The gymnasiums and palæstriums of the Greeks were famous. Plato writes, "The object of gymnasiums is to instruct youths and men how to preserve health and keep their frames in good condition."
Before the Greeks took part in the national games, they had to undergo a course of preparation—bathing, friction, anointing, and also rubbing with sand. Fine sand from the Nile was preferred, and was imported from Egypt for the purpose; there were many rules for carrying out the process properly, and it was performed in various ways.
Among the many editions of the works of Hippocrates, there is a French one by Littré, in which the following passage occurs:
"A physician must possess experience of many subjects, among others, of massage."
Among the Romans, as, indeed, every child knows, the constant use of baths, followed by friction and anointing with oil, was customary. In illness, rubbing with warm oil, other kinds of friction, and "movement-cures," were used. Asclepiades also recommended exercise and friction. Celsus, the author of eight books on the science of healing, took for his motto, "The best medicine is to take no medicine." In inflammation of the brain, if he wished to induce sleep, he ordered rubbing for a considerable time (would this be animal magnetism?). He also advises rubbing to cure acute pains in the head, though not during an attack, and recommends friction to strengthen weak limbs.
Celsus lays much stress on passive movement for invalids. "The gentlest is exercise in voyaging on a ship, either in harbor or on a river. If being driven in a carriage is too fatiguing, he recommends the invalid to be carried on a couch or in a chair, and advises that the patient should be rocked in bed if too feeble to rise. Galen, who lived in the second century after Christ, approved highly of massage and gymnastics, but he did not advise athletics. He ordered friction in the evening, to remove fatigue. The body was to be rubbed with a woolen cloth, afterward with oil till the surface became red, and then with the bare hands in various directions. Rufus of Ephesus, who lived in the reign of Trajan, writes, "Women and maidens should sing and dance, not only to do honor to the gods, but in order to preserve their health." He adds, "It is important that physicians should not confine their attention to the bodily health, but should do all they can to develop the mental strength and well-being of children and young people, of men, and even of old men."
"We must pass over notices of many treatises that appeared during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, only remarking that Hoffman, in 1708, seems to have advocated the principles that govern the German schools of gymnastics in the nineteenth century.
Hoffman wrote that the conditions under which health is to be
