Massage is also a useful method of Nature-cure treatment. It is a helpful means of forcing toxic matter out of the superficial areas of the body, like muscles, etc.
Massage helps in getting the toxic elements carried round by the blood stream before being eliminated from the system through the kidneys. Active circulation of the flow of blood is necessary for this purpose and this is well achieved by massage also.
Massage is usually had with oil, mostly mustard oil, as its medium, or even dry. Earlier we have described about the procedure of dry massage. We have explained that massage is always done in the reverse direction, that is, from the head downwards to the heart and from the feet upwards to the heart.
A dry massage, too, serves the purpose of an oil massage. Dry massage is to be done daily before taking bath, so as to warm up the body to have maximum advantage of the cold bath following it. Of course, dry massage is done with your hand, not oily, but dry hand.
Its friction with the skin creates heat over it, wanning up the blood inside. A cold bath taken after a warmed-up body by hand-and-dry massage, has greater effect of its cold on the blood inside than otherwise, aiding its circulation throughout the system and thus contributing to a healthy internal bath.
The other factor is that before taking a cold bath, the body should be warm. Cold bath on a cold body does no good, but harm.
Thus, if before a cold bath, you are feeling cold, you must have a dry bath to warm up the body, or the other alternative is to have the hot-and-cold water bath, that is, beginning with hot water and concluding with cold water.
Like the dry massage, the oil massage, too, is done on the body in the direction of the heart. However, a person having some heart complaints should not do it. Oil massage is had from experts in that field also, but one can do it by himself also.
In Calcutta, in the Marwari hospital, its third floor is devoted to curing the patients by Nature-cure methods. I also had a stint with this section of the hospital for three days.
There is a separate room, well ventilated, where the home has oblong tables with leather cushions at the top, some half a dozen patients are made to lie on each table. For each table, there is one massage-specialist, who massages the abdomen, also tapping it at times.
This type of massage goes on for about 20 minutes, after which the patient is sent to a chain of toilets to have the use of enema, for clearance of the bowels.