{"id":369,"date":"2023-08-24T16:54:50","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T16:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/2023\/08\/24\/the-grandfather-of-new-zealand-physiotherapy\/"},"modified":"2023-08-24T16:54:50","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T16:54:50","slug":"the-grandfather-of-new-zealand-physiotherapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/2023\/08\/24\/the-grandfather-of-new-zealand-physiotherapy\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cGrandfather\u201d of New Zealand Physiotherapy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1921, when the presence of men within the massage profession was still largely frowned upon, Matthew Guinan was the 77th masseur to be registered with the New Zealand Masseurs Registration Board.\u00a0 His registration was granted under the Board\u2019s amnesty for anyone who had practiced as a masseur in New Zealand for the three years preceding the enactment of the Masseurs Registration Act 1920<\/em>, but it is the manner of Guinan\u2019s work that makes for particularly interesting reading and suggests that he was a man who would leave his mark on the profession.<\/p>\n

Guinan was born in Dundee, Scotland and after emigrating, settled with his wife Betsy Ann in Otago, New Zealand in 1901.\u00a0 He was a powerfully strong man, described in his obituary as being \u201cas strong as a lion and figured in tug \u2019o-war tests of strength popular about 30 years ago\u201d.\u00a0 His first appointment was as a blacksmith at McIntyre\u2019s Station, Waikoikoi, but he also practiced as a hairdresser, a herbalist, and at various times as a horse-masseur.<\/p>\n

He built his reputation as a healer first with animals, but increasingly with people.\u00a0 In May Brownlie\u2019s (1992) book Kismet for Kelso<\/em> the author records that, \u201cIn the house at Kelso, he was consulted on all manner of problems, some well outside the field of a vet [sic<\/em>] today.\u00a0 Mrs. Russell remembered the fearsome ordeal she suffered, when her mother took her \u2018down the long hall, and into a side room.\u00a0 I had a bad tooth, and had cried for nights with toothache.\u00a0 Matt Guinan had that tooth out in a trice, and didn\u2019t I yell!\u00a0 There was no nonsense with him\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMatt\u2019s Hospital\u201d as it came to be known, became so popular that the boarding houses in Kelso flourished with the patronage of his clientele.\u00a0 Mrs Owen Duff, a resident in the town, commented, \u201c\u2018I recall, very clearly, walking to school on fine sunny mornings and as we came over the bridge, at the bottom of the hill, we could see tiny groups of people the whole length of the main street.\u00a0 Some walked with the aid of a stick, others were on crutches and some were being pushed in wheelchairs.\u00a0 All were attending Matt Guinan and were taking the exercise he ordered between treatments\u201d (Brownlie, 1992).<\/p>\n

By now, Guinan was practicing massage almost exclusively on people.\u00a0 But he was also an entrepreneur and had a little chemist\u2019s shop at the front gate where he sold \u201cGuinan\u2019s Balsam\u201d (\u201cRheumatism, Sciatica, Lumbago, and all kindred afflictions are banished by using our Balsam.\u00a0 \u2018Nil Desperandum\u2019 would be a true motto indeed for this preparation.\u00a0 No man or woman need despair.\u00a0 Let the malady be of ever so long standing, our Balsam will afford relief\u201d), massage oil (\u201c\u2026one of the most marvellous Oils [sic<\/em>] that has ever been used on the human frame\u201d), Indigestion and Bilious Remedies, Pile Ointment (not to be confused), Liniment, and the famous \u201cPink Ointment\u201d, which was once used to heal completely the burnt hands of a child who had accidentally fallen on to a scalding hot range.<\/p>\n

Guinan\u2019s life was not without its tragedies.\u00a0 In 1910 the chemist shop burnt to the ground, and in the same year a patient who had been under treatment for a sprained ankle was found dead in his boarding house rooms.\u00a0 No blame was apportioned to Guinan, but within two years the Guinan family had moved to Dunedin where Matt opened a practice at 494 George Street.\u00a0 Guinan travelled to England to develop his massage skills further and continued his practice with great success.\u00a0 It was said that, \u201cHe had magnetism in his touch, and was wonderfully successful in the treatment of sprains, bruises, and misshapen joints.\u00a0 Power\u2026flowed from his hands.\u00a0 He massaged all of the body of a sufferer, and had special liniments\u201d(Brownlie, 1992,)<\/p>\n

His obituary ends with this statement: \u201cMembers of his family had been trained in the masseur\u2019s art by [the] deceased, and no doubt some of them will carry on the business\u201d.\u00a0 This was very prophetic because Guinan\u2019s other legacy was to begin a dynasty of New Zealand masseurs and physiotherapists that, so far, runs to four generations.\u00a0 Matt\u2019s daughter and son-in-law, May and Cliff Weedon graduated from the Dunedin School in 1924, studying as a couple while the school observed strict rules over separation of male and female students.\u00a0 Their son, Frank Weedon, qualified as a physiotherapist in 1949, the year that the profession became officially known as \u201cphysiotherapy\u201d.\u00a0 Frank was the first graduate of the physiotherapy teacher training program in Dunedin in 1964 (prior to that student teachers had to travel to England for their training), and worked at the School for more than 30 years.\u00a0 Frank\u2019s daughter-in-law continued the family tradition, and works as a physiotherapist today.<\/p>\n

Matthew Guinan was quite clearly an extraordinary man.\u00a0 He was also a showman, an entrepreneur, a salesman and an innovator.\u00a0 His practice ranged from dentistry to massage, manipulation to herbalism, hairdressing to farriering.\u00a0 He died at 70, quite suddenly, and was much missed by his family and legions of patients.\u00a0 He did, however, leave an unparalleled legacy in the generations of masseurs and physiotherapists that followed him.<\/p>\n

NB: Originally written as part of the New Zealand Centenary History Project.<\/strong><\/p>\n

References:<\/h4>\n

Brownlie, M. 1992. Kismet for Kelso<\/em>. Gore: Gore Publishing.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1921, when the presence of men within the massage profession was still largely frowned upon, Matthew Guinan was the 77th masseur to be registered with the New Zealand Masseurs Registration Board.\u00a0 His registration was granted under the Board\u2019s amnesty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_ti_tpc_template_sync":false,"_ti_tpc_template_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}