The "Law of Manu" prescribed diet, washing, baths, rubbing, and anointing with oil as religious exercises.
In 1854 an account was published of a German merchant, who had been treated in Stockholm by medical gymnastics, and who made a journey to Calcutta, and went through a course of massage and exercises there, in order to become an authority on the subject. He afterward founded an athenæum for rational gymnastics in Berlin.
The gymnastic exercises of the Indians consist of (1) wrestling, (2) of what we should call boxing, (3) stick, or sword, exercise. They also practice movements for rendering the limbs supple, and manipulations of various sorts. Before the Indians begin their exercises, they cower on the earth, and by turns rub each other with the mud from the delta of the Ganges when they can obtain it. All the muscles of their bodies are pressed and kneaded. When Indians are unwell, they frequently employ a cure called chamboning: the whole of the patient's body is gently kneaded, beginning with the upper extremities, descending to the feet.
Dr. Stein, of Heidelberg, who spent some years in the Dutch medical service in Java, writes that massage is practiced there, as in almost all the Dutch colonies of the Indian Ocean. It is known as pidjet-ten, and it is also employed in the Society, Sandwich, Feejee, and Tonga Islands. Dr. Emerson, a native of the Sandwich Islands, says it is there called lomi-lomi, and is performed either over the whole or part of the body, usually by old women. It consists in rubbing and kneading, and may vary from the gentlest stroke to the most powerful grip. It is considered as a high mark of honor for a host to perform this operation for his guest, or to receive this attention from him. No pain is inflicted. Occasionally the natives lie flat on the earth, and let their children trample on them. In an account of the Isle of Tonga, it is related that, when people are suffering from great fatigue, three or four little children are employed to trample on the body of the patient as he lies on the grass. Massage is frequently applied to the forehead, or the top of the head, in those islands, with excellent results.
In Forster's account of Cook's travels in Tahiti, we read that the friendly inhabitants rubbed the travelers' limbs in order to refresh them after their fatigues.
The Chinese are supposed to have learned the use of gymnastic exercises from the Indians, and the subject was mentioned in the most ancient of their books, the "Cong-Fou," or "Science of Living." The Chinese added the use of medicinal plants to the treatment of illness by rubbing and gymnastic exercises. The Egyptians were and are proficients in the art of manipulation, anointing with oil and friction being part of the cure employed. The Greeks employed gymnastics and massage in order to preserve health as well as to restore it.
Pythagoras taught his disciples to practice moderation, to use vegetable diet and gymnastic exercises.
