To understand the chiromassage, it is worthwhile to make a small journey, for the history of the massage in the different cultures and countries.

China 

To the emperor Huang Ti, whose existence according to some goes back at 2.500 years before Christ and according to others at 1.000, is attributed the work Nei Ching, in which one speaks, of the cure, by means of frictions and kneadings on the skin and the muscles, keeping in mind the breathing rhythm. One of their paragraphs, begins saying: "first should feel with the hand and to trace the system of the body. The impulses of the hands should be continued equally"...

During the dynasty Tang, (609 - 907 d. C.), four types of therapists were recognized: doctors, acupuncturists, masseurs and exorcists.

Egypt

Also in the history of the remote Egypt, we find different references to the imposition of hands and the massage, generally combined with the manipulation in the plexuses or chakral areas, as well as in muscular areas with therapeutic ends.

This art the same as the divinatory sciences, the training of animals or the enchantment of snakes and the therapies of the dream, they were in the priests' hands that ended up being true expert in physiotherapy.

In some types of sedative massages, it was also used the help of the colors, being the first steps of the current chromotherapy.

India

According to McAuliffe, in the old Indian, the practice of the massages, it was known as Samvahana.

Already in old Indian medicine treaties, as the Ayur-veda, are references to the massage with therapeutic ends, using for it terms like touchings, rub, friction.

Greece 

In the old Greece, the sciences and the Arts flourished, the same as the cult to the beauty of the body, this cult took to the sport competitions, where the aliptes, was in charge of of anointing with oils the bodies of the athletes and they were also expert masseurs, specialized in sprains, twists and dislocations.

Homer, in their work The Odyssey, describes beautiful and strong woman hands anointing and rubbing the bodies of the soldiers, to relax them and to loosen them.

Also in Greece, they were the pioneers of the hydrotherapy that together with the massage, era used in the gyms where the athletes got ready for the Olympic Games. To the cold bathroom using the estringil, to liberate the skin of the spare oils, they happened him the massages relaxants.

Hippocrates (450 to. C.), considered as father of the medicine, in their "Treaty of the Articulations and the Fractures", dictated a series of norms with relationship to the manual therapies that in turn had received of their ancestors, what evidences the antiquity of the massage. In this treaty, shows the necessity to massage the inferior extremities in address to the heart, what was indicated to activate the circulation of venous return. We must keep in mind that the blood stream, was not discovered later up to two thousand to you in occident. to define this system of upward massage, Hippocrates used the term anatripsis.

Claudio Galeno (131-210 d. C.), it composed their "Treaty of Hygiene", where it admitted as important three organic centers: the heart, the liver and the brain. In this treaty, he said that the illness consisted on an imbalance of the vital economy of the organism, her maxim sentences it is: "the nature, anything makes in vain". Galeno, was commissioned to regulate the activities of the aliptes, with relationship to the athletes and Gladiators. In the times of Galeno, the massage enjoyed great prestige from the therapeutic point of view.

Roma

Among the many inheritances that the Roman empire acquired of the Hellenic culture, is the massage.

In the imperial and classic Roma, they were completely tied to each other the cures, the thermal waters, the spas, the restorations and the massages.

The massages, were practiced to eliminate organic deficiencies, as well as to be in shape and to correct postural defects, being also practiced the massages sedatives or relaxants, all them together to plentiful foods and bathrooms relaxants, to the object of satisfying the palate and the greed.

The medical Asclepiades of Bithynia, sustained that in the nature, everything happens from necessity and that the nature goes to his, sometimes being able to benefit and other to harm.

Asclepiades, combined the massage, the diet, the bathrooms, the drinks and the drugs of soft component, to produce a therapeutic pleasure and a soothing escape. One dedicates to try patient with psychic dysfunctions, ailment to which he called nefritis and in whose treatment, united the massage.

Termison and Areteo, pupils of the previous one, contributed from an effective way to the diffusion of the massage, through popularizing their therapeutic virtues.

Some specialists existed in the Roman empire in sport medicine and recovery, called vulnerari that were sport masseurs and other calls ungüentari that were specialist in ointments.

The massage along the Middle Ages

The hypocritical and moralists tendencies of those time, were generating a completely made scarce atmosphere that generated the feeble thing, mixture of superstition, lack of culture and prejudices.

Ended up considering the body like payee of the ferment of the sin, (fomes peccati), passing in compensation to give a place tremendously exaggerated to the spirit and their ethical-moral securities.

In this atmosphere, it is really worthy of praise the work of those that without false chastities, they continued developing the techniques of the massage, without the hypocritical fear to the naked bodies, in order to rubbing, to massage them and to manipulate them.

Celio Aureliano, medical doctor of the 5th century, united the massage to the diets, to the bathrooms of sun and the breathing exercises in the therapies that carried out mainly in the North Africa. In this therapies it distinguished two forms of working:

• Analepsis or restoring treatment, being based on unction's and sedative manipulations, guided to restore the balance and the patient's forces.
• Metasíncrisis, treatment starting from stronger manipulations and recovery movements, exercises and unblocking.  

Ecio de Amida, in the century VI, ended up considering the massage, like a form of life, recommending to use it, next to the unctions three up-to-date times.

Avicena, medical doctor and Arab philosopher of the XI century that to past to the posterity, with the nickname of prince of the medicine, he wrote The Canon of the Medicine and the Book of the Cures, where the virtues of the massage were explained, stops after lingering exercises or to eliminate the unhealthy substances accumulated in the muscles, through the friction that will also eliminate the fatigue. He recommends the soft frictions and applying oil, since in the event of rubbing hard and hardly, the treated members can feel the effect.

The massage from the Renaissance until our days

About the XIX century, the interest for the functional chiro-recovery, demonstrated by some doctors of which can describe as scientific medicine, opened the field for the specialists of the anatomy and the physiology.

The carve up and study of the organs of dozens of cadavers and the experiments with animals, they gave place to the discovery of the operation of the sanguine system and of the lymphatic currents, as well as that of the behavior of the nervous system, making evolve the massage, until that that in our days, it is known as chiromassage.

 Center of Psychology and Health of
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