Medical Man Crush Monday! Per Henrik Ling and Johann Georg Mezger; Who really pioneered the Swedish massage we know today?
Per Henrik Ling (PHK) was born in 1776, he was a Swedish Medical Gymnastics practitioner. He's known for promoting physical education in Sweden as well as wrongly credited with being the father of Swedish massage. The start of Ling's career began in the early 1800's when PHK observed exercise and passive movements benefiting acute and chronic pain. PHK struggled with rheumatism and lung disease, he noticed physical exercise helping him manage his pain but that alone wasn't enough. He began pressing, stroking and kneading the body, he noticed these passive actions were showing change in a beneficial way! He had to share this with others, he went on to call it "Medical Gymnastics' and wanted to teach others to benefit themselves in the same way. He developed "suitable systemized exercises' that he felt would make the mind and body well. This would be the early developments of modern physiotherapy. Ling's passive movement's would later be kn...
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