The art of massage / by A. Creighton Hale.

  • Hale, A. Creighton.
Date:
[1893]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The art of massage / by A. Creighton Hale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    forcibly extending the nerve. Mild faradic current may be applied when there is no pain on the course of the nerve in response to pressure. Two cases of facial neuralgia which have recently come under my notice I will quote as being of general interest. The first, a hard painful growth on the lower maxillary which had caused great suffering for more than a fortnight, was treated by the sufferer (herself a masseuse). Determined to ascertain whether the congestion could be relieved by increasing the flow of blood to the tissues, and to endeavour to remove the growth by grinding away, she subjected the tender part to active pressure movements for twenty minutes. The immediate result was far from pleasant, but after twenty minutes' rest the pain was greatly relieved, and by the next morning the growth which had disfigured her for a fortnight had entirely dis- appeared. Emboldened by this success, when some months later she experienced great suffering from acute neuralgia in an upper molar, she repeated the experiment. There being no ab- normal growth on this occasion to grind away, circular friction was used for ten minutes as a counter-irritant on a higher branch of the same nerve and gave almost instant and perfect relief It needed some little courage to try these experi- ments on herself, but she had the courage of her convictions. Rheumatism.—Chiefly due to impoverished state of the blood and defective assimilation, but may also follow muscular wasting, and be considered a mild and early stage of locomotor ataxy. I recently treated a case in which crutches had