Google dedicated its doodle to Ludwig Guttmann, creator of the Paralympic Games and savior of injured spinal cord

Google has decided to honor the German neurologist Ludwing Guttman, better known as the father of the Paralympic Games, on the 122nd anniversary of his birth.

On the cover of the search engine, you can see the drawing of the doctor in the foreground and behind it several disabled people doing different sports activities as they shape the word “Google” with their characteristic colors.

The figure of Ludwig Guttmann is recognized worldwide because this neurologist He succeeded in revolutionizing the treatment of paraplegia and because he taught his effective methods to other doctors.

Throughout his career, it has always been clear that the success of a treatment and a patient’s recovery did not only have to do with the drugs but above all with his psychological reaction and the quality of life he had. could reach.

His studies on spinal cord injury recovery and the discovery of sport as a tool to improve life expectancy of patients today make him the creator of the Paralympic movement.

“If someone can have the right treatment early on, not only can her life expectancy be extended, but she could also have a life as normal as that of a person without a disability.”explained Guttmann, the pioneering physician who showed that sport for people with disabilities can be as competitive and exciting as sport without a disability.

A year later, he went to study medicine at the University of Breslau and obtained his doctorate in 1924 with a thesis on tumors of the trachea. Then he began to work with one of the greatest neurologists of the time, Professor Otfrid Foerster.

The following year he was ranked Germany’s most important neurologist and five years later; German Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop ordered him to travel to the Portuguese capital to treat a friend of Salazar’s.

Under Nazism, his Jewish condition forced him to go into exile and take refuge in England, where he obtained a scholarship and spent several years with his wife and two children.

In 1943, the British government asked him to be the director of the new unit of the National Center for Spinal Injury at Stoke Mandeville Emergency Medical Services Hospital.

Alli, Guttmann he mainly served ex-war combatants that they were going to spend their last months, since the life expectancy of paraplegics before reaching the Guttmann center was only two years from the time of the injury.

However, the doctor refused to accept that a spinal injury was a death sentence and his progress in the treatment of paraplegia was revolutionary, to the point that he taught his methods to a whole generation of doctors and that centers were established all over the world, including those bearing his name in Barcelona, ​​Heidelberg and Israel.

A fundamental pillar of his treatment was to ensure that patients had some hope of moving forward and returning to their previous lives. But without a doubt, the promotion of sports activities is what had the most impact on them.

The first sport that got them to play was wheelchair polo with sticks and a puck, but it was quickly replaced by basketball. in a wheelchair. Archery also became very popular, as it was a discipline in which paraplegics could compete with people without disabilities.

In 2012, an excellent British TV movie, The best of men (directed by Tim Whitby and starring Eddie Marsans), re-enacted Guttmann’s life, in particular his fight to support soldiers mutilated by war wounds in the Spinal Cord Injury Unit. His patients were desperate and demotivated men who repeatedly asked him to let them die or bitterly reproached him for saving their lives to chain them to a wheelchair. Guttmann focused his treatment on psychology and sport. Motivate them to return the desire to live; that was his goal.

It was like that created in 1948 the First Stoke Mandeville Games, where 16 athletes (14 men and two women) with disabilities participated in archery.

This event took place in the UK for several years until in 1952 the first edition took place with international participation.

At the 1956 Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded Guttmann the Sir Thomas Fearnley Cup for his service to the Olympic movement.

Three years later, in 1959, the games had grown to bring together 360 competitors from 20 countries, and a year later, in 1960, the then called Stoke Mandeville International Games took place at the same time as the Olympic Games in Rome, so they are considered to be the first Paralympic Games in history.

After his retirement from the Spinal Injury Center in 1966, Guttmann continued to be heavily involved in the Games and their national and international organization.

Ludwig Guttmann died at the age of 80 on March 18, 1980, of heart failure caused by a heart attack a few months earlier.. And although he did not live to see his vision fully realized, his legacy continues through today’s disabled sports organizations and the National Spinal Injury Center in Stoke Mandeville, which continues to be a world reference in the treatment of spinal injuries.

LUDWIG GUTTMANN BIOPIC TRAILER: BEST OF MEN (2012)

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