Modern massage is forever connected with two men: Pehr Henrik Ling and Johann Georg Mezger. Whilst Ling is credited as the founder of the Swedish system of exercise, which included massage, it was only ever a relatively minor part of his gymnastic regime. The modern scientific development of massage began with Mezger, the physician and masseur of Amsterdam. His successful treatment of many medical and surgical problems in the second half of the 19th century attracted the attention of leading physicians and surgeons; and they sent their assistants to learn the technique for their clinics located throughout Europe.

Mezger was born in 1838, the son of a German butcher and the 3rd of ten children. Following early work as an assistant to his father in butchery, he became interested in gymnastics in his youth, and massage questions became his life interest. He experimented with massage to remove obstacles interfering with the practice of gymnastics and to enhance performance.

Through a mutual interest in gymnastics, Mezger connected with orthopaedic consultant Dr JL Dusseau, from the University of Leiden. Dusseau introduced Mezger to medical education, which he began at a school for barber-surgeons and later, medical school at the University of Leiden. Mezger’s final year dissertation study was in the treatment by friction of ankle distortion.

Mezger graduated in 1868 and began his career as an assistant, but within two years started a private clinic at the Amstel Hotel in Amsterdam. Now a doctor, as well as a gymnast and exercise physiologist (or physiotherapist today), he saw massage as a principal therapeutic mode in its own right. Previously painful joints were bandaged and absolute rest was prescribed. Mezger was tapping, rubbing and recommending exercise. He soon turned Amsterdam into the European centre of massage as aristocrats and other rich clients payed handsomely for the highly-valued massage treatment.  His focus was manual treatment independent of Ling’s exercise-based legacy.

Mezger’s growing reputation was a result of notable success for his socially high-ranking clients, including emperors, empresses, kings, queens and other royal figures. Later research on related physiology by medical Professor Karl Von Mosengeil supported Mezger’s theories and provided scientific support. In his most famous experiment Von Mosengeil injected ink into the knee joints of experimental live rabbits and examined the subsequent ink distribution with and without massage. When the the animals were killed and dissected 24 hours later they showed that massage promoted absorption by the lymphatic system. Further research occurred around the world. In the USA physician Weir Mitchell found on massaging 21 infants with paralysis the temperature increase, per child, on average, was 3.3-5.6 degrees celsius. Similar research by Murrel showed petrissage raised the temperature of the massaged area by 3-4 degrees. Swedish physicians Berghmann and Helleday, following their clinical time with Mezger, named the four massage movements of effleurage, friction, petrissage and tapotement.

By contrast, Mezger did not publish much beyond his final dissertation. His fame occurred secondary to the work of others who sought to use science to promote the medical profession and concurrently suppress the rise of competing empiricists such as Ling. But just as Ling’s gymnasts were using massage in their exercise prescriptions physicians who had found and used massage were adding active movements such as Ling’s to their massage of treatments. So a convergence of the ideas of Mezger and Ling occurred, ultimately leading to Mezger’s practice erroneously being labelled Swedish Massage.

Whilst political battles were being fought for medical superiority around him, Mezger continued with his own practice in Germany. In 1892 the Emperor of Russia sent an officer of his personal staff to Mezger, who then accompanied him to St Petersburg in a royal coach to treat the Empress of Russia. Mezger was accommodated in the Russian Winter Palace for four weeks and then returned very well remunerated, and with gifts of diamonds, and decorated with the Russian Order of Stanislaus.

Mezger ultimately practiced in Paris in winter and in summer in his personal villa in Domburg, Holland.  A nearby spa became the beneficiary of Mezger’s practice and it filled with rich and aristocratic people in growing number each year. In 1901 Mezger cause a furore with the promotion of an unusual practice of getting the patient to strike their own abdomen with a formidable hammer in order to prevent the formation of, and expel, gases from the body.  A later prescription had the hammer fixed against a wall with the patient to run repeatedly against it with his abdomen colliding with it. Local physicians drew public attentions to what was termed, ‘an unscientific and harmful procedure’. Nevertheless in his lifetime Mezger acquired many acolytes, followers, satisfied clients and a great deal of wealth and fame.

Mezger died in 1909 in Paris. His legacy was the development of a stand alone discipline; a subject alongside, not a junior parter on the periphery of gymnastics. As such he has been described as the Father of (so called) Swedish Massage.

References

Goldstone LA. (2024). Essays on Massage History 1750-1950. YouCaxton Publications.