Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2025

MATHIAS ROTH (1839-1891) Hand-book of the movement cure. Groombridge & Sons 1856 xx, 368 pp., 155 illus. 21.6 cm.

Roth, a London physician, remarked in the Preface that "The results which can be attained by a scientific application of Movements are a sufficient excuse for the publication of the Hand-book--the first English one on the subject." He was a great proponent of medical gymnastics and based much of his system on the work of Peter Henrik Ling (1776-1839), a Swedish historian and poet who developed a system of gymnastics in order to cure an injury he suffered while fencing. Roth wrote widely on the value of therapeutic exercise and believed that movements could be used alone or in combination with other remedies to cure such diseases as hernia, poor circulation and digestion, tuberculosis, hysteria, gout, consumption, heart disease, and deformities of the spine, joints, and limbs. In this work he gives detailed explanations and descriptions for the use of a wide variety of therapeutic exercises. Many case histories with exercise prescriptions are also provided and Roth frequently comments on the successful cure of the patient.