Excuse the shameless plug, but I'm giving a public lecture on Thursday night (NZ time) on the History of Physical Therapies in 19th Century New Zealand, and it will be live streamed and recorded, so I thought some of you might be interested in seeing it. New Zealand offers an interesting case study because, in contrast to Europe and North America, where treatments like massage, mobilisation, hydrotherapy, electrotherapy and exercise were some of the most popular 'medical' remedies, physical therapies were almost invisible. New Zealand was a frontier colony for much of the 19th century, and a lot of settlers had little enough food to live on never mind indulging in such … [Read more...] about History of Physical Therapies in 19th Century New Zealand
Soaking
Over the summer, I worked with one of my students on a project to locate any signs of physical therapies (massage and manipulation, remedial gymnastics, electrotherapy, and hydrotherapy) in New Zealand during the 19th century. Although physical therapies were hugely popular in Europe and North America at the time, they appear to have been almost unused in New Zealand, which is surprising since the indigenous Māori population were known to use massage (mirimiri) and hot spring water for treatment, and the early settlers would have known and practiced these therapies too. It seems that New Zealand was much like a frontier settlement before 1900, with most people working in farming, gold … [Read more...] about Soaking