Pehr Henrik Ling
On his maternal side, Ling was the great-great grandson of the famous Swedish scientist Olof Rudbeck (1630–1702), who discovered the human lymphatic system.
[3] Ling studied Goethe and Schiller, the Edda and northern mythology, and composed original poems in Swedish, German, French and Danish.
He learned fencing at a school of French emigres and noticed its benefits, and those of physical education, on the gout in his arm.
He saw the potential of adapting these techniques to promote better health in many situations and thus attended classes in anatomy and physiology, and went through the entire curriculum for the training of a medical doctor.
Ling invented physical education apparatus including the box horse, wall bars, and beams.
However, by 1831, Ling was elected a member of the Swedish General Medical Association (Svenska läkaresällskapet), which demonstrated that his methods were regarded as worthy of professional recognition.
[8] The Swedish massage techniques effleurage (long, gliding strokes), petrissage (lifting and kneading the muscles), friction (firm, deep, circular rubbing movements), tapotement (brisk tapping or percussive movements), and vibration (rapidly shaking or vibrating specific muscles) are largely credited to Johann Georg Mezger (1838–1909).
Although Ling was probably aware of Chinese massage, he instead developed a system of integrated manual therapy, combining physical training and gymnastic procedures with knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and pathology.
[10] Broadly speaking, there have been two streams of development in the Swedish gymnastics founded on Ling's beginnings, either in a conservative direction, making certain forms of gymnastic exercises subsidiary to the prescriptions of orthodox medical science, or else in an extremely progressive direction, making these exercises a substitute for any other treatment, and claiming them as cures for diseases.
See also the encyclopedic work Sweden: its people and its industry: historical and statistical handbook (1904), p. 348, edited by Gustav Sandburg for the Swedish government.
