Medico-mechanical therapy
The medico-mechanical therapy (= " therapy guided by the doctor, mediated by apparatus") according to Gustav Zander was the model of today's apparatus-supported training therapies, which have been booming since around 1980 until today. These include the fitness studios in the leisure area as well as medical training therapy.
As a model applies Pehr Henrik Ling (1776-1839) Swedish medical gymnastics . As a result of profound innovations in sports medicine methods at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Swedish doctor Dr. Gustav Zander (1835–1920) set up his first Zander institute for “medico-mechanical therapy”. From 1877 the industrial production of the equipment necessary for this form of therapy takes place. Mechanical influences should enable the patient to perform dosed and isolated muscle exercises for the recovery of individual organs, muscles or joints. Medicomechanical devices were also used as luxurious leisure facilities on passenger ships. In principle, manual therapeutic exercises were transferred to machines.
Zander developed an apparatus system that was technically revised and further developed in the following period. In 1905 it finally comprised 76 devices for
- active movements,
- passive movements,
- mechanical effects (massages) and
- orthopedic positioning and redressing apparatus.
One example is the “Zander apparatus F2” with “vibrations in the riding seat”, also known as the “trotting apparatus”, which shook the entire body with 180 vibrations per minute, as when riding. This should, among other things, stimulate the digestive system. In Germany, the term "pikeperch" was also used for exercises with medico-mechanical devices.
With the introduction of these devices in numerous institutes throughout Europe, Zander laid important foundations for modern device-based physiotherapy and sports medicine . Medico-mechanical therapy flourished from around 1870 until the First World War. Pikeperch was considered chic, pikeperch studios could be found in all health resorts, pikeperch was expensive. Before the First World War, around 100,000 patients per year were treated in 79 pikeperch institutes in Germany alone. In addition, there was presumably a significantly larger number of patients in other medico-mechanical institutes with devices from other manufacturers (e.g. from Herz or Krukenberg). The First World War marked a turning point in the requirements for the treatment concepts with 4.25 million injuries. The zander devices were initially used in training therapy, then a lot more was needed. Cost-benefit considerations came to the fore and simpler apparatus (systems) were developed as "war mechanotherapy".
After the First World War, the chic customers stayed away. Who wanted to train on machines that were used for "war cripples"? Mechanotherapy was slowly being displaced. The reasons were the high costs, unsatisfactory or undocumented successes and, in particular, new gymnastics concepts (e.g. Klapp's creeping ) and changes in the zeitgeist (“life reform”, free body culture, aesthetic gymnastics, expressive dance) to which mechanotherapy could hardly adapt .
literature
- Noyan Dinckal: medicomechanics. Machine gymnastics between orthopedic apparatus treatment and sociable muscle training 1880–1918 / 19. In: History of Technology. 74 (2007), pp. 227-250.
- Hans Christoph Kreck: The medico-mechanical therapy Gustav Zander in Germany. A contribution to the history of physiotherapy in the Wilhelminian Empire. Frankfurt am Main, Univ. Diss. (Human Medicine), 1988; reprinted in: Physiotherapy. 42 (1990), pp. 40-46, 164-173, 294-306, 441-444, 537-553, 685-693, 799-804.
- Arnd Krüger : history of movement therapy. In: Preventive Medicine. Heidelberg: Springer Loseblatt Collection 1999, 07.06, 1–22.
- MA Rauschmann, M. Konrad, D. von Stechow and Klaus-Dieter Thomann: The rise and fall of the medical-mechanical institute according to G. Zander in the early 20th century in Germany. Chapter 6.1 in: L. Zichner, MA Rauschmann and K.-D. Thomann (Ed.): The Contergankatastrophe. A balance sheet after 40 years. Steinkopff, 2005, ISBN 978-3-7985-1479-9 , doi: 10.1007 / 3-7985-1585-9_15 (= German Orthopedic History and Research Museum, Volume 6).