Food, Glorious Food!

Food, Glorious Food!

71A developed from it. During my ten years in that position I found my Civil Service colleagues invariably helpful and supportive of the profession. ...

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71A

developed from it. During my ten years in that position I found my Civil Service colleagues invariably helpful and supportive of the profession. An ever-presentproblem was the potential conflict between ambition and perceived needs and status of the profession and the true needs of the community it should serve.

“raining The recommendations under this heading were generally unacceptable to the professional bodies. However, some integration of courses is occurring and some re-appraisal of teacher training has been made. Physiotherapy became an all-degree entry profession in 1992, and all these courses except one now lead to honours degrees.

Research Money to help with research appreciation was quickly forthcoming and research,Fellowships are now regularly and generously funded by both English and Welsh and Scottish Health Departments. Suspicion and in-built fear of research is less prevalent although, in common with other professions, its results do not always lead to change in practice. It is clear to see the achievements in the past twenty years, and provided that the profession itself and the Chartered Society can accept and explore possibilities presented by change, the next twenty could offer welcome and significant developments.

Food, Glorious Food! Nutrition was a major interest of physiotherapists from early days. Anyone witnessing the lunch break a t a contemporary conference can testify that this enthusiasm remains unabated. Their concern about food was largely on behalf of their patients. In 1915 a tea-party was given for wounded servicemen a t the Society’s club. ‘A great point about the tea which greatly appealed to all the guests was the absence of jam, its place being taken by savoury sandwiches and lettuce and watercress.’ Eating was not without hazard in those days because of the prevalence of flies. A contributor to the August 1915 Journal reported her experiment with a gallon of horse-manure taken from a heap of 1,200 cubic feet in a London suburb - she counted 218 house-fly maggots in the sample. ‘Hundreds of such stacks of manure and refuse heaps [cause] the sum total of flies, disease and distress.’ More than ten years later the Journal was pleased to report that germs contained in dust probably did not cause infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis),but food shops ‘still cause the sensitive to shudder and the judicious to grieve!

Doing Without The serious food shortages of the first World War are reflected in the advice given to members. ‘Sugar is not so necessary an article of diet as we imagine. Fat is of course a vital necessity ‘Exhortationsto practise economy have a hollow sound especially after waiting, perhaps, two hours for a bit of margarine or a quarter of tea.’ ....I

A ‘No Breakfast’ movement was started in Manchester. It was even suggested that members should eke out their diet with bracken. (The London Poisons Unit now advises that this would not be so harmful to humans as to animals, but is best avoided.) In 1916 an anonymous student wrote t o the Journal about the best way to prepare for an examination. The message was not about revision but making sure of lunch!

HOW To PREPARE FOR AN EXAMINATION MADm-We should fike as studen& of a massage school to q r e s s ourgratitude to Miss Steele Hufon for her most hebhZ papr on ‘How to Prepare for an Examinabon!ln many ways weprofitedby her warnings and advice On the day of the lnc. Soc. Z t Mass eraminabon we f e e / that the sihabon was saoed for us by her warning against stamation. We determinednot to commit this hu4 qlored the neighbourhoodof Queen Square severaldaysbeforehand andoderedourseZvesan errellent lunch at a quiet restaurant near by. 1can on& repeat that that forethoughtsavedthe situabon for seven weary, hungry studen& and made the Anatomy Papr which foZlowed appear almost fnendb. We hasten to q r e s s our real grabhde before the resub of the eraminabon are pubfished lest it should hde in a sad retrospcbon. 1am, &c, A GRATEFUL STUDENT November 21, 1916.

Many news pages contain paragraphs with such headings as ‘An Adequate Diet’, ‘Diet and Teeth’ and ‘Conference of Diet Experts’. ‘Herb Growing for the Nation’ was advocated, but this was t o supply the ingredients of medicines for doctors and veterinary surgeons, rather than for food; henbane and belladonna are mentioned. Space was given in the January 1917 Journal t o Canon Horsley, a food reformer in connection with workhouses, prisoners and necessitous children. He knew a masseuse who had bought a steel mill and a sack of wheat, promoting both health and economy by grinding the day’s supply for porridge, bread, etc, before breakfast.

Self-indulgence A reaction set during the 1920s and 1930s, when it was thought necessary to warn against the temptations of cocktails ‘which quite young people often indulge in several times a day’, and smoking (and also gambling on greyhound racing).

Physiotherapy, January 1994, vol80, no A

72A

Above: The Chartered Society’s first annual dinner at the Caf6 Royal, London, on October 76, 7929

One of the earliest news photographs in the Journal (reproduced above) is of members enjoying the first Annual Congress dinner. By 1931 the Society had adopted an official grace, believed to originate from a 15th-century monastery in Chester:

THE SOCIETY’S GRACE Give me a good dgestion, Lord and also somethzng to dgesd Give me a heakhy body, Lord and sense to keep it at i& best; Give me a heakhy mznd 0 Lord that does not whimpet; whine, or szgh; Don 1 let me worry overmuch about fhat fussy thing called Y‘, Give me a sense of humout; Lord grant me that grace to see a joke, %3 snafchsome happzness h-om hi2 andpass if on to other ha. A ‘great innovation’ at the 1936 Congress was a sherry party which attracted a large crowd and ‘all who were there enjoyed themselves thoroughly’. Quoting with approval from A P Herbert ‘Let the foundation be bacon and eggs’, a medical lecturer is reported at length in June 1938 extolling the value of scrap bacon. ‘Deep fat frying he described as one of the best methods of cookery from every point of view . . . . He had used the same fat, with additions, for six months a t a time.’ Rationing during World War I1 again curtailed members’ gourmet tendencies. In 1945 the formal meal at Congress was a luncheon, but by 1949 it was back to dinner

Physiotherapy,January 1994, vol80, no A

(at the Savoy). In 1951 members were getting blase: ‘The ubiquitous chicken quickly followed the fish soup’. Fortunately the poire pompadour was a ‘pikce de rbsistance:

Bearing in mind what an army marches on, food was an important issue during war service. In 1945 two members reported: ‘Indian food is quite different from ours and usually unpalatable to Europeans. The matron of a hospital to which we were attached said she could not provide special food for Europeans, and we were forced to mess at a British hospital two miles away and cycle to and from our work, sometimes when the temperature was 110OF.I Possibly the descendents of these members now pay large sums to enjoy the same despised cuisine in Indian restaurants.

Peace-time Pleasures In July 1952, a 1,500-word leader was devoted to food, starting and ending with an enthusiastic endorsement of Marie Lloyd’s philosophy: ‘A little of what you fancy remains quite good advice.’ In later years the greater availability of food and better standards of hygiene have reduced its professional importance. Nevertheless, a 12-page article on food allergies by Joan Cooper was published in 1991, and special issues of the Journal still pay attention to the nutritional aspects of the subject - most recently in the 1993 symposium on AIDS. Dinners are still a highlight of the CSP’s Annual Congress. No one who was present will forget Mr C A MacMillan’s address to the haggis in 1980. The welcome for overseas guests in 1991 incorporated, and the Centenary celebrations in 1994 include - perhaps the most prestigious meal of all - dinner at the House of Lords.