Ludwig Guttmann

Sir Ludwig Guttmann CBE FRS
Ludwig Guttmann on a 2013 Russian stamp from the series "Sports Legends"
Born	3 July 1899 Tost, Prussia, German Empire
Died	18 March 1980 (aged 80) Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK
Known for	Founding the Paralympic Games
Medical career
Profession	Neurologist
Notable prizes	Fellow of the Royal Society

Sir Ludwig "Poppa" Guttmann CBE FRS^[1] (3 July 1899 – 18 March 1980)^[2][3] was a German-born British^[4] neurologist who established the Paralympic Games in England. The Jewish doctor, who had fled Nazi Germany just before the start of the Second World War, is considered to be one of the founding fathers of organized physical activities for people with a disability.^{[5][6][7][8][9]}

Early life

Ludwig Guttmann, the eldest child of the family, was born in Tost, within Upper Silesia, Germany (now Toszek, Poland) on 3 July 1899. His family moved when he was three years old to the Silesia city of Königshütte (today Chorzów, Poland).

Early career

Ludwig Guttmann

Guttman first encountered a patient with a spinal cord injury in 1917, while he was volunteering at the Accident Hospital in Konigshutte. The patient was a coal miner who later died of sepsis.^[2] Guttman started his medical studies in April 1918 at the University of Breslau. He transferred to the University of Freiburg in 1919 and received his Doctorate of Medicine in 1924.

By 1933, Guttmann was considered the top neurosurgeon in Germany.^[10] With the arrival of the Nazis in power, Jews were banned from practising medicine professionally and he was allowed to work only at the Jewish Hospital in Breslau, where he became director of the hospital. Following the violent attacks on Jewish people and properties during Kristallnacht on 9 November 1938, Guttmann ordered his staff to admit anyone without question. The following day he justified his decision on a case-by-case basis with the Gestapo. Out of 64 admissions, 60 patients were saved from arrest and deportation to concentration camps.^[11]

Britain

In early 1939, Guttmann and his family left Germany because of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. An opportunity for escape arose when the Nazis provided him with a visa and ordered him to travel to Portugal to treat a friend of the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar.^[12]

Guttmann was scheduled to return to Germany via London, where the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) arranged for him to remain in the UK. He arrived with his wife Else Samuel Guttmann and two children, a son, Dennis and daughter, Eva aged 6 in Oxford, England, on 14 March 1939.^[2] CARA, which negotiated with the British Home Office on their behalf, gave Guttmann and his family £250 (equivalent to around £10,000 today) to help settle in Oxford. Guttmann continued his spinal injury research at the Nuffield Department of Neurosurgery in the Radcliffe Infirmary. For the first few weeks after arrival the family resided in the Master's Lodge of Balliol College (with the Master Sandie Lindsay) until they moved into a small semi-detached house in Lonsdale Road.^[13] Both children were offered free places by the headmistress of Greycotes School. The family were members of the Oxford Jewish community, and Eva remembers becoming friendly with Miriam Margolyes, now a famous actress.^[14] The Jewish community in Oxford was growing rapidly as a result of the influx of displaced academic Jews from Europe.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, Guttmann and his family stayed in the home of Lord Lindsay, CARA Councillor and Master of Balliol College.^[15]

Stoke Mandeville

In September 1943 the British government asked Guttmann to establish the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire.^[2] When the centre opened on 1 February 1944, Guttmann was appointed its director (a position he held until 1946). As director of the UK's first specialist unit for treating spinal injuries, he believed that sport was a major method of therapy for injured military personnel helping them build up physical strength and self-respect.

Guttmann became a naturalised citizen of the United Kingdom in 1945.^[16] He organised the first Stoke Mandeville Games for disabled persons on 28 July 1948, the same day as the start of the London 1948 Summer Olympics. Guttmann used the term paraplegic games for national games held in order to encourage his patients to take part. This came to be known as the "Paralympics", which only later became the "Parallel Games" and included other disabilities.

