The secretions of the skin are stimulated by the treatment of that tissue, and it is visibly flushed, as it ought to be, from time to time, by ordinary active exercise.

Under massage the flabby muscles acquire a certain firmness, which at first lasts only for a few minutes, but which after a time is more enduring and ends by becoming permanent.

The firm grasp of the manipulator's hand stimulates the muscle, and, if sudden, may cause it to contract sensibly, which, however, is not usually desirable or agreeable.

The muscles are by these means exercised without the use of volitional exertion or the aid of the nervous centres, and at the same time the alternate grasp and relaxation of the manipulator's hands squeezes out the blood and allows it to flow back anew, thus healthfully exciting the vessels and increasing mechanically the flow of blood to the tissues which they feed.

It is possible also that a real increase in the production of red corpuscles is brought about by repeated applications of massage, as will be seen later on.
The visible results as regards the surface-circulation are sufficiently obvious, and most remarkably so in persons who, besides being anaemic and thin, have been long unused to exercise.