Category: Research
Swedish Gymnastics at the Olympic Games
The Swedish gymnastics of Pehr Henrik Ling consisted of four branches: military (fencing), medical (physiotherapy), pedagogical (physical education) and aesthetic (dance). For the latter two, the system emphasised floor exercises along with “Swedish bars” (attached to a wall), balance beam, vaulting box and some hand-held apparatus. The movements were generally …
Physiotherapy’s First War
The First World War is considered the turning point for the institutionalisation and expansion of the physiotherapy profession. The sheer volume of injured personnel created by the mechanisation of arms, combined with emerging government social responsibility, facilitated support for a workforce trained to assist in physical rehabilitation. But the First …
Animal Physiotherapy
Animal physiotherapy began with surprising enthusiasm, supported from its earliest days by none other than Lord Mountbatten (1939). It began to gain recognition and caught the attention of visionary therapists and forward-thinking institutions who believed that animals, too, could benefit from physical rehabilitation. Thanks to figures like Sir Charles Strong …
A Royal Charter
The original roots of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) in the United Kingdom date back to the foundation of the Society of Trained Masseuses (STM) in 1894. In 1900, the Society was incorporated by the Board of Trade by Licence under the then Companies Act of Parliament to become the …
Dr Koch’s Emasculation and the Birth of Physiotherapy
The formation of the Society of Trained Masseuses (STM) by four British nurses in 1894 is often opined as the beginning of the physiotherapy profession (Ottoson, 2015). In support, physiotherapy historian and critical thinker Dave Nicholls (2016) said on the subject, ..physiotherapy must be seen to begin when the question …
American Physical Therapy Before the War
The commonly accepted premise of the origins of the physical therapy profession in the United States is that it began in response to the First World War (Hansson & Ottosson, 2015). This understanding has likely arisen from the hegemonic American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) focussing its historical work on its …
Dubious Electrotherapy
The word physiotherapy was used by many different practitioners in the first part of the twentieth century; including French physicians, American electrotherapeutists and later British radiologists as medical radiation was first grouped with electrotherapy. The word physiotherapy was also also used by ‘cultists’ like chiropractors and osteopaths, and untrained laypersons …
The Physiotherapy Institutions of Mexico City
Prior to the turn of the 19th century individuals with lesser physical capacity from congenital diseases or acquired from work accidents, war wounds, etc., were commonly excluded from work and social environments because they were considered incapable of contributing to society. Medical care for this type of population was seen …
On the Origins of Netball
The international game of netball can trace its popularity and codification to a unique college of Swedish gymnastics in the United Kingdom at the turn of the nineteenth century. The all-female college was also at the heart of the development of both the physical education and physiotherapy professions. Women’s Basketball …
Dr Bum’s Famous Institute of Mechanotherapy
The term ‘mechanotherapy’ was introduced by Swedish physician Gustav Zander to define a method of treating certain illnesses through massage and exercise, particularly using mechanical equipment. The exercises were drawn from the work of countryman Pehr Henrik Ling, but the equipment was Zanders, and in 1865 he opened the world …