Part 1

[Illustration:

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 142.—VOL. III. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1886. PRICE 1½_d._]

MASSAGE.

A MODE OF MEDICAL TREATMENT.

Massage as a hygienic agent was practised from the earliest times, and is probably as old as surgery itself, or, as it would be more exact to say, as old as mankind. The word is derived from the Greek to knead, and the Arabic to press softly. A Chinese manuscript, the date of which is three thousand years before the Christian era, contains an account of operations similar to those of the present day: friction, kneading, manipulating, rolling—all the procedures now grouped together under the name of massage. The translator of this curious record, a French missionary at Pekin, finds it to include all the characteristics of an ancient scientific mode of treatment; and it has been wittily remarked, that however it may rejuvenate those who submit to its influence, the wrinkles of time cannot be removed from its own ancient visage.

With the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, a form of massage was the common accompaniment of the bath, and was used as a luxury, as a means of hastening tedious convalescence, and to render the limbs supple and enduring. Rubbing and anointing were sometimes done by medical practitioners themselves, or by the priests, or sometimes by slaves. Herodicus, one of the masters of Hippocrates in the fifth century B.C., first proposed gymnastics as a cure for disease. He was the superior officer of the gymnasium at Athens; and by compelling his patients to undergo various exercises and to have their bodies rubbed, is said to have lengthened their lives, insomuch that Plato reproached him for protracting that existence, in which, as years advanced, they could have less and less enjoyment. He himself, by the practice of his own remedies, attained the age of a hundred.

The earliest definite information regarding massage comes from Hippocrates, who says: ‘The physician must be experienced in many things, but assuredly also in rubbing; for things that have the same name have not always the same effects, for rubbing can bind a joint that is too loose, and loosen a joint that is too rigid.’ He also used the word _anatripsis_, the process of rubbing _up_, and not _down_, although not understanding the reason of it, as it was not till five hundred years later that Galen pointed out that the arteries were not filled with air, as their name would seem to imply. Asclepiades was probably not far wrong when he founded his school at Rome on the belief that diet, bathing, exercise, and friction should keep the body without disease; and Cicero affirmed that he owed as much of his health to his anointer as he did to his physician. Plutarch tells us that Julius Cæsar had himself pinched all over daily, as a means of getting rid of a general neuralgia. Celsus, at the beginning of the Christian era, advised that rubbing should be applied to the whole body, ‘when an invalid requires his system to be replenished;’ and Pliny availed himself of a mode of treatment which was evidently much in fashion in his day, and derived so much benefit from the remedy, that he obtained for his physician, who was a Jew, the privileges of Roman citizenship. It is related of the Emperor Hadrian that one day seeing a veteran soldier rubbing himself against the marble at the public baths, he asked him why he did so. The veteran answered: ‘I have no slave to rub me.’ Whereupon, the emperor gave him two slaves and sufficient to maintain them. It is quaintly added to this story, that the next day several old men rubbed themselves against the wall in the emperor’s presence, when, perceiving their object, he shrewdly directed them to rub one another.

The works of Plato abound in references to the use of friction; and numberless passages might be cited from celebrated writers describing the hygienic exercises of the gymnasium, and the manner in which children were led by degrees to execute the most difficult evolutions without fear or risk of fracture. In describing the course pursued, friction, pressure, malaxation, are all in turn noticed by different authors, and strongly recommended. The Egyptians were probably the first among civilised nations to put the system into practice, and they were copied by the Greeks and Romans. Savary, in his _Lettres sur l’Egypt_, describes part of the process: ‘After the bath and a short interval of repose, whilst the limbs retain a soft moisture, an attendant presses them gently, and when each limb has become supple and flexible, the joints are cracked without effort; il masse et semble paîtrir la chaire sans que l’on éprouve la plus legère douleur.’

