Tag: C20th
Physiotherapy’s First War
The First World War is considered the turning point for the institutionalisation and expansion of the physiotherapy profession. The sheer volume of injured personnel created by the mechanisation of arms, combined with emerging government social responsibility, facilitated support for a workforce trained to assist in physical rehabilitation. But the First …
Studying Physiotherapy Behind the Iron Curtain
My vocational training as a physiotherapist in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) offered me my first internship in 1968 at a Saxon Thermal Bath, a leading spa facility in the GDR for rheumatic diseases, specialising in ankylosing spondylitis, but also in the late effects of polio. In the physiotherapy department, …
‘Essays on Massage History 1750 – 1950’: Book Review
As an adjunct health service or a junior partner to medicine, massage has oft lacked respect. So much so, that even its own history has remained poorly understood. Massage needed someone to come along to provide intellectual rigour to its story, and it came in an unlikely form – a …
A Royal Charter
The original roots of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) in the United Kingdom date back to the foundation of the Society of Trained Masseuses (STM) in 1894. In 1900, the Society was incorporated by the Board of Trade by Licence under the then Companies Act of Parliament to become the …
Dr Koch’s Emasculation and the Birth of Physiotherapy
The formation of the Society of Trained Masseuses (STM) by four British nurses in 1894 is often opined as the beginning of the physiotherapy profession (Ottoson, 2015). In support, physiotherapy historian and critical thinker Dave Nicholls (2016) said on the subject, ..physiotherapy must be seen to begin when the question …
American Physical Therapy Before the War
The commonly accepted premise of the origins of the physical therapy profession in the United States is that it began in response to the First World War (Hansson & Ottosson, 2015). This understanding has likely arisen from the hegemonic American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) focussing its historical work on its …
Dubious Electrotherapy
The word physiotherapy was used by many different practitioners in the first part of the twentieth century; including French physicians, American electrotherapeutists and later British radiologists as medical radiation was first grouped with electrotherapy. The word physiotherapy was also also used by ‘cultists’ like chiropractors and osteopaths, and untrained laypersons …
The Physiotherapy Institutions of Mexico City
Prior to the turn of the 19th century individuals with lesser physical capacity from congenital diseases or acquired from work accidents, war wounds, etc., were commonly excluded from work and social environments because they were considered incapable of contributing to society. Medical care for this type of population was seen …
Rosalind Paget: An Historical Overview and Appreciation, Part 2
Rosalind Paget was one of the original four founders of the Society of Trained Masseuses which later became the Incorporated Society of Trained Masseuses, in 1920 the Chartered Society of Massage and Medical Gymnastics and ultimately, in 1944 the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. She was the first Chair of Council …
My European Study Tour
In 1903 Australian proto-physiotherapist Josephine McCormick visited the principal physical culture institutes of Europe, in London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin. She also undertook courses of study with orthopaedists Professor Adolf Lorenz of Vienna, and Dr Bernard Roth of London. Professor Lorenz was a founder of the German society of Orthopaedic …