Listening Time — 37:13
See the history of the physical therapy profession in a different light! Editor-in-Chief Alan Jette, PT, PhD, FAPTA, talks with David Nicholls, author of PTJ's latest history essay and of the controversial 2017 book titled "The End of Physiotherapy."
Did the emergence of "neurasthenia" in the 19th century — and the role of "proto" physical therapists in the treatment of this condition — prompt a shift from a "sisterly, nursing" type of role for early physical therapists to a role more in keeping with the established patriarchal hierarchy of medicine, in which the body was perceived as a "machine"? Nicholls and Jette entertain this and other provocative questions. Nicholls writes, "Very few accounts of [early therapists] exist, so piecing together their day-to-day work can be like finding a needle in a haystack," but, through his research, he has gathered tantalizing clues and new insights.
