ACTA SZEKSZARDIENSIUM - Pécsi Tudományegyetem Illyés Gyula ...

introduction to the history of adopted physiological education
In the ancient India, gymnastics were appliedin cases of all kinds of illness. Natives
in India had the most valuable traditions in fields of the development of ritual hygienic
motion, dance, self-defence without weapons. Advices to press and rub painful body
parts as a therapy indicated advanced massage knowledge. The organic changes because
of the breathing regulations during mediations and shaman dances, su p.ied the basis for
the development of the yoga system.
The priests were responsible for curing in the framework of different ceremonies in
the ancient Egypt and Greece. In Greece, curing was laid to the hands of secular doctors
due to social changes in the 5 th Century B.C. They were the first in history who tried to
create an independent, secular ethical system from the religious system. 7
The Greeks held Herodikos to be the father of therapeutic gymnastics and massage.
He was a famous gymnast and doctor and he was the first who outlined the bases of
the treatment with gymnastics and massage. His successor, Hippocrates (460-375 B.C)
worked it thorough from scientifically point of view again. His doctrines were taken not
only by Greek but also Roman doctors too.
Hippocras taught the curative effects of the exercises and the massage because
according to him, a doctor who doesn’t consider them to be curative cannot make
an effective treatment. He counted with the force of the nature and through natural
therapeutic treatments he supported this too. His name is connected to the gymnastics
bench: “scamnum Hippocrates” which serves the correction of deformed spines. The
Greeks knew the breathing gymnastic and exercise with resistance and fast strength
practices. The natural therapies played an important role in Asclepiads’ treating, therefore
he was the first who used the simulative effect of the waves of the water in curing. He
seated his patients into a tub hung up in motion. 8
The Roman’s famous doctor, Claudius Galenus (129-199 A.C.) preceding his age,
dealt with the therapeutic gymnastics and curative massage thoroughly. Galenus, the
doctor of the famous gladiator school in Pergamen, developed the theory of the medical
science through anatomical observations, physiological experiments and detailed patient
examinations. He was the greatest doctor in the antique ages. He considered the physical
exercises, the massage, the bathing, the proper nourishment and suitable lifestyle to be
the most effective curing procedure. He continued his practice in Rome from 162 A.C.
where, among others, he was Marcus Aurelius’ doctor. At the declination of the Roman
Empire, medical gymnastics was followed by cruel circus games and elementary athletic
exercises. 9
The Middle Ages had taken the natural therapies away. Curing was in the hands of
the church and according to the Christian teaching in order to free the soul, torture of
the body was the exemplary road. This era reduced the body culture of that time and
therefore the interest towards the therapeutic gymnastics was totally forgotten and it
was supported only by the sham doctors. In the middle ages – apart from the knight’s
castle – there were only a few places where some efforts were made to prepare the young
body. It was thought on the basis of the dogma of original sin at schools that the “work of
evil”, the frivolousness of children, and the badness live in our body.
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