The ancient Greek origins of sports medicine.

The history of physical education shows sport and medicine to have a long-standing and close relationship (Dixon et al. 1957). Indeed, if one takes into account the participation of doctors of medicine on national teams and the sporting reputations of some hospitals and medical faculties, a sympathy for sport seems to be almost a tradition of the medical profession. Perhaps the association of health with physical activity, or a common interest in the function of the human body is the reason for this link, but, whatever the cause, it seems at odds with the histories of sport and medicine that Sports Medicine as a specialist field should appear so late on the medical scene. The first international congress of sports medicine was held in 1928, but the Federation Internationale de Medico-Sportive et Scientifique (FIMS) was not formed until 1933. The British Association of Sport and Medicine was not established until 1953 and its counterpart in the US, the American College of Sports Medicine, not until 1954.