moving stories and images
Agnes Wenham, a physiotherapist who trained in Sweden and England, was a well-known character in the profession, especially in Johannesburg, where she practised for many years. She moved to South Africa from the United Kingdom as a young woman and worked …
It is rare to find physiotherapists writing about their experiences (Nicholls, 2021), which makes Olive Millard’s (1952) autobiography Under My Thumb so important. A summary of Millard’s professional career is written by Goldstone (2024) and is further summarised here: Becoming …
Before the restoration of Ukraine’s Independence in 1991, rehabilitation occurred within the Soviet paradigm, which set itself in opposition to Western ideology – not out of rational consideration, but out of the need to be different. Some of the key …
On the 8th September 1951, delegates representing seventeen national physiotherapy associations met in Copenhagen, Denmark to establish the World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT); now World Physiotherapy. Seventy-five years later it represents more than 600,000 physiotherapists through 129 member organisations, …
MECHANICAL MEDICINE Exploring the History of Healing by Exercise, Manipulation and Massage. 23 May 2019, Science Museum, London. A symposium at the Science Museum, London, organised by Dr Kay Nias (Medicine Galleries Research Fellow). ‘Physical …
‘’As humans respond so rapidly to this form of treatment for their injuries, why isn’t it used on horses for theirs?’’ Lord Luis Mountbatten to Sir Charles Strong (1939) Many will know of Lord Luis …
The 1st of March is International Wheelchair Day so we are getting ready for the celebrations by having a look back at the history of the wheelchair. While both chairs and wheels have been around …
It’s not unusual for people to think that today’s vices are worse than anything we’ve seen before in history, but this is plainly nonsense. Paleolithic cave-dwellers were just as worried about food security as we …
Many of you will know of the pioneering work of Anders Ottosson, whose histories of mobilization, kinesiology and the gendered basis of physiotherapy history were some of the first critical scholarship to be published in …
Last week I had a series of email conversations with Axelle Mokry (www.senselab.ch), a Swiss physiotherapist who has for some time now been part of an association looking to research the work of French doctor François …
2019 marks the centenary of the first ever physiotherapy special interest group. The Association of Blind Certified Masseurs (changed in 1953 to The Association of Blind Chartered Physiotherapists), was formed by the Chartered Society of …
Last week we finally got the chance to talk to Barbara Richardson about the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy’s Oral History Project that she led. You can find more information on the project here. The audio …
This podcast is a different way of keeping up to date with the goings-on with the IPHA. If you prefer the whole-group online meetings, please let us know. We’re hoping these give you all the …
On the eve of the 100th year anniversary of the Armistice following the First World War, it is timely to reflect on how this tragedy provided the opportunity for a fledgling physiotherapy profession to establish …
