The Medical Heritage Library collection has more than doubled in size in the past year, with the upload of its 100,000th item this month. In October 2014, 10 new institutions from the United Kingdom joined the project and have so far contributed 30,000 titles to the growing collection, including its 100,000th item.
This milestone was achieved by the digitisation of Recent Developments in Massage by Douglas Graham, published in 1893 and originating from the collections of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh. This work is an update to and summary of Graham’s much longer (and denser) 1890 publication A Treatise on Massage. Graham describes a wide range of massage techniques to ease symptoms and treat diseases such as diabetes, diarrheoa, fever, and ulcers.
Interestingly, Graham even recommends massage to treat diseases of the eye, as well as sight problems including near and far-sighted eyes, and astigmatic eyes.
How do you massage an eye? Graham describes three methods, which start off mild and then become eye-wateringly severe:
Massage Simple,
which is done by moving the lids, under slight pressure, in a radial direction away from the centre of the cornea, and by circular friction, under slight pressure upon the upper lid, around the sclera-corneal margin and adjacent surfaces.
Massage Medicated,
is done in the same manner as Massage Simple of the eye, with the addition of lotions or ointments introduced inside the lids. [In the case of treating ulcers in this way, Graham recommends cocaine as an anaesthetic].
Massage Traumatique,
is as near like rubbing the inside of the lids with sand-paper as can be imagined. It is used for granulations of the conjunctiva and opacities of the cornea. The conjunctiva is at first rendered insensitive by means of cocaine. A finger or thumb is then rendered antiseptic in a solution of corrosive sublimate, and after this it is dipped into some finely pulverized boracic acid. The lid is then turned up or down, and the massage is as strong as can be tolerated for two or three minutes. A profuse flow of blood is occasioned thereby, but very soon, in place of the rugous surface which was felt at first, there is a smooth and soft surface, showing that the granulations have been rubbed off.
You can read through the whole book below or follow this link to read Recent Developments in Massage.
And as always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!
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