THE METHOD.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 6 September 1913, Page 12

THE METHOD.

Massage is the method of treatment calculated more or less to take the place of ordinary physical exercise. Its practice dates from very early human history. Not only was it regularly practised by the Greeks and Romans, but descriptions of it are found in the oldest Hinuu and Chinese books. The object of massage is to accelerate by mechanical manipulation the flow of blood and lymph, and thus to bring about the more rapid absorption of waste products in the parts manipulated. It is not difficult or performance., though there is of course a right and a wrong way of setting about it. With a very little practical training any intelligent person can soon learn to perform massage efficiently. The fact should be realised that the play of the muscles in their pulling and dragging upon tendons, fasciae - and aponeuroses, names which the reader must take for granted, as well as by their own contraction and squeezing promotes the flow sluggish at best, of the lymph which bathes the cells of the body This lymph contains all the excretions of such cells as well as their nutriment, so that the need of its being moved on regularly is very evident. There is thus some truth in the suggestion contained when we speak of those who do not care for exercise as being of a "lymphatic temperament." hi the removing of depressing excretions also lies the secret of tnat real joy of life wihch ordinarily can only be obtaianed by bodily exercise.