The development of physiatry before 1950

The early development of physiatry as a specialty must be credited to a small group of men who were literally giants in the roles they played in the evolution of physiatry and of the American Academy of PM&R. Of those very early leaders, John S. Coulter, Frank H. Krusen, William Bierman, and Richard Kovacs stand out for their inspirational and conceptual leadership regarding the potentials of physiatry. The field will forever be indebted to Walter J. Zeiter for his administrative and executive abilities. Howard A. Rusk earned the approbation "Father of Rehabilitation Medicine" when he first demonstrated that rehabilitation of the ill and injured made it possible to restore meaning to life and at the same time reduce the duration and costs of disability. Finally, it is important that we appreciate the role George C. Deaver played as the progenitor, or perhaps "Grandfather" of physical medicine and rehabilitation. Although he was not an organization man--and in fact appears to have shunned them--he was the first physiatrist to use all the available tools of PM&R to rehabilitate the spinal cord injured, the patients with cerebral palsy, with the muscular dystrophies, with multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. At a time when these patients were being rejected and discarded as permanently disabled, Deaver was accepting them and patiently working with them to achieve the best possible outcomes through rehabilitation. And now, on to the 1950s. . .