Paralympics

By 1952, more than 130 international competitors had entered the Stoke Mandeville Games. As the annual event continued to grow, the ethos and efforts by all those involved started to impress the organisers of the Olympic Games and members of the international community. At the 1956 Stoke Mandeville Games, Guttmann was awarded the Sir Thomas Fearnley Cup by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for his meritorious achievement in service to the Olympic movement through the social and human value derived from wheelchair sports.

His vision of an international games the equivalent of the Olympic Games themselves was realized in 1960 when the International Stoke Mandeville Games were held alongside the official 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. Known at the time as the 9th Annual International Stoke Mandeville Games, and organised under the aegis of the World Federation of Ex-servicemen (an International Working Group on Sport for the Disabled), they are now recognized as the first Paralympic Games. (The term "Paralympic Games" was retroactively applied by the International Olympic Committee in 1984.)^[17]

In 1961, Guttmann founded the British Sports Association for the Disabled which would later become known as the English Federation of Disability Sport. In the same year, he became the inaugural President of the International Medical Society of Paraplegia (now the International Spinal Cord Society (ISCoS)).

Later life

Guttmann became the first editor of the journal, Paraplegia (now named Spinal Cord).^[18] He suffered a heart attack in October 1979 and died on the 18th of March, 1980.^[19]

Legacy

Stoke Mandeville Stadium, the National Centre for Disability Sport in the United Kingdom, was developed by him alongside the hospital.^[20]

A specialist neurorehabilitation hospital in Barcelona, the Institut Guttmann, is named in his honour.^[21]

In June 2012, a statue of Guttmann was unveiled at Stoke Mandeville as part of the run up to the London 2012 Summer Paralympics and Olympic Games.^[22] Guttmann's daughter, Eva Loeffler, was appointed the mayor of the London 2012 Paralympic Games athletes' village.^[23]

In August 2012, the BBC broadcast The Best of Men, a TV film about Guttmann's work at Stoke Mandeville during and after the Second World War. The film, written by Lucy Gannon, starred Eddie Marsan as Dr. Guttmann and Rob Brydon as one of the seriously injured patients, who were given a purpose in life by the doctor.

The Sir Ludwig Guttmann Centre is an NHS facility providing GP, Orthopaedic and Sports and Exercise Medicine outpatient services as well as imaging on the site of the 2012 Olympic village.

Honours

As "Neurological Surgeon in charge of the Spinal Injuries Centre at the Ministry of Pensions Hospital, Stoke Mandeville", he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1950 King's Birthday Honours.^[24] On 28 June 1957, he was made an Associate Officer of the Venerable Order of Saint John.^[25]

He was promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). In 1966, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Selected publications

• 1959. The Place of Our Spinal Paraplegic Fellow-Man in Society: A Survey on 2000 Patients. Dame Georgina Buller Memorial Lecture.
• 1973. Spinal Cord Injuries: Comprehensive Management and Research. Blackwell Science. ISBN 978-0-632-09680-0.
• 1973. "Sport and Recreation for the Mentally and Physically Handicapped" in The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health. 1973; 93(4): 208–21, PMID 4276814.
• 1976. Textbook of Sport for the Disabled. Aylesbury: HM+M. ISBN 978-0-85602-055-1

