Physiotherapy

Last week, in a dimly lit room in Manhattan's Biltmore Hotel, a crowd of robust young women gathered around a bubbling sitz bath, hidebound corsets, steel braces. Some bent over a baby kicking mightily in a whirlpool bathtub (Currence Underwater Therapy Tank). The place looked like a medieval torture chamber, but the young women meant no harm: they were only members of the American Physiotherapy Association, holding their 19th annual convention.

If physiotherapy means anything to the layman, it is apt to mean quackery and cultism--high colonic irrigations, spine juggling, nudist colonies. Actually, physiotherapy is an ancient and honorable art which uses such natural methods as heat, massage and exercise to invigorate the body, relieve pain. Though most of its practitioners are laymen, physiotherapy is a special pet of the American Medical Association. Last week, for the umpteenth time, the Journal of the A. M. A. begged doctors to wrest this lucrative and valuable specialty from the hands of the quacks.

The more difficult branches of physical therapy, such as artificial fever, radium and X-ray treatment, are practiced by physicians assisted by technicians. The 1,500 members of the American Physiotherapy Association, mostly women, are qualified to give special exercises, massages, baths. Their most important work is re-education of muscles after operation and paralyzing diseases. To get a diploma or certificate from most of the 16 recognized physiotherapy schools in the U. S.*, a student must be a registered nurse or physical-education teacher, must spend one to four years in anatomy, physiology, scientific massage and exercise courses.

Massage. Scientific masseurs have a broad repertory of tricks up their sleeves--from gentle effleurage (stroking) to kneading and tapotement (percussion), which includes hacking, slapping, beating, tapping. In cases of sprains and fractures, skillful, restrained massage relieves pain, reduces swelling, stimulates circulation. It also soothes arthritis victims. Belly-rubs are good for constipation caused by lack of muscle tone in the digestive tract.

Electric heat. Most spectacular development in electric heat is the artificial-fever machine, introduced in 1931 by Willis Rodney Whitney, vice president of General Electric. Electrically heated cabinets, resembling huge coffins, can raise human temperatures up to 107.5 degrees. Several ten-hour sessions in a hot box will cure gonorrhea, relieve types of arthritis and asthma. Since the treatment is something like a short trek across the Sahara without water, few patients willingly endure it.

* Most important schools: Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, Northwestern University in Chicago, Stanford University Hospitals in San Francisco, Hospital for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled in New York.

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