Massage and its applications : a concluding lecture delivered to nurses and masseuses, at the School of Electricity and Massage in connection with the West-End Hospital for Diseases of the Nervous System, Paralysis, and Epilepsy, 73, Welbeck Street, London, W. / by Herbert Tibbits.

  • Tibbits, Herbert, 1838-1907.
Date:
[1887]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Massage and its applications : a concluding lecture delivered to nurses and masseuses, at the School of Electricity and Massage in connection with the West-End Hospital for Diseases of the Nervous System, Paralysis, and Epilepsy, 73, Welbeck Street, London, W. / by Herbert Tibbits. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    39/66 (page 37)
    Physician, Mrs. Anna Kingsford, who possesses one of the highest medical degrees obtainable anywhere, the M.D., of Paris. Life said Dr. Anna Kingsford, is often very hard for educated women. Plard, not only because marriage is impossible for all, and because provision is not always made by parents for the support of their single daughters, but because also, women as well as men, have energies that require exercise, and laudable cravings after occupation which ought not to be repressed. It is therefore very pleasant to think medical science has opened a new door to our sex, and that ladies who do not care to face the severe toils necessary to become physicians and surgeons, or the prolonged discipline to which hospital nurses are subjected, may now qualify as Nasseiises and Electricians at the new special school, founded for the purpose, at the West-End Hospital where there is every guarantee that students will receive the best possible instruction. As a medical practitioner myself, I am particularly glad to welcome this new departure. Convinced as I am, that in the science of the future, hygiene and its practical applications are destined to take a foremost place, I am delighted to see public encouragement thus given to the spread of a method of treat- ment so eminently natural and 'common sense.' Drugs have too long held undisputed sway in the sick room, and far too little attention has been accorded to the potent influence upon health which may be wielded by the expert hand of the Masseuse. A fresh impulse has now been given to the system, and the demand for trained operators is growing steadily and swiftly. It will be noticed that to the old method of massage science has now added the accessory of electricity; and the teacher's own proficiency in the application of every branch of therapeutic electricity will be ample warrant that his pupils are thoroughly well taught. His care in demonstration, his clearness of instruction, and the practical development he has given to Galvanism, Franklinism, and Faradism are widely recognized; and I am happy in this connection to be able to acknowledge my own debt of gratitude to him for the kindness with which he recently met my request for a little personal assistance in the study of electro-therapeutics. I found in him not only an able teacher, but a sympathetic champion of the claims of women to a fair field of labour beside men. He fully admitted their right to graduate as medical practitioners if they so desired, and