Massage has been around even longer than the written word. Ancient hieroglyphics around the world show us the therapeutic benefits of touch was used way before most of the health treatments we use today. Now that leaves us with the question: alternative to what?

How did massage therapy- once championed by a number of influential doctors- become considered alternative?
A group of physicians in the late 19th century advocated for the inclusion of physiotherapists, including manual therapy, as a third branch of medicine (alongside surgery and pharmaceutics). Other physicians shunned it as the purview of charlatans.
In the end, physical modalities did find a less central place in the conventional establishment, becoming a specialty called physical medicine and rehabilitation. The profession of physiotherapy/physical therapy, organized by physicians' assistants, found a place in allied health care. Independent massage practitioners, despite having similar skills to physiotherapists, remained in tradition of drug less and natural healing and were left with the status of alternative. These outliers became the center of the emerging massage therapy profession.