The value of sport as a recreation in paraplegia

On an afternoon in 1944, an able-bodied man attempted to move about in a wheel chair and, using the curved handle of a walking stick as a mallet, to hit a ball and chase after it, at the same time endeavouring to prevent his opponent in a wheel chair from counteracting his movements. The man was Dr. Ludwig Guttmann; the activity was later to become wheel-chair polo and from his simple experiment was born the idea of competitive team sport for paraplegics. Two decades later in Tokyo, paralyzed men and women from twenty-three nations competed in sports demanding of their patiently trained bodies skill, strength, speed and endurance. This was the occasion of the 1964 International Games for the Paralyzed. Paraplegic sport is a success story and the history of its growth of great interest.