Tag: C20th

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 …

Mechanotherapy room, General Hospital, Mexico City, 1905.

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 …

Rosalind Paget. Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection.

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 …

Josephine McCormick, Critic ,1904.

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 …

Hydrotherapy at the Institute

The Mexican Rehabilitation Institute, 1960 – 1983

The Mexican Rehabilitation Institute was founded in 1960 in Mexico City; responding to the social need for comprehensive rehabilitation for people with motor disabilities. The Institute was established as a civil society, receiving contributions from …

Pauline Paget (centre) surrounded by masseuses of the Almeric Paget Military Massage Corp.

Angel of Summerdown: Physiotherapy’s Forgotten Benefactor

This story begins with the unusually named Almeric Paget Massage Corps. Located in the United Kingdom, the Corps was formed to serve in the First World War. It was the forerunner of physiotherapy services for …

10 Shilling 3rd Series Treasury Issue. First issued: 22 October 1918. Design: Bertram Mackennal. Source: Bank of England.

Fees and Remuneration in South Africa in the 1920’s

The South African Society of Massage and Medical Gymnastics (now known as the South African Society of Physiotherapy) was formed on 11 December 1924. It had four branches, aligned with the country’s provinces at the time: …

Are We Keeping Physical Therapy White?

Medicine has often been framed as the “ideal” profession, leading other health fields to emulate it when pursuing their own professionalisation. American medicine’s current education system came about during the early-twentieth century, as part of …

Radarmed 12 S 231 Microwave Device, circa 1974

100 Years of Enraf-Nonius

Enraf-Nonius is a Dutch medical equipment manufacturer celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. For many physiotherapists Enraf-Nonius have provided the equipment used across entire careers, and so they have grown in parallel with the profession. Founded …

The women’s University of Adelaide Tennis Club team in 1923

Careers for Girls

In 1927 ‘The News’ newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia ran a weekly series of articles on their Woman’s page exploring suitable careers for girls; “a problem which at times confronts the parents of daughters”. The …

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