[The rise and fall of Zander-Institutes in The Netherlands around 1900].

Abstract

The Swedish physician, Dr Jonas Gustav W. Zander (1835-1920), set himself the task of devising different contraptions around 1860. He believed that people who needed medical gymnastics could be treated better and more efficiently with the help of machines. His mechanistic approach can be understood in the context of the emerging industrialisation that rapidly took hold in Europe in this period. After very successful presentations at the World Exhibitions in Philadelphia (1876) and in Paris (1878), the Zander-method soon caught on in the medical world and many so-called Zander-Institutes (very similar to fitness-centres today) emerged in the larger cities of a number of European countries. Zander-therapy became very popular in The Netherlands during the 1890s. The first Zander-Institute opened its doors in Groningen in 1894 to be followed, within four years, by another eight Zander-Institutes in the major cities of The Netherlands. Physical education teachers, engaging in medical gymnastics, and physicians worked closely together in these institutes. This was considered to be a positive development as medical gymnastics was a heavily contested area in the field of labour in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. After a short period of success almost all of the Zander-Institutes had great difficulty in maintaining their existence in the first decade of the twentieth century. Both the rise and fall of the Zander-Institutes can be ascribed to a combination of factors of a scientific (concerning the method), social (legislation concerning the care of the crippled) and professional (concerning the different strategies of the involved professions) nature. These factors and the relationships between them are analysed in this article.