Editing Massage (section)

=== Hammam ("Turkish bath") massage ===
[[File:Augustins - Le Massage. Scène de hammam - Edouard Debat-Ponsan 1883.jpg|thumb|right|''Le massage: scène au Hammam'' by [[Edouard Debat-Ponsan]] (1883). An [[Orientalism|Orientalist]] painting depicting a massage at a [[hammam]].]]
In the traditional [[Hammam]], massage involves not just vigorous muscle kneading, but also [[cracking joints|joint cracking]], "not so much a tender working of the flesh as a pummeling, a cracking of joints, a twisting of limbs..."<ref>Richard Boggs, ''Hammaming in the Sham: A Journey Through the Turkish Baths of Damascus, Aleppo and Beyond'', 2012, {{isbn|1859643256}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=uoMH_psyizoC&pg=PT161 p. 161]</ref> An 18th-century traveler reported:
{{Blockquote
|text=...one of the attendants begins to press and handle the tops of the shoulders, the muscles of the arm, and successively the whole body; first gently, then by degrees increasing the pressure, till he comes to handle pretty roughly, but without giving pain. This is repeated at short intervals till the skin is perfectly softened. The attendant then taking hold of the bather's fingers, with a dexterous jerk makes each joint crack successively; after which, laying him flat on his back, and bringing the arms across the breast, the shoulder joints are made to crack in like manner.
|author=[[Alexander Russell (naturalist)|Alexander Russell]]
|title=''[[The Natural History of Aleppo]]'' (1756)<ref>2nd edition, 1794, [https://books.google.com/books?id=EtTkC5ek_a8C&pg=PA134 p. 134-5]</ref>
}}