient Greco-Roman writers that massage was preferred over drugs during the heights of the Greek and Roman Empires. Roman Paul of Aegina (AD 625-690) used stretching, bending, and rubbing of paralyzed arms and legs as treatment. During the Middle Ages, many medical practitioners dropped massage and used other treatments. Then during the Renaissance, French doctor Ambroise Pare (1510-1590) classified massage movement types. Pehr Henrik Ling (1776-1839) was a Swedish physiologist who developed a system of active, passive, and duplicated movements. Massage was also used in his gymnastics and was known as Swedish massage. The history of massage therapy is diverse, with bits and pieces coming from all over the world, since the beginning of time. Chair MassageThe modern massage chair was developed by David Palmer and a French cabinet maker named Serge Bouyssou in 1984. The first one was wooden. Now they are made of lightweight materials for easy portability. They are light, but still very sturdy.
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