In the fifteenth century, Henry II. of France decreed that a treatise should be written upon the hygienic exercises of ancient Rome. Six years later, Mercurialis took up the question from a medical point of view; after which, Ambrose Paré, the most renowned surgeon of the sixteenth century, dilated on the value of the works of Oribasius, written in the time of the Emperor Julian; and he described three kinds of friction and the effects of each, and was thought so skilful, that although a devout Huguenot, he was spared at the massacre of St Bartholomew.

To Peter Henrik Ling is given the credit of having instituted the ‘Swedish movement cure.’ He was even thought to have invented it; but he simply founded his system on the _Kong Fau_ manuscript, which is not only the Chinese system, but that of the Brahmins, the Egyptian priests, and the Greek and Roman physicians. M. Dally has characterised his theory and practice as nothing more than a daguerreotype copy of the _Kong Fau_ of Tao-ssè, and called it a splendid Chinese vase with its Chinese figures clothed in European colours. Estradère, moreover, proves that in the _San-tsai-tow-hoei_, published at the end of the sixteenth century, there is to be found a collection of engravings representing anatomical figures and gymnastic exercises; amongst these are figured frictions, pressures, percussions, vibrations—massage itself, in fact. These movements the Pekin missionaries affirm to have been in use from time immemorial, and were employed to dissipate the rigidity of the muscles occasioned by fatigue, spasmodic contractions, and rheumatic pains. The operators who practised this calling had no fixed dwelling, but used to walk about the streets, advertising their presence by the clanking of a chain or by some sort of musical instrument.

Lepage, in his historical researches on Chinese medicine, relates that massage was a particular practice borrowed from the Indians, and that it was by such means that the Brahmins effected their miraculous cures. The word shampooing is of Hindu origin; but it must be borne in mind that these Old-world practices were only a faint foreshadowing of the present scientific method. In his _Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales_, Piorry remarks that the simplest form of massage prevails wherever the people have least outgrown their primitive state; and travellers describe it as universally common in countries where nature alone dictates the remedy for accident or disease. Captain Cook, in his voyage to Tahiti, describes that on arriving they were hospitably received, and that in the corner of a hut, carefully closed over with reeds, a large piece of matting was spread on the ground for them, and that their legs and arms were rubbed and the muscles softly pressed until all signs of fatigue had disappeared. The _Gazette des Hôpitaux_, in 1839, relates how massage is practised in the island of Tonga: ‘When a person feels tired with walking or any other exercise, he lies down, and his servants go through the various operations known under the names of Toogi-toogi, mili, or fota. The first of these words expresses the action of beating constantly and softly; the second, of rubbing with the palm of the hand; the third, of pressing and tightening the muscles between the thumb and fingers. When the fatigue is very great, young children are set to tread under their feet the whole body of the patient.’

The lomi-lomi of the Sandwich Islanders is much the same thing: the process is spoken of as being that of neither kneading, squeezing, nor rubbing, but now like one, and now like the other. Dr N. B. Emerson relates that the Hawaiians are a famous race of swimmers, and to a foreigner seem amphibious. When wrecked, they sometimes swim long distances; and if one of their number becomes exhausted, they sustain him in the water and lomi-lomi him. When perfectly refreshed, they proceed upon their watery way.

Baudin, in his _Travels in New Holland_, relates that the individuals who have the greatest influence amongst the savages are the _mulgaradocks_, or medical charlatans. A mulgaradock is regarded as possessing power over the elements either to avert wind and rain, or to call down tempests on the heads of those who come under their displeasure. In order to calm a storm, he stands in the open air, spreads out his arms, shakes his mantle, made of skins, and gesticulates violently for a considerable time. In order to effect a cure, he proceeds much in the same way, but with rather less noise: he practises a mode of rubbing, and sometimes hits the patient with green rods which have first been heated at a fire, stopping at intervals to let the pain pass away. The Africans follow the same fashion; and with the Russians, flagellation and friction by means of a bundle of birch twigs are resorted to. After the subject has been well parboiled in a vapour bath, a pailful of cold water is then dashed over him, the effect of which is described as electrifying. After this, he plunges into the snow, and thus prepares himself to endure the rigour of the climate with impunity. The Siberians and Laplanders also are said to indulge in these luxuries.

