The Lingiad
An international gymnastics display, with 7,399 participants from twelve countries, was held in Stockholm in 1939 to commemorate the centenary …
Massage and the history of physiotherapy
A few days ago, Kay Nias, Medicine Galleries Research Fellow at the Science Museum in London, gave a talk on massage and the history of physiotherapy (link). Kay was kind enough to share her slides with us and the text of her talk (see below). You can find more of …
New Links to a World of Physio History
With some intrepid searching and a lot of time, members of the IPHA Exec have brought together some interesting links to the history of physiotherapy around the globe. The links are listed alphabetically by their country of origin and some may need some translation (thanks Google for making it easier). …
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IFOMT 1977
The proceedings of the 3rd international seminar of the International Federation of Orthopaedic Manipulative Therapy make for fascinating reading. Just over 40 years ago now, the meeting held in Vail, Colorado from May 30th to June 3rd brought together some now well known practitioners from around the world. Given the …
The first ever special issue on the history of physiotherapy moves closer
Last year we began work on the first ever special issue Physiotherapy Theory and Practice dedicated to the history of physiotherapy, and today the project moved a step closer. All eight draft papers were sent off for peer review today, and we’re posting all of the draft abstracts here so …
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Mystery Physiotherapy History
Those of you older than, say, 50, should have no trouble identifying these. So do you know what they are and what we did with them?
Exercise in the 16th Century
In De Arte Gymnastica, written in 1569, Hieronymus Mercurialis describes six exercise principles: Each exercise should preserve the existing health state Exercises should be suited to each part of the body All healthy people should exercise regularly Sick people should not be given exercises that might exacerbate existing conditions Special …
The history of manipulation
IPHA member Cameron MacDonald, along with Peter Osmothely, Robert Parkes and Darren Rivett have recently published an article in the Journal of Manual & Manipulative Therapy looking at the ongoing debate around the regulation of manipulative therapies in America. In the article, they take an historical approach to the question …
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Learning electrotherapy the hard (wired) way
Most physiotherapists will have memories of learning about electrotherapy. Perhaps you learned from Clayton’s Electrotherapy and Actinotherapyabout sinusoidal currents and short-wave diathermy. And perhaps you still have waking nightmares about induction coils? Or perhaps, if you trained under Enid Gotts at the School of Physiotherapy in Dunedin, New Zealand, you’ll …
Notes from IPHA Whole Group meeting – May 2019
We had a really lovely post-WCPT meeting of the whole IPHA membership this week. You can find links to the agenda and audio recording here. There were some decisions made at the meeting that will shape some of the work of the IPHA for the next year or so: The …
Light therapy
Physiotherapy has a long history with light therapy. Throughout much of the 20th century, light therapies were an integral part of the therapists toolkit. And actinotherapy – or the therapeutic use of artificial non-ionising radiations, especially ultraviolet light and infra-red (Beckett 1955, 1) – has formed perhaps the largest part. …