Early Years of Physiotherapy at the University of Queensland
The first course in physiotherapy at the University of Queensland commenced in 1938. Like other programs in Australia and around …
The History of Light Therapy
Historically, light treatment has roots in ancient Egypt, India, and Greece, as “heliotherapy” (natural sunlight) for the treatment of skin diseases. Modern phototherapy (artificial light) has its origins in the latter part of the 19th century, with the observation in 1877 that sunlight was beneficial in the treatment of anthrax …
A Micro History of Physiotherapy in Italy
If we accept the etymology of physiotherapy as phìsis (natural) therapy, one of the oldest practice might seen in be the use of vapour grottoes in the territory of Sciacca (South of Italy) since the 5th century A.D. In Roman times, massage was a remedial practice carried out by fricatores …
America’s first Physical Therapist
Whilst Mary McMillan is lauded as the mother of the American Physical Therapy Association, the nation’s first ‘practitioner’ was more likely Charles Fayette Taylor, who brought the therapeutic exercises and massage of the Swedish Movement Cure to New York half a century earlier. Judge for your self by reading excerpts …
Interview with a Russian physiotherapist, soldier, spy and double agent
My name is Olga Capatina. I was born in Moldova, in the North, on the banks of the Dniestr in 1955. My parents were also Moldavian. In fact, they were Romanians before WWII, but after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Moldova became part of the USSR. I studied at the Balti Pedagogical …
The Glass Room
Physiotherapy gymnasiums are rarely located within architectural splendour but for a short period in communist Czechoslovakia, a hospital physiotherapy department was located in one of the great buildings of European modernism. UNESCO World Heritage Listed Villa Tugendhat was built in 1929–1930 for Greta and Fritz Tugendhat to a design by …
Physiotherapy is Handling: Then and Now
The seminal paper “Physiotherapy is Handling” was presented by Joyce Williams at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) Founders’ Lecture at the CSP Annual Congress in 1985 and was reproduced in the Physiotherapy Journal in February 1986 (Vol.72, no.2). Joyce’s biographical details current at the time of publication appear following …
Physical Therapy’s Oscar Winning Film
On the 75th anniversary of its production we look back at the profession’s 1949 Oscar winning film. ‘Toward Independence’ is a 1948 American short documentary film about the rehabilitation of military veterans with spinal cord injuries. In 1949, it won an Oscar for Documentary Short Subject at the 21st Academy …
The New Zealand Private Practice Boom
In the years before 1974, private physiotherapy practices were few and far between in New Zealand. Patients either paid the full cost of treatment themselves, or claimed against private insurance schemes which had highly unregulated fee structures and were unwilling to negotiate fees with physiotherapists locally or nationally. With the …
Great Leaders Create More Leaders
Amongst the many organisations in the history of the world’s physiotherapy profession, none have contributed to the profession so profoundly as the United Kingdom’s Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP). Founded in 1894 as the Society of Trained Masseuses, the CSP was repeatedly challenged by scandal, patriarchy, war, epidemics and economics …
The Mother of #GlobalPT
The hashtag #GlobalPT emerged on the social media network Twitter at the World Confederation of Physical Therapy (now World Physiotherapy) Congress in Capetown, South Africa in 2017. It worked to connect digital commentary and build international camaraderie amongst practitioners, including those who could not be physically present. In this article, …