To France belongs the credit of giving to modern medicine a scientific system of massage; and yet, in spite of many able works, and various discussions at the Academy of Sciences and other learned societies, it remained a sort of secret practice, almost wholly under the domain of empiricism; but with the waning interest of French physicians, the Germans and Scandinavians took up the subject; and about ten years ago, Dr Mezger of Amsterdam brought massage to be acknowledged as a highly valuable method. He placed it upon the basis of practical knowledge, thus taking it out of the hands of ignorant charlatans. He did not write much about it, but simply employed the teaching of facts. To physicians who wrote to him for an explanation of his treatment, he only said, ‘Come and see.’ To Professor von Mosengeil is owing the present accurate and scientific knowledge of the subject; by his careful and painstaking observations he has brought massage into high esteem, so that it is now acknowledged as a special branch of the art of medicine.

There is, however, a pitfall to be avoided. Dr William Murrell, in his recent practical work, _Massage as a Mode of Treatment_, gives a very necessary warning to those who would use it ignorantly. He admits that it is not free from the taint of quackery, and that the so-called massage practised in some of our hospitals and under the auspices of some nursing institutions is a painful exhibition of ignorance and incompetence, being simply a degenerate form of rubbing or shampooing. Having lately witnessed the progress of a number of cases under the care of Professor Mosengeil in Germany, he remarks that the massage of ‘medical rubbers’ is not massage at all, as the term is understood on the continent, and has little or nothing in common with it. It is quite a mistake to think we can take John from the stables and Biddy from the washtub, and in one easy lesson convert either into a safe, reliable, or efficient manipulator. Dr Murrell has found it successful in various kinds of paralysis; in writers’, painters’, and dancers’ cramp; and in the cramp of telegraph office operators, who, just as they have attained to the highest point of dexterity, find that every movement is performed with effort and pain, until at last no movement is possible at all.

The chief advocates of massage have been men of note; and although it is only recently that it has gained an extensive scientific consideration, it is gradually but surely obtaining a wider circulation and a higher place as a worthy therapeutical agent.

BY ORDER OF THE LEAGUE.

CHAPTER II.

Without the city walls, hidden by the umbrella pines, and back from those secluded walks where young Rome takes its pleasure, stood the Villa Salvarino, almost under the shade of the walls, and hard by the gate of San Pancrazio. In the more prosperous days of the Eternal City, it might have been, and indeed was, the residence of some great Roman family; but aristocracies decline and families pass away; and the haughty owners were by no means averse from making a few English pounds by letting it to any traveller who had the inclination or the means to spend a few months there. The present tenant at this bright Easter-time, Sir Geoffrey Charteris, of Grosvenor Square, London, W., and Haversham Park, in the county of Dorset, Baronet, Deputy-lieutenant, and Justice of the Peace, was a man of long descent. The pale azure fluid in his veins was not the blood of us poor mortals; his life-giving stream had been transmitted through succeeding generations from a long line of gallant warriors and gentle dames; from fearless ancestors who followed their sovereign at the call to arms, marched with Richard of the Lion-heart to the Holy Sepulchre, and maybe crossed swords with the doughty Saladin himself. The title, conferred upon a Charteris by the Black Prince in person after the glorious field of Creçy, had known no tarnish as it passed down the long line of great and good men, soldiers, statesmen, and divines, to the present worthy representative of all these honours. Not that he had greatly distinguished himself in any field, save as an Under-secretary in a short-lived inglorious Ministry, where he had made a lasting name as the most incompetent individual ever appointed to office, though he dated every subsequent event and prefixed every after-dinner story by an allusion to the time when he was in the Earl of Muddleton’s Ministry.

