THE ACTION OF MASSAGE UPON THE MUSCLES. 677 



with the hope, then, that the tender and, indeed, sacred feelings 

 which have been nurtured in household association will retain 

 their dominion over us, and that the family will survive in 

 unimpaired integrity, the fountain head of altruistic emotions, 

 the palladium of sound morality. 



-- 



THE ACTION OF MASSAGE UPON THE MUSCLES. 



By DOUGLAS GEAHAM, M. D. 



rpHAT " science follows art with limping strides," as so well 

 -L expressed by an able physician, is perhaps nowhere oftener 

 seen than in the various branches of the practice of medicine. 

 Experience has taught us from time immemorial the value of 

 massage as a nerve and muscle tonic, and, like all good things, 

 the possibility of its overuse. But the recent experiments of 

 Prof. Arnaldo Maggiora, of the University of Turin, so clearly 

 and beautifully detailed in the Archives Italiennes de Biologie 

 (tome xii, page 225), have demonstrated that this matter can be 

 brought into the sunny light of exact science and away from the 

 somber shades of quackery, where it has been so long relegated 

 by the vast majority of the medical profession. Zabludowski, it 

 is true, had in part prepared the way for this by showing that 

 when after fatigue from a definite amount of work a rest of fif- 

 teen minutes was insufficient to restore the tired muscles to their 

 former vigor, after massage for five minutes they were capable 

 of doing as much work as before, and after massage for fifteen 

 minutes they could do twice as much work as at first. 



Prof. Maggiora endeavored to ascertain : 



1. The action of massage upon muscles in a state of repose. 

 For this purpose the fatigue curves of the right and left middle 

 fingers in maximum voluntary flexion every two seconds with a 

 weight of three kilogrammes (6"6 pounds) were taken at 8 and 11 

 A. M,, at 2 and 5 P. m., and the following day the fatigue curves of 

 the same muscles with the same weight and rhythm were taken 

 after mixed massage (friction, percussion, and kneading) for three 

 minutes at the same hours of the day. The average result showed 

 that the muscles did almost twice as much work after massage as 

 they did before. The average of the work without massage was 

 4"352 kilogrammes for the left middle finger, but after massage of 

 the finger and forearm the average was 8'019 kilogrammes before 

 extreme fatigue stopped further contractions. An analogous series 

 of experiments was next made in which the electrical current was 

 employed to tire the muscles by applying it directly to them, and 

 also to the median nerve. The results without and with massage 



