Tag: Australia
![RPA Medical Gymnastics Department, 1907](https://history.physio/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/RPA-Medical-Gymnastics-Department-1907-600x450.png)
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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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 …
![Mr Frederick Teepoo Hall teaching massage of the back](https://history.physio/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/teaching.png)
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, …
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Australian Physios Preserving their Past
The following edited excerpts are from the article titled “Preserving our Past: Why physio history matters”. It was published in the Australian Physiotherapy Association’s (APA) InMotion Magazine on 3 February 2020 and describes the current status of physiotherapy history activities throughout Australia. The full article can be accessed here. Throughout …
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Hilda Harris – an Australian pioneer
Hilda Harris commenced as a first-year student at the University of Sydney in 1916. She joined fifty-one students in that year. During the First World War the then Australasian Massage Association, (the association that later and appropriately changed its name to the Australian Physiotherapy Association), with the Universities of Melbourne, …
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The Primary Contact Physiotherapist
In 1976 the Australian Journal of Physiotherapy published an article by Prue Galley titled ‘Patient referral and the physiotherapist’. This article was a synthesis of the debates and arguments about whether Australian physiotherapists were ready to act as primary contact professionals. Galley asked: Have we as physiotherapists, the knowledge, the …
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Remembering Brian Davey
We heard last week of the recent death of Brian Davey. I had the good fortune to interview Brian as part of the centenary celebrations for New Zealand physiotherapists in 2013, and it was only here that I got to understand the full breadth of his work and his service …
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Interview with Joan McMeeken
Last week I spoke with Professor Joan McMeeken about her recent book Science in Our Hands: Physiotherapy at the University of Melbourne, 1895–2010. Joan is the Foundation Professor and was Foundation Head of the School of Physiotherapy and Associate Dean Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of …
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Australia’s polio scourge
The recent movie Breathe, the inspirational true story of Robin Cavendish’s battle with paralytic poliomyelitis, is a reminder of a disease that is almost forgotten, except by those whose lives were and remain directly affected. In recent years adults who suffered minor illnesses or had mild muscle weakness during the …