Category: Research
Lina Haag (1907-2012): A Moral Voice in Nazi Germany
In 2012 Lina Haag died near Munich at the advanced age of 105 years. She was born in 1907 in the German southwest as the daughter of a maid and a worker and became involved in the German Communist Party in the 1920s. After the Nazis seized power, her husband …
History of Physiotherapy Education in South Africa – the SMU & UKZN story
Physiotherapy Department at Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University (SMU) (Information provided by the current HOD, Prof Douglas Maleka, class of 1976 and all MEDUNSA/UL/SMU graduates, associates and friends, especially Mrs Melody Nguna (nee Mji) and Ms Shoeshoe Zulu (nee Mopeli)) Physiotherapy was one of the professions reserved exclusively for the …
Never the “Twain: shall met, or shall they?
Samuel Longhorne Clemens, or more famously known as Mark Twain, has a very interesting contribution to the historical development of manual therapy in the United States. A delicious irony exists in that his pen name (Mark Twain), refers to the point on a river chart where the troubled waters meet …
Brasil: Os primeiros anos da profissão
“O que existiu primeiro foi o CAOS e depois GAIA (Terra)” – Hesíodo: Teogonia – Origem A palavra grega CAOS é a mais aproximada da palavra “Vácuo”, um vazio ou nada no início de tudo. Assim foi com a Fisioterapia no Brasil até os anos 1950, uma Fisioterapia sem Fisioterapeutas. Os …
A Royal Charter: 100 years old but still relevant
As the Canadian Physiotherapy Association celebrates its centenary year, 2020 also marks an important historical milestone for the Charted Society of Physiotherapy in the UK – 100 years since it received a Royal Charter. On June 11th19201, his Majesty, King George V, granted the Incorporated Society of Trained Masseuses and …
The process of physiotherapy professionalisation in the UK – Development of autonomy, Part II
Introduction¹ My previous contribution to IPHA articles (March 2020) presented an overview of the relationship between the medical profession and physiotherapy following the introduction of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK exemplified through the Cope Report. This contribution continues the story via an overview of the development of …
How an Anglo-Indian Man Made Australian Physiotherapy Great
Australia was the first country in the world to teach and examine all aspects of physiotherapy: exercise, massage and manipulation, and electrotherapy, in programmes aligned with universities. Early physiotherapists were not nurses, and men were as numerous as women. ‘Massage’ did not fairly describe the practitioners’ real knowledge and skills, …
History of the First Physiotherapy University Schools in South Africa
University of the Witwatersrand In 1924 the department of physiotherapy had been established in the Johannesburg Hospital and had been opened to patients in September 1925. Dr EB Woolf had been appointed as head of this department in February 1925. On the 12th April 1926, a meeting between Professor Raymond …
“History of Physiotherapy in the Post-War Period and the 1950s” – An Oral History Project from Germany (Work in Progress)
By Karoline Munsch and Sandra Schiller Over the years, quite a number of oral history projects have been conducted in physiotherapy, for example in the USA (https://www.apta.org/History/OralHistories/), the United Kingdom (http://sami.bl.uk) and New Zealand (https://100yearsofphysio.org.nz/oral-histories/). The occasion for such projects has often been an anniversary, e.g. the centenary of the founding …
The Development of Physiotherapy in South Africa
In 1921 a small group of masseurs in Cape Town banded together to form the Certified Masseurs Association, primarily to rehabilitate soldiers after World War I as well as the patients affected by the polio epidemic also hitting South Africa. In the same year the first pioneer group in the …