The reception rooms of the villa were crowded when our friends arrived. It was a kind of informal after-dinner reception, attended by most of the English visitors lingering after the Carnival, with some sprinkling of the resident aristocracy; for Sir Geoffrey liked to gather people round him, birth and genius being equally welcome. Sir Geoffrey looked every inch an English gentleman, standing there among his guests. He was apparently about fifty years of age, tall and straight, thoroughbred from his stiff gray hair to the small shapely feet, as yet untroubled by the family gout. His eyes were pale blue, and somewhat weak; his face, clear-cut and refined, with an aquiline nose and a high white forehead, but the whole marred by a mouth weak and nervous to the last degree. A connoisseur of art, a dabbler in literature, and last, but not least, a firm believer in spiritualism.

Enid Charteris, his only daughter and heiress, a girl about eighteen, must be taken for granted. Imagine in all your dreams of fair women what a golden-bronzed-haired girl should be, and you have Enid, with all her charms of manner and person, with that perfect expression without which the most classic features are cold. She smiled brightly as the new-comers entered. It is not given to every one to be able to disguise their likings and antipathies, and it did not need a practised eye to see her cold greeting for Le Gautier, and the instantaneous glance for Maxwell.

‘I really began to think you were going to fail me,’ she said; ‘and this is the last of our receptions too. I shall always have pleasant recollections of my visit to Rome.’

‘We have been dining with Maxwell, Miss Charteris,’ Visci explained. ‘Could we forget you, if we tried! And now, before you are so engaged that you can have no word for poor me, I want to ask you a favour. We are going to my country retreat on Friday, and my sister Genevieve is dying to see you. Do persuade Sir Geoffrey to come.’

‘Here he is to answer for himself,’ she replied, as the baronet sauntered up to the group.—‘Papa, you must promise to take me to see Signor Visci’s country-house on Friday.—Do you hear?’

‘Anything you say is law, my dear,’ Sir Geoffrey answered with comic resignation. ‘Anything you desire.—Le Gautier, I wish to speak to you,’ he whispered quietly; ‘come to me presently.—Salvarini, you here? I thought you had forsworn gaieties of all descriptions. Glad to see you are thinking better of your misanthropy.’

Le Gautier turned off with the baronet somewhat impatiently, leaving the rest together. Salvarini, looking on somewhat thoughtfully, almost fancied there was a look of relief in Enid’s face as the Frenchman left; certainly, she was less constrained.

‘We shall look forward to Friday with great pleasure, then, Signor Visci,’ she said. ‘I have heard you speak so much of the Villa Mattio, that I am expecting to see a perfect paradise.’

‘With two Eves,’ Maxwell whispered in English. Visci was not a man to misunderstand the meaning of true company, so, with a bow and a little complimentary speech, he turned aside, taking Salvarini by the arm, and plunged into the glittering crowd.

‘I do not understand the meaning there,’ Salvarini remarked as they walked through the rooms. ‘If Maxwell means’——

‘Orange blossoms,’ Visci interrupted laconically; ‘and right, too.—Let us get into the music-room. Le Fanu is going to play.’

Maxwell remained by Enid’s side, toying with her fan and discoursing in their native language in a low voice. From the expression in his face and the earnest ring in his voice, there was no doubting the power of the attraction that chained him there.

‘When do you leave Rome, Miss Charteris?’ he asked, abruptly changing the conversation. ‘This is your last reception, I know.’

‘We shall leave in the middle of next week for certain. I shall be very sorry for some reasons, for I have been happy here.’

‘I shall probably return with you,’ Maxwell observed. ‘I have deferred my departure too long already. It would be pleasant to leave together.’

‘After learning everything that Rome could teach you,’ Enid put in archly. ‘Then the Eternal City has no more artistic knowledge to impart?’

‘Yes; I have learned some lessons here,’ Maxwell replied with a tender inflection, ‘besides artistic ones. I have been learning one lately that I am never likely to forget. Am I presumptuous, Miss Enid?’

‘Really, Mr Maxwell, you are too mysterious. If I could understand you’——

‘I think you do understand me; I fervently hope you do.’

