New Article Published
The International Physiotherapy History Association is pleased to announce that it has published an editorial in the journal Physiotherapy Theory …
A history of physiotherapy at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia
In 1889 lectures and exams on the subject of ‘the massage battery’ were given to trainee third year nurses, who initially carried out practical work in massage and electricity in the Royal Prince Alfred (RPA) wards and outpatients department. These practices reflected the overseas work of Swedish practitioner Per Henrik …
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‘No sale of drugs’ – the problem of quack medicine
When the Society of Trained Masseuses (now the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy) was formed in the UK in 1894, its founders set out a number of rules for professional practice1. Although the massage scandals in the summer of 18942 had highlighted the need for a professional masseuse, the founders of the …
The process of physiotherapy professionalisation in the UK – Development of autonomy, Part III
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Physiotherapy in the UK suffered several setbacks on the road to professional autonomy. This was very disappointing for physiotherapy in the UK, particularly given the developments which took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s with the advent of Government and public …
IPHA at 2021 virtual World Physiotherapy Congress
World Physiotherapy (the newly branded WCPT) announced last week that it would be moving its biennial Congress online for 2021. Abstract submissions have been extended to 24th September. More information here. At this week’s meeting of the IPHA Exec, we’ll be discussing whether an online format gives us the opportunity …
Photograph of Lina Haag
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 …
Mobilising a Profession: Geoffrey Maitland
…Maitland’s emphasis on very careful and comprehensive examination leading to the precise application of treatment by movement and followed in turn by the assessment of the effects of that movement on the patient, form the basis for the modern clinical approach. This is probably as close to the scientific method …
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 …
Part of the audience of the first general meeting of the World Confederation for Physical Therapists held in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1951.
A New World of Physiotherapy
Nearly 70 years after its inauguration, the World Confederation for Physical Therapists (WCPT) transformed into World Physiotherapy on 30 June 2020 with the launch of their new website at www.world.physio. The idea of creating an international body began in 1948 when Physical Therapists from a number of countries met to discuss …
COVID 19 – Rehabilitation in the context of physio history
COVID 19 is here with us now, but today’s news will hopefully become a historical narrative as we move forward and look back on this unprecedented global health and economic crisis. The historical context is important as past events considered together, especially events of a particular period, country, or subject, …