Technically Ling developed a system of medical gymnastics known as 'The Swedish Movement Cure' of which massage was only a small part.  Although not true, Ling is known as the Father of Swedish massage. However we know that Ling's massage was borrowed mostly  from the Turks, who still used (use) it in the 'Turkish Bath', or Hamam, however Ling himself was Swedish, so his system became known as Swedish Massage. Swedish massage was not a part of Ling’s Swedish Gymnastic Movements nor the curriculum of the Royal Central Gymnastic Institute founded by Ling in 1813.

Dutch practitioner Johan Georg Mezger (1838-1909) is generally credited (by physicians such as Emil Kleen and Richard Hael, who researched the origins of massage and gymnastics) as the man who adopted the French names to denote the basic strokes under which he systemized massage as we know it today, as Swedish or classic massage. It was Mezger, not Ling as commonly thought, who gave Swedish massage the French names—such as effleurage, petrissage, massage á friction, vibration and tapotement—used today.