For a moment, a little wild-rose bloom trembled and flushed on the girl’s cheek, then she looked down, playing with her fan nervously. No reason to say she did not understand now. Maxwell did not follow up his advantage; some instinct warned him not; and adroitly changing the conversation, he told her of his life in Rome, each passing moment linking his chains the firmer. Gradually, as they sat talking, a group of men gathered round, breaking in upon their tête-à-tête, laughing and talking after the most approved drawing-room fashion.

In a distant corner, Sir Geoffrey had button-holed Le Gautier, and was apparently deep in conversation on some all-absorbing subject. The Frenchman was a good listener, with that rare faculty of hearing all that was worthy of note and entirely ignoring the superfluous. He was not a man to talk much of himself, and consequently heard a great deal of family history; details and information that astute young man had found valuable on occasions. He was interested now, Maxwell thought, as he idly speculated upon his face.

‘Yes,’ Sir Geoffrey was saying, ‘I am firmly impressed with that belief.’ He had got upon his favourite topic, and was talking with great volubility. ‘There are certain gifted beings who can call spirits from the vasty deep, and, what is more, the spirits will come. My dear sir, they have been manifested to me.’

‘I should not wonder,’ Le Gautier replied, stifling a yawn in its birth. ‘I think you are quite right. I am what people call a medium myself, and have assisted at many a séance.’

‘Of course you believe the same as I. Let unbelievers scoff if they will, I shall always believe the evidence of my eyes.’

‘Of course,’ Le Gautier returned politely, his thoughts wandering feebly in the direction of nightmare, and looking round for some means of escape. ‘I have seen ghosts myself, or thought I have.’

‘It is no imagination, Le Gautier,’ Sir Geoffrey continued, with all the prosy earnestness of a man with a hobby. ‘The strangest coincidence happened to me. My late brother, Sir Ughtred, who has been dead nearly twenty years, manifested himself to me the other night. Surely that implies some coming evil, or some duty I have neglected?’

‘Perhaps he charged you with some commission,’ Le Gautier observed, and pricking up his ears for any scrap of useful information.

‘Not that I remember; indeed, I did not see him for years before he died. He was an eccentric man, and an extreme politician—in fact, he got into serious trouble with the authorities, and might even have been arrested, had he not removed himself to New York.’

‘New York?’ queried Le Gautier, wondering vaguely where he had heard of this Ughtred Charteris before. ‘Was he connected with any secret society—any Socialist conspiracy?’

‘Do you know, I really fancy he was,’ Sir Geoffrey whispered mysteriously. ‘There were certainly some curious things in his effects which were sent to me. I can show you some now, if you would like to see them.’

Le Gautier expressed his willingness; and the baronet led the way into a small room at the back of the house, half library, half studio. In one corner was an old ebony cabinet; and opening the front, he displayed a multitude of curiosities such as a man will gather together in the course of years. In one little drawer was a case of coins. Le Gautier turned them over carelessly one by one, till, suddenly starting, he eagerly lifted one and held it to the light. ‘Where did you get this?’ he asked abruptly.

Sir Geoffrey took it in his hand. It was a gold coin, a little larger than an ordinary sovereign, and bearing on the reverse side a curious device. ‘That came with the rest of my brother’s curiosities.—But why do you ask? You look as if the coin had burnt you.’

For a moment, Le Gautier had started back, his pale face aglow with suppressed excitement; but as he noticed the baronet’s wondering eyes upon him, he recovered himself by a violent effort. ‘It is nothing’—with a smile. ‘It is only the coincidence which startled me for a moment. If you will look here, you will see that I wear a similar coin upon my watch-chain.’

Sir Geoffrey looked down, and, surely enough, on the end of Le Gautier’s pendant was the fac-simile of the medal he held in his hand.

‘Bless me, what an extraordinary thing!’ the startled baronet exclaimed. ‘So it is! Perhaps you do not mind telling me where you procured yours?’