Physical therapies in 19th century Aotearoa/New Zealand: Part 2 – Settler physical therapies

Abstract

This paper is the second of two reporting on a historiographic study of physical therapies in 19th century Aotearoa/New Zealand. This paper focuses on physical therapies practised by colonists, missionaries, pioneers, and other settlers to Aotearoa/New Zealand before 1900. The paper follows the methodological framework of the first paper and explores early medical development and some of the physical therapy practices of colonial settlers. We examine some of the living conditions experienced by colonial settlers and consider how 19th century ideologies contributed to a lack of formalised medical development in Aotearoa/New Zealand. We then explore the evidence of physical therapy practices and practitioners, who congregated mostly in the country’s larger metropolitan centres, before concluding the paper with a discussion of some of the possible reasons for the distinct lack of physical therapies amongst the colonial settlers, when compared with the concurrent resurgence in physical therapy practices in Europe and North America.