LETTERS

December, 1962

The Editor,
physiotherapy.

Re Prof. O. S. Heynes' lecture to Southern Transvaal Branch
S.A.S.P.

T h re e  days after the demonstration 1 went to pay a visit 
to the m o t h e r  at the Queen Victoria Hospital, who demon­
strated to physiotherapists, the use of the decompression 
suit during the end of the first stage of h e r  labour.

The mother, Mrs. G. C. expressed clearly
(a) that she felt considerable pain, during contractions 

before being fitted into the suit;
(b) that she had, at first, an oppressed feeling in the chest 

when she put decompression into action. (She had 
never tried decompression before going into labour);

(c) that she had no pain under decompression, but 
painful contractions as soon as she did not use the 
decompression ;

(d) that she definitely wants to have the decompression 
machine if she should have another child. (This was 
her third child).

A. WENHAM, m .c .s .p .,
Johannesburg. October, 1962.

BARFORD & JONES
(SURGICAL SUPPLY CO.) 

Makers of:

ARTIFICIAL LIMBS
and

ORTHOPAEDIC APPLIANCES

SURGICAL INSTRUMENT 
REPAIRERS.

PERSONAL ATTENTION GIVEN TO 
ALL CASES. 

1 5 8  P R E S I D E N T  S T R E E T  

Corner NUGGET STREET

Phone 22-5238 P.O. Box 5484.

The Chairman,
The Central Executive Committee,
South African Society of Physiotherapy.
Dear Miss Blair,

Now that my tour of South Africa under the guidance 
o f your committee is completed I would like to thank the 
members of the committee both for initiating my visit and 
also organizing the details with so much care and efficiency. 
I so much appreciate the fact that my work was made easy 
and am most grateful to have been given the opportunity 
to see so much o f this beautiful and interesting country.

1 have received the most generous hospitality wherever 
1 have been and I am much impressed by the interest shewn 
by so many physiotherapists in the technique o f P.N.F. and 
their application in the treatment o f patients. I hope they 
will find them as beneficial and rewarding as I have done 
ever since I was fortunate enough to learn something of 
them from Miss Margaret K nott at the California Rehabili­
tation Centre.

Although I shall need no reminder of a most delightful 
visit to meet and work with both physiotherapists and 
patients, I shall always enjoy using my beautiful ostrich 
handbag and remember the occasion on which I received 
your gift.

My very best wishes to you all and with many thanks.
Yours sincerely,

M. D. GARDINER.
P.S.—I hope I shall see many o f you in Copenhagen or in 

Britain!
Johannesburg,

October 12th, 1962.

Page U

EDITOR,
Physiotherapy.

Chiropractors and the pending Commission of Enquiry.
The very comprehensive memorandum, on the subject 

of the proposed legislation for the registration of chiro­
practors is an extremely revealing document, and I am 
surprised that our Society has not felt it proper to associate 
itself, publicly, with the views expressed by the Medical 
Association of South Africa. If the chiropractor is regis­
tered, and has a degree of State Protection, then the definition 
of Manipulative Treatment, as it will be interpreted in law, 
immediately becomes a question o f no little significance to 
the practising physiotherapist who will still be a Medical 
Auxilliary. D o we know if massage is to be part o f this 
manipulative treatment or to what extent the chiropractor 
will be licenced to use electro-medical treatments ? I sincerely 
hope that the contents of the memorandum to which I have 
referred will be made known to all the members o f our 
Society, and that a serious attempt will be made for suitable 
persons to give evidence before the Commission of Enquiry 
which the Government has appointed to investigate this 
whole question. To wait and see what happens to the 
Chiropractors Bill, before any action in respect of State 
Registration for Physiotherapists is taken would seem to 
me to be procrastinating. As a partner in the wide field of 
medical practice, with direct representation on the Auxiliaries 
sub-committee of the S.A. Medical Council, it is surely the 
moral duty of our Society to associate itself, emphatically, 
with the views o f the Medical Association of South Africa. 
Over the years, the Society has gained in prestige, and it 
would seem to me that, to stand aloof, sitting on the fence, 
while this very significant attempt is being made on behalf 
of the Chiropractors, is a serious evasion o f responsibility 
which can hardly be calculated to add to this prestige. I 
should be interested to know the views o f other physio­
therapists.

Yours faithfully,
G. S. SCHERMBRUCKER.

Cape Town,
18/10/62.

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