References

Citations

1. Whitteridge, David (1983). "Ludwig Guttmann. 3 July 1899-18 March 1980". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 29: 226–226. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1983.0010. JSTOR 769803.
2. "Professor Sir Ludwig Guttmann". Retrieved 17 August 2012.
3. GRO – Register of Deaths – MAR 1980 19 1000 AYLESBURY, Ludwig Guttmann, DoB = 3 July 1899
4. "Guttmann, Sir Ludwig (1899–1980)". Wellcome collection. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
5. "Paralympics traces roots to Second World War", CBC, September 3, 2008
6. Bedbrook, G. (1982). "International Medical Society of Paraplegia first Ludwig Guttmann Memorial Lecture". Paraplegia. 20 (1): 1–17. doi:10.1038/sc.1982.1. PMID 7041053.
7. Ross, J. C.; Harris, P. (1980). "Tribute to Sir Ludwig Guttmann". Paraplegia. 18 (3): 153–156. doi:10.1038/sc.1980.27. PMID 6997807.
8. Rossier, A. B.; Fam, B. A. (1979). "From intermittent catheterisation to catheter freedom via urodynamics: A tribute to Sir Ludwig Guttmann". Paraplegia. 17 (1): 73–85. doi:10.1038/sc.1979.17. PMID 492753.
9. Scruton, J. (1979). "Sir Ludwig Guttmann: Creator of a world sports movement for the paralysed and other disabled". Paraplegia. 17 (1): 52–55. doi:10.1038/sc.1979.13. PMID 158734.
10. Stoke Mandeville – the village that gave birth to the Paralympic movement
11. "Paralympics founder Sir Ludwig Guttmann's legacy celebrated in BBC drama". The Daily Telegraph. 3 August 2012.
12. How CARA helped Ludwig Guttmann, Father of the Paralympics
13. Kinchin, Perilla (2006). Seven Roads in Summertown: Voices from an Oxford Suburb. White Cockade Publishing. pp. 80–81. ISBN 187348713-4.
14. Growing up in Oxford, p52 in Then and Now, A Collection of Recollections, compiled by Freda Silver 1992. ISBN 0 9519253 1 8.
15. "Interview with Eva Loeffler, April 2011" (PDF). www.mandevillelegacy.org.uk. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
16. Edited by Vanlandewijck, Yves C. Thompson, Walter R.(2011) The Paralympic Athlete: Handbook of Sports Medicine and Science (An IOC Medical Commission publication). Wiley-Blackwell. Chapter 1: Background to the Paralytic movement. ISBN 978-1-4443-3404-3. Google Book Search. Retrieved on 25 August 2012
17. "Paralympic.org: Rome 1960". www.paralympic.org. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
18. "About ISCoS – The History of ISCoS". International Spinal Cord Society (ISCoS)). Retrieved 22 August 2012.
19. Bailey, Steve (2008). Athlete First: A history of the paralympic movement. John Wiley & Sons. p. 38. ISBN 9780470058244.
20. "Stoke Mandeville Stadium". www.stokemandevillestadium.co.uk/. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
21. Institut Guttmann
22. Jaffery, Nabeelah (9 June 2012). "The Olympians: Margaret Maughan, Great Britain". Financial TImes Magazine.
23. "Paralympics Games: Founder Ludwig Guttmann would be 'proud'". BBC News. 28 August 2012. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
24. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 38929. pp. 2786–2787. 2 June 1950. Retrieved 2012-09-03.
25. The London Gazette: no. 41122. pp. 4097–4098. 9 April 1957. Retrieved 2012-09-03.

Bibliography

• Goodman, Susan (1986). Spirit of Stoke Mandeville: The Story of Sir Ludwig Guttmann. London: Collins. ISBN 0-00-217341-7.
• Medawar, Jean: Pyke, David (2012). Hitler's Gift: The True Story of the Scientists Expelled by the Nazi Regime (Paperback). New York: Arcade Publishing. ISBN 978-1-61145-709-4.
• Rogan, Matt (2010). Britain and the Olympic Games: Past, Present, Legacy. Matador. ISBN 978-1-84876-575-7.
• Scruton, Joan (1998). Stoke Mandeville: Road to the Paralympics. Aylesbury: The Peterhouse Press. ISBN 978-0-946312-10-8.
• Silver, John Russell (2003). History of the Treatment of Spinal Injuries. Springer. ISBN 978-0-306-48032-4.

External links

• International Spinal Cord Society