How Massage Has Evolved Through the Ages - Allure Magazine (blog)

[massage]

Its reputation may be as relaxation for sybarites, but massage has a firm place in ancient history and Eastern and Western medicine.


2300 B.C.: Estimated year Egyptian hieroglyphics depicting people massaging one another's hands and feet were created.

2,500: Number of years ago that Buddha received Thai massage from his physician, Shivago Komarpaj, who is arguably the forefather of the technique.

400 B.C.: Approximate year in which Hippocrates recommended relaxing body rubs for medicinal purposes.

10th: Street in Washington, D.C., where former gymnast Hartvig Nissen (who introduced Swedish massage to the United States) treated General Ulysses S. Grant for rheumatoid arthritis in 1883.

40: Percentage of physical therapy treatments for which massage was prescribed at U.S. Army hospitals in 1918. By the 1950s, massage had almost disappeared from military hospitals in favor of more active therapy.

2013: Year that 25 prehypertensive women received short weekly massages in an Iranian study, decreasing their blood pressure significantly compared with a control group.

10: Seasons of the TV show Friends in which Lisa Kudrow played Phoebe, a massage therapist.

3: Season in which Phoebe meets her long-lost half brother, who incorrectly assumes she does erotic massage.

4,790: Number of erotic-massage parlors across the United States included in a study on the underground-sex economy by the Urban Institute in 2014.

$22,165: Average yearly income of a massage therapist in 2014, according to the American Massage Therapy Association. The average hourly rate was $68.

$100: Average hourly rate for an equine massage. Dog masseurs earn between $45 and $75 an hour.

62: Percentage of heterosexual men from 26 countries who said that giving or receiving a massage was among their sexual activities in a 2009 study; 58 percent of heterosexual women said the same. The activity was most popular among lesbians: 76 percent engaged in it.

1: Number of 45-minute Swedish-massage sessions found to improve the immune system in a 2010 study at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

2014: Year the Mayo Clinic reported that lipomassage with a handheld machine may improve the appearance of cellulite, although the results are short-lived.


PHOTO: LUMINA/STOCKSY


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