Page:Massage & exercises combined (second version).djvu/27

 trunk is secured by stroking and pressing with the hands on the body and limbs. Here the pressing is not stationary, as in the Indian and similar exercises, but it is done while the hands are stroking. This stroking and pressing is done in such a manner that it is identical with scientific massage movements, some of which have been used by specialists prominent in Europe and America. To the exercises are also added those which in the author's experience at hospitals in New York, have been found to be productive of the best results. The only difference is that they are here joined to the movements of the body and are performed by the individual.

These massage movements have a far greater beneficial effect—therapeutically as well as physiologically—than the body movements themselves, to which they are combined. A brief explanation of their effects may here be interpolated.

1. They bring about increasing activity in the glands and vessels of the skin and muscles. Waste and poisonous substances are carried away by the lymph and blood supply and disposed of through the skin, lungs and kidneys more readily than otherwise.

2. Flabby and atrophied muscles are nourished and restored, while hard and contracted muscles are made more soft and supple; and fatigue matter removed from them.

3. They stimulate and nourish the nerves and through them the tissues and organs of the body.

4. They cause increased combustion in the tissues, more carbonic acid gas is eliminated and more oxygen absorbed, thereby stimulating and in