Description

A history of significant masseuses, masseurs and Western massage from around 1,750 CE. up to the middle 1900s, in a series of essays in approximate historical order. The essays stand, and can be read, independently in any order of interest. The essays on early massage form the background to more ‘modern’ developments, in particular in the late 19th century, which was a golden age of literature about massage and a time when eminent doctors figured large in massage writings in the USA, UK and Europe – their important texts often stand in quite startling contrast with 21st-century practice and their writing and the massage developments they describe have received scant attention in 21st-century texts. They offer a world of opportunity for researchers to re-assess.

The author describes how medical audit evolved in the late twentieth century but was anticipated by doctors and masseurs assessing the effectiveness of massage in the mid-19th century. The essays also cover developments in the early- and middle-twentieth century associated with The First World War and the rehabilitation of injured soldiers, along with the (mainly) masseuses who did this work. In addition, they discuss some controversial areas such as who created so called ‘Swedish Massage’; who were the first writers on medical audit; who was possibly the foremost authority on massage of the late 19th and early 20th century but whose name has been almost erased from history.

The book concludes with a chapter profiling the work of a man who designated himself as a masseur into the 1960s, long after most, former ‘masseurs’, became ‘physiotherapists’, possibly the last ‘masseur’ in England at the time.