Papers of: Kellgren, [Jonas] Henrik (1837-1916)

The collection comprises prescriptions issued by Kellgren at various institutes for Swedish medical gymnastics; namely, the Schwedisches Heilgymnastisches Institut in Gotha, Germany (MSS.5406-5407 and 7869), the Schwedisches Institut f?r Manuelle Behandlung der Krankheiten, Baden-Baden (MS.7872), the Swedish Institution for the Cure of Diseases by Manual Treatment, London (MSS.5408 and 7870), the Institutet f?r Manuel Sjukbehandling, Sanna, near J?nk?ping, Sweden (MS.5409), and the Institution Su?doise pour le Traitement Manuel des Maladies, Paris (MS.7871). Patients include members of the nobility of the United Kingdom and of Germany, as well as members of the Kellgren and Cyriax families.

[Jonas] Henrik Kellgren (1837-1916) was a practitioner of Swedish medical gymnastics and helped to disseminate the technique beyond Sweden. He was born in Alingsas, southern Sweden, matriculated in 1855 and became an officer in the Swedish Army in 1858. In 1863-1865 he trained at the Kungliga Gymnastika Centralinstitut in Stockholm (founded 1813 by Per Henrik Ling, the pioneer of medical gymnastics), gaining the institute's diploma, and took up the post of teacher of pedagogical gymnastics at Lidk?ping. Following the death of his wife and son, however, he left Sweden and settled in Germany, setting up the Schwedisches Heilgymnastisches Institut in Gotha. In the early 1870s his health broke down and he retired from full-time work, taking up residence in London. Here he founded the Swedish Institution for the Cure of Diseases by Manual Treatment. An expanding practice was reflected in the foundation of further institutes in the German resorts of Norderney (1877) and Baden-Baden (1883), and in Paris (1884); in summer he took patients to Sanna, near J?nk?ping in Sweden, leading to the foundation of a sanatorium there. He became the director of the Kungliga Gymnastika Centralinstitut in Stockholm. His son-in-law, Edgar Ferdinand Cyriax, who took up residence in London, was also an important figure in the spread of Kellgren's techniques of Swedish remedial gymnastics and massage to the United Kingdom.

The division of the material into two discrete blocks was apparently random and some institutions are represented in both. Within each block of material, the institutions are arranged in chronological order of their earliest prescription, and within the holdings of each institution the prescriptions themselves are held in chronological order.

The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.

Purchased from the Royal Society of Medicine, with many other books and papers of Kellgren's son-in-law Edgar Ferdinand Cyriax, in 1956 (acc.303950). The material held as MSS.7869-7872 was held first in the Wellcome Library's Modern Medical ephemera collection, and was transferred to the Archives and Manuscripts Department in February 2001 (acc.900).

Described in: Richard Palmer, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Wellcome Library for the History & Understanding of Medicine: Western Manuscripts 5120-6244 (London: The Wellcome Library for the History & Understanding of Medicine, 1999) and subsequent typescript supplementary finding aids by Richard Aspin, Christopher Hilton, Keith Moore and Richard Palmer.

description compiled by Christopher Hilton based upon those in the Library's published finding aid by Richard Palmer and subsequent typescript supplementary finding aids by Richard Aspin, Christopher Hilton, Keith Moore and Richard Palmer. Biographical information drawn from Henrik Kellgren and his methods of manual treatment by Edgar F. Cyriax (London, 1908) and "Medical gymnastics and the Cyriax Collection" by Sarah Bakewell (in Medical History, Vol. 41 (1997)).

Photocopies/photographs/microfilm are supplied for private research only at the Archivist's discretion. Please note that material may be unsuitable for copying on conservation grounds, and that photographs cannot be photocopied in any circumstances. Readers are restricted to 100 photocopies in twelve months. Researchers who wish to publish material must seek copyright permission from the copyright owner.

This material formed part of the papers of Kellgren's son-in-law, Edgar Ferdinand Cyriax. Following Cyriax's death in 1955 his collection of material on medical gymnastics was presented by his family to the Royal Society of Medicine.

Papers of Kellgren's son-in-law, Edgar Ferdinand Cyriax, also a practitioner of Swedish medical gymnastics, are held as MSS.2001-2025 and 6054-6060. MS.3348 comprises a work on Swedish medical gymnastics by Amalia Lundgren and MSS.5027-5028 works on the same subject by Anna Justina Augusta Wilson; these, like the Kellgren material described here, were acquired by the Wellcome Library with Edgar Cyriax's papers.