Greed, Jealousy and the Demise of Medical Physiotherapy
Before its adoption by laymen (or more correctly, laywomen) the word ‘physiotherapy’ was used by the medical profession to describe all of the physical agents, including the X-ray. In the 1920s, radiology became a unique medical specialty, but for a brief period in the nineteen tens and twenties it was …
Asthma and Your Child
The book Asthma and Your Child was first published in 1963 by New Zealand respiratory physiotherapist Bernice “Bunny” Thompson. It focused on the need for well-targeted breathing and physical exercises in the management of children’s asthma. The book’s popularity continued through to subsequent editions, despite the introduction of metered dose …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 Unique Case of Doctors becoming Physiotherapists
The health workforce is hierarchical and movement across professions is almost always upwards as individuals seek higher reward, recompense and status. Only rarely is there is movement downward. This story tells of a unique occurrence in Israel in the late 20th century where necessity caused qualified medical practitioners to retrain …
International Man of Action
A man, wearing dark glasses, sits front and centre of the audience of the inaugural meeting of the World Confederation for Physical Therapy, held on 8th September 1951 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He sits upright, leaning forward slightly, his arms resting lightly on his knees with his hands loosely curled, portraying …