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The use of tools - other than one’s hands, feet, or other body parts - applied to the human body in conjunction with or to supplement massage is an ancient practice. The oldest massage tool yet to be discovered is supposedly a Neolithic jade ritual blade from the Longshan culture of China, dating back to the Shang dynasty (circa 2000-1500 B.C.E.). The stone is believed to have been used either hot or cold for placing on tired and sore muscles. But the ancient stave or strigil was used more than 1,000 years before this time by the people of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Later, the strigil was used extensively by the Greeks and Romans to scrape oils from the body and produce friction as part of the process of massage, cold or hot baths, exercise or competitive games.

The athletes' strigil, a device used by Roman athletes or their alliptae ("rubbers") circa 175 B.C.E. to scrape the skin of dust, oil, and sweat after physical exercise. Modern rendering, from written accounts.

Along with the strigil, the ancient Greeks and Romans used pieces of cloth made of wool or cotton to apply friction to the body. Sometimes the treatments were harsh and drew blood from the recipient due to the course cloth and extensive friction. Ferules, made of ebony, wood or bone, were straight tools used for tapping—or what today we call tapotement.

Utilized in association with hot or steam baths, flagellation is a form of tapotement delivered by beating the body with twigs or leaved branches, usually of birch or green nettles. Flagellation is thought to be helpful in cases of atrophy and emaciation.

The use of heated or chilled stones is not unique to any particular part of the world, but the Chinese seem to have used this method extensively. In the World of Massage Museum (WOMM) we have a 1,000-year-old jade massage knuckle that was used to rub the body. It may have been heated or cooled, just as river rock and other stones were used. Jade, marble, basalt and many kinds of exotic stones that are dense and maleable were the most commonly used.

This Chinese Jade massage knuckle, about 1,000 years old, was used to rub the body.

About the same time the Chinese came up with tools carved from wood—or, more often, animal bones—used to apply pressure to points or replace the fingers for digging into trouble spots, the English were using tools as well. The Chinese created wooden needles or bats, while the English carved bone tools used for treating gout.

A Chinese wooden needle was used instead of the fingers to dig into the body's pressure points.

This Chinese bat was a portable tool for massage, replacing the fist or hand and used to pat on a limb or the body.

Tools used by ancient peoples were usually made of natural products indigenous to their particular environment. For example, the guava tree that grows in the Pacific islands lent itself to the shape of a device called a Laau lomi-lomi stick, as well as rounded lava rocks called lomi-balls. Polynesians also utilized walking sticks to support and balance themselves so they could do a walking massage on their subjects.

Wooden Hawaiian Laau lomi-lomi sticks are used for self-massage of the back, and applied to specific pressure points. Originally the balls were lava rock used to clean or scrape the skin after a lomi-lomi session. (Image courtesy of San Anselmo, from Lomi-Lomi Hawaiian Massage.)
The instruments carved and used by the British admiral Henry in 1787 for self-massage: (1) a corked-head hammer covered in leather; (2) a wooden paddle for beating the heels and soles of the feet; and (3,4,5) carved bones for rubbing various parts of the body, with knobs to work among the tendons.

In the 19th century, the development of massage tools increased - and so the next installment will begin at this prolific era for tools of the trade.

The electric vibrator was introduced in 1902 and thus began the broad marketing of vibrators to the general public. But the introduction of electric devices did not hinder the development and marketing of manual tools. Over time the manual tools would outnumber electric ones in sheer volume of product. Many of the manual tools introduced from 1980-1999 were remakes of the original devices that appeared a century earlier.

At one time, Racine, Wisconsin, had more than 20 manufacturing companies producing electric vibrators. Most of these products were small hand-held units sold from catalogs, retail stores and advertisements in magazines. The electric vibrator evolved from being a device used largely by barbers and massage practitioners, to one used hardly at all by barbers and very little by the massage industry, to an almost exclusive trade with the general public.

But this article is not about those latter types of devices; it is about the wide variety of electric and manual tools used for relaxation and self-help. As noted in the previous column, most of the earlier vibrating devices, particularly the hand-crank types, were used by physicians. With the advent of electrical devices the marketplace expanded exponentially to consumers everywhere.

One of the earliest devices, sold around the turn of the 20th century, and still sold today in a myriad of revised versions, is the original massage vibrator.

Stringed beads made of rubber, Bakelite or metal were configured on a chain of brass or other heavy metal. Vibration was achieved by rolling the beaded device over the body in long pressure strokes. Some were even made on elastic material so they could be stretched between a doorway.

The bongers, originally called the ball beaters, were first introduced about 1885. This photograph from the 1904 text Common Disorders, by W.R. Latson, shows the ball beaters being used in the treatment of female disorders.

Another hand-held device, bongers, sold today in retail stores nearly everywhere, was originally introduced in 1885. Bongers deliver vibration by pounding the body in rhythmical beats.

The physician's use of hand-cranked vibrators in the late 19th century gave way to delegating manual therapies to the physical therapist. Over time manual therapy was almost completely replaced by electric vibrators. Faradic massage, or electric stimulation of the muscles, was quite popular within the new field of physiotherapy during the 1920s in America and Europe. Originally used as medical treatments, electric vibrators soon became quack devices. Today they are again being sold to consumers in various forms for weight reduction, to reduce muscle spasm and as muscle relaxants.

The vast array of hand tools used to rub the body found in stores today are made of common and exotic stone, molded plastics and polymers, copper, glass, crystal and even porcelain. All of these devices are merely copies of the 1,000-year-old Chinese jade massage knuckle we have in the World of Massage Museum (WOMM) collection. Some of these modern devices are shaped as turtles, dolphins and branches--there are as many shapes and colors as one can imagine.

This 1902 illustration is part of a promotional brochure that came with the purchase of this vibrator. Recommended uses were for imparting beauty to the cheeks, throat and muscles by toning.

Even the best-selling TheraCane® and Backnobber™ products have their roots in the ancient Polynesian lomi sticks. Most modern vibrators--the G-5, Thumper® and others--deliver similar vibration techniques to the body as their hand-cranked predecessors did more than 100 years ago. And if you think the vibrating chairs sold today are new, think again. The vibrating chair has been around since Greek and Roman times, and as an electric device since the late 1800s.

We have a device in the WOMM collection from the 1960s that produces vibrations up and down the spine much like a sophisticated chair from Sharper Image or Panasonic, but with the kneading devices visible, not hidden inside the chair.

With all the electrical devices available today, from Thumper to Sharper Image's high-tech recliner, the most common are manual tools used to supplement the hands that apply them. Criticisms made by physicians such as Taylor, Kleen and Kellogg more than a century ago, stating that tools could never replace the human hand, seem to have taken an interesting turn. As the electrical devices become more sophisticated and high-tech, and thus more expensive, manual tools have become more common and widely used because they cost less and are not replacements for, but extensions of the human hand that